Let’s go up to Zion as quickly as we can!
Often we need to see the depths of our own evil, the wickedness of the world, before we can see the hope of redemption and the glorious goodness of God, but we must not get stuck there.
Dante had to go down to go up to God, so every sophomore first reading the Divine Comedy discovers. Heraclitus style aphorisms (“the way up is the way down”) fascinate, as they were designed to do. They also can be taken too far.
Dante, after all, could not take the direct route to see God, because he had sin that was blocking his way. He went down to learn, to view the judgment of God, and the terrible results of sin. To see the good, true, beautiful God, Dante had to go up past the stars to the highest heaven. The way up is generally up.
We should be reminded of this truth, lest we buy a ticket to the inferno in the foolish belief that going to hell is the normal way to go to heaven! Dante is lost in a dark wood at the start and blocked from going forward by monstrous creatures. This is not good, not to be desired, and regrettable if necessary.
Blessed Lucy, who died and went straight to glory, is the role model. Dante gives hope to those of us with great regrets, but who wants regrets or to have caused pain? Who would not undo every pain they have caused other people? We must not forget in following Dante on his journey that nobody should want to be the character Dante. Everything he believes about himself at the start that matters turns out to be wrong.
Great to be found, better to not be lost. Let’s be like Lucy or Beatrice, not Dante!
Forgetting Dante is in a bad way is similar to hearing the story of the prodigal son so often that one forgets that becoming a prodigal was not a good idea. There is no need to sit in a pig style to become a good son. If we must, then Father God will greet us, run toward, us, feast us, but perhaps one simply should stay home and be a good son (avoiding older brother syndrome too).
In the case of Dante and his divine Comedy, too often he is seen as a man obsessed with demons and hell. Dante was a man who wrote two-thirds of his great work on hopeful purgatory and beatific paradise. Once he could ascend, he got out of hell and went as far as he could go to heights of beauty so great even his language failed him.
Dante had no desire to return to hell. He loved paradise. Perhaps a sign that we are lost in a dark wood is when bad news is more interesting to us than good news or hell more fascinating that heaven. The popes poked in perdition?What of the popes in paradise? Our fascination with bad news may keep us from recognizing the possibility of sanctity and living a good life.
We need not go down to go up. We can
Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.
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