A Divine Lent #24: We have no time to waste, for time is love


A daily reflection during Lent on Dante's The Divine Comedy.

Canto 18 in Purgatory seems taken from an academic setting.  Virgil and Dante sit immobilized in the dark on the Terrace of the Slothful engaged in deep thoughts.  Virgil had just completed his description of the levels of purgatory at the end of the previous canto.

When he had brought his lecture to an end,
the lofty scholar looked into my face,
searching to see if I seemed satisfied.

While they cannot move, they are not slothful.  The travelers use their time wisely to discuss fundamental concepts.  I remember serious discussions like these when I was in college, but why did I leave those behind?  The diploma did not answer all of life's questions.  For the first thousand years of Christianity, heated debates were held not just by scholars but among lay people regarding the nature of the Trinity and the nature of Christ.  Are those questions seriously undertaken outside of seminaries today?  Are the canned answers sufficient, or do I just not care about the question?

Dante drops a bombshell of a request on Virgil, "define love for me, please."  Virgil does not gloss over the subject.  Reminiscent of Augustine's Confessions, he starts with our natural inclinations as infants.  Virgil makes clear that the process of an image in the mind motivating the soul to move to the enjoyment of the imagined object is not in an of itself good.

It should be clear to you by now how blind
to the truth those people are who make the claims
that every love is, in itself, good love.

Dante has traveled through the first three terraces of purgatory illustrating this point in perverted or misdirected love.  Dante, though, plays devil's advocate asking how can humans be to blame if this desire or attraction is innate.  Virgil transitions from natural love to rational love.

...you have the innate faculty of reason,
which should defend the threshold of consent.
...
Let us assume that every love that burns
in you arises through necessity;
you still have power to restrain such love.

As Free Will was not a victim to destiny in Dante's earlier conversation with Guido del Duca, neither is it a victim to natural inclinations.  The point is not that perfection is attainable, though; the point is that personal responsibility for one's actions is inescapable.

The discussion ends, and Dante begins to drift to sleep when the souls of the Slothful come rushing by.  Their penance for sloth is to act with zeal, shouting and running; moving to account for their earlier lack of movement.  Fitting with Virgil's definition of love, the Slothful imagined something good, but failed to consummate the deed by realizing the love, by moving.  Love was incomplete; needs were unmet; nothing was accomplished; time was wasted.   The souls state the conclusion.

"Faster! faster, we have no time to waste,
for time is love," cried others from behind,
"strive to do good, that grace may bloom again."

This Lent, may we see our time as love; time wasted is love wasted; strive to do good, that grace may bloom again.

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