A Divine Lent #25: Man's heart, I saw, could never rest down there


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

Canto 19 of Purgatory is centered on restlessness.  The canto opens with a disturbing dream of the Pilgrim.  He's sees a Siren, first hideous then transformed, who compels him to stay with her until Virgil again exposes her hideousness, and Dante awakes from his dream.  The dream haunts Dante as they finish their time in the Terrace of the Slothful, ascend, and begin their path on the fifth terrace.  Dante is so preoccupied that the appearance of the angel showing them the way is barely recognized.  Virgil explains that the sorceress in his dream represented the sins of the next three levels in purgatory:  Avarice, Gluttony, and Lust.  Even though Dante "escaped" his dream, he seems bothered by its mere appearance in his mind.

While I could feel good that I have avoided an act of selfishness, I can still be restless and troubled by the desire to be selfish.  Self-awareness of tendencies is good, but the fact that those tendencies exist should remind me of my need for grace.  Without this reminder, restlessness would not end.  In the words of Augustine, "Our heart is restless until it rests in You."

The souls Dante and Virgil next encounter are also restless, forced to lie on the ground face-down with their backs to God.  Their greed and love of worldly things turned them away from God on earth, so they now are constantly reminded of that transgression.  Pope Adrian V explains to Dante what he learned.

I was, alas, converted very late:
only when I became Shepherd of Rome,
did I perceive the falseness of the world.
Man's heart, I saw, could never rest down there;
...
Until that time I was a wretched soul,
servant of Avarice, cut off from God;

Adrian climbed to the top of his career, to be pope, and realized there was no rest.  Greed begets greed.  Gordon Gekko had it wrong.  Greed is not good; it's not even neutral as Adrian observes,

...Avarice quenched all our love of good,
without which all our labors were in vain

As the Siren sought to delay or even replace Dante's journey upward, greed negates our efforts to do good.

This Lent, may we be aware of our tendencies and motivations, on guard for greed, and mindful of our need for God's grace for our hearts to be truly at rest.

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