A Divine Lent #37: How could another mortal object lure your love?


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

Beatrice continues her schooling of Dante in Canto 31 of Purgatory.  In the previous canto, her accusations were in the third person as she addressed the heavenly court.  Now she has turned directly to Dante.  "He" becomes "you."  As the reader, he becomes me.  She is pushing Dante to confession.

"speak now, is this not true?  Speak!  You must seal
with your confession this grave charge I make!"

Dante began weeping in the Canto 30.  He has expressed he remorse, but he has yet to expressly admit his faults to others.  Dante finally gives a weak "yes", but Beatrice urges him to elaborate.

"...what pitfalls did you find....
And what appealed to you, what did you find
so promising in all those other things
that made you feel obliged to spend your time
in courting them?"...

Beatrice's beauty was Dante's inspiration to pursue Beauty while she was alive.  He confesses that things changed after her death.

Weeping, I said: "Those things with their false joys,
offer me by the world, led me astray
when I no longer saw your countenance."

With Dante's confession expressed, Beatrice lightens up, a little.  She explains her harshness as necessary for Dante to proceed as well as to give him strength when he returns to the world.  Driving home Dante's pursuit of temporal joy, Beatrice reminds him of lessons he should have taken to heart.  Referring to her own mortal beauty,

"...and if that perfect beauty disappeared
when I departed from the world, how could
another mortal object lure your love?

When you first felt deception's arrow sting,
you should have rushed to rise and follow me,
as soon as I lost my deceptive flesh."

How many times does Dante, or do I, have to experience the temporary satisfaction from worldly desires?  Seeing how these ultimately lead to dissatisfaction should have been Dante's clue to pursue the Ultimate Good.  The only things that are eternal are the Eternal, the Living Water from which I will thirst no more.

Beatrice compels Dante to stop looking at the ground, stop acting like a child, and look at her.  Dante is overcome.

I felt the stabbing pain of my remorse:
what I had loved the most of all the things
that were not she, I hated now the most.
The recognition of my guilt so stunned
my heart, I fainted.

 He was no longer just sorry for his actions, or his lack of actions, he hated his false actions.  His penance is now complete.  When he awakes, Matelda is pulling him through the sacred Lethe stream which erases his emotional memory of his sins.  Dante does not allow the souls to erase all memory of their sins, but just of the emotion guilt of those sins.  Actions are never undone.  I will always recognize my need for grace.  This final washing eliminates the barrier between him and Beatrice.  He is now ready to face her pure beauty.

May I this Lent see temporal pleasures for what they are, in the end unsatisfying and diversions from the pursuit of the divine.  In turning away from those, may I as well be washed in Lethe, ready to receive grace, and following the advice of the maidens as Dante approached Beatrice,

"Look deeply, look with all your sight." 

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