My guide through Dante that first time around was John Carrol professor, Dr. Thomas Nevin, who could brilliantly lecture to the very small group of us as if he were addressing a full auditorium. Dr. Nevin was also my latin professor who taught us the ancient language with great love and excitement.
This time through Dante’s Commedia, I have a small set of companion books, titled “Spiritual Direction from Dante” written by the Oratorian Priest Father Paul Pearson. And I’m really finding his commentary quite insightful and helpful. For the journey through the Commedia is complex, and steep, and confusing, and sometimes a bit horrific…just like life.
And that’s how the poem opens: with Dante, himself the main character in his epic poem, lost in a dark, bewildering forest. Life is sometimes like a dark, bewildering forest. And, it’s not always clear how we become lost or overwhelmed by life, is it? For Dante it was unclear to him if it was because he was having a midlife crisis, or that he had strayed off the path that God had wanted for him. And that can happen to any of us, you stray a little bit off God’s path; maybe you stop saying your daily prayers, stop coming to mass every week, maybe you allow a bad habit to get out of control, and you find yourself in a place that is wholly unfamiliar and confusing.
So there is Dante, in the middle of his life, in this dark forest, and for a moment, he thinks he can find his way back on his own, so he makes his confused way through the forest, but soon comes across a pack of wild beasts—symbolizing the sins of his life—blocking his way. His struggle with his sins and his guilt keep him from finding his way.
But right when Dante sees this wolf of lust ready to pounce upon him, he detects someone in the distance, and desperately calls out for help: “Miserere di me…Mercy upon me, mercy”.
With him in the dark woods was one of the poets of old, the Roman poet Virgil, who he had studied in his youth. Sometimes we need to remember the lessons of our youth, don’t we? Come to discover, Virgil had been sent to help Dante by the Blessed Virgin Mary. And Virgil was tasked with leading Dante on a journey: a journey that would take him through the bowels of hell to witness the punishment of the damned, up the steep mountain of purgatory to witness the purification of the poor souls, and through the celestial realm of heaven to witness the reward of the saints basking in the glory of God.
For Dante had become complacent about his sins. And so he needed to make the journey into hell to finally come to the understanding of the destructive power of sin. And to witness the glory of the blessed that he would forsake, if he allowed himself to be consumed by his sins. He needed to see how sin wounds the human mind, the human heart, and the human soul. We, too, often minimize the effects of sin. We say, “Sin isn’t that bad. It doesn’t hurt anybody.” False. We need to see sin from God’s perspective. Allowing sin to take root in one’s life leads to the sort of terrifying places dante will visit in the first stage of his journey.
I bring up Dante’s journey, again, partially to tell you a bit about my summer spiritual reading, feel free to join me by the way, but also because of the opening line of today’s Gospel, on this 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time: “When the days for Jesus’ being taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem”
This line from late in Luke chapter 9 is the spiritual midpoint of St. Luke’s Gospel. Up until this point, Luke has told us of the miraculous events leading up to our Lord’s infancy, his glorious birth, and the infancy of his public ministry, the calling of the first apostles, his early teachings about holiness and discipleship, parables about the kingdom of God, and miraculous healings, like that of the Gerasene Demoniac.
But today’s Gospel is the turning point in which the Lord “resolutely determines to journey to Jerusalem”. And the Lord is very well aware of what that journey will entail, the hostility he will face from his enemies—and how that journey will end—with betrayal, suffering, and death.
The reason Dante resolves to make the journey through Hell and Purgatory is not unlike the reason Our Lord resolves to make his journey to the cross. It is God’s will. And it will bring about salvation. Dante makes his journey to face and overcome the sins in his own life, that he may come to the reward of the Blessed. The Lord makes his journey, not for his own sake, but for ours: Jesus journeys to the cross to die for our sins and to win for us that grace to help us overcome the attachments to sin remaining in us which seek to reclaim us.
The english translation of today’s gospel says that the Lord “resolutely determines to journey to jerusalem”, though literally St. Luke’s Greek says, “he set his face to jerusalem” recalling the verse from the servant song of Isaiah that we hear on Ash Wednesday every year, “I have set my face like flint, that I shall not be put to shame.” Jesus, God’s chosen servant, made the conscious decision to make the uncomfortable journey---a journey that would require courage, fortitude, perseverance, and longsuffering, fruits of the spirit that are to fill our lives as well.
Are you resolutely determined to journey to God? Is your set face like flint against the many resistances Christians inevitably face in the spiritual life? Will you do what you need to do in order to make the journey? Will you have the courage to face your own sins honestly? to overcome the sins God wants you to overcome? Will you leave what is comfortable to obtain the sanctification God wants for you?
Dante was overwhelmed by that question. He almost fled in fear back into the forest and allowed himself to be devoured by the wild beasts. So Virgil, his guide, reasons with him, helping him to trust that God wants him to make the journey, that he needs to trust God, he needs to trust the Blessed Virgin who knows the state of Dante’s soul, his doubts, his confusion, and his longings.
You see, Dante had forgotten that God and the Blessed Virgin and the saints are on our side. They desire our salvation more than we do. They are on our side before we are, like the shepherd in search of the lost sheep before the sheep either knows it is lost or wants to be found. They want to help us face our sins, and to allow God to deliver us from them.
“Follow me” the Lord beckons to each of us, as he did in the Gospel. Make the journey. For freedom’s sake, allow Christ to set you free, as St. Paul says in our second reading, free from our secret fears and our sins which keep us from being the people God made us to be, free to be zealous in doing good works and spreading the Gospel.
Guided by the Spirit, may we live by the Spirit, confident that God desires what is best for us, and through Mother Church teaches us to live by his commands and by his grace, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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