A Divine Lent #38: What are you doing? Rise!

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

Dante finally gets to gaze fully into the face of Beatrice at the start of Canto 32 of Purgatory.  He has waited ten years for this moment.  The experience consumes his whole being to the point of concern of some of the assembled heavenly beings.

I was bereft of every other sense.

My eyes, walled in by barrier of high

indifference, were drawn to her holy smile--

they were entranced by her familiar spell.

...

"He should not look so hard!" I heard them say.

The concern by the maidens representing virtues was not an over-obsession on Dante's part.  It was not romance or lust.  It was preparedness.  Dante's thoughts were pure, reigned in by the barrier of high indifference.  But like looking at the sun, the virtuous maidens feared Dante would become blinded by the radiance of the divine wisdom represented by Beatrice.  Indeed, it takes a while for his eyes to adjust.

The rest of the canto is a grand allegorical pageant of the incarnation and the development and trials of the Church.  The Griffin as Christ is praised and leans a pole, the cross, up against a tall, bare tree, the Roman Empire.  The tree immediately blossoms with purple flowers, representing the Passion.  And then there's a gap in the story, not in the pageant, just the narrative as Dante has fallen asleep.  It creates a gap with the reader wondering what was missed.  Matelda awakens Dante.

a splendor rent the veil of sleep, a voice

was calling me: "What are you doing? Rise!"

Dante likens his sleep to the actions of Peter, John, and James during the Transfiguration.  They see the miracle, become afraid, and throw themselves down in fear, only to look up on Jesus' command finding Moses and Elijah no longer present.  The event was over.  What did we miss?  Dante's sleep reminds me of Jesus with the same trio in the Garden of Gethsemane.  As Jesus prayed, the disciples were overcome by sleep--three times, though they were asked to stay awake and pray.

The Griffin and the hosts have returned to heaven, leaving only Beatrice, the Chariot, and the maidens with the candlesticks behind.  The pageant will continue but now Dante has a role to play, as Beatrice explains.

"Now for the good of sinners in your world,

observe the chariot well, and what you see,

put into writing, when you have returned."

All of this show is not just for Dante.  Rather, he is the messenger; he has an active role to play.  The pageant follows the life of the Church represented by the Chariot from its early development, persecutions, corruption through wealth, heresies, and political entanglements with lots of unpleasant imagery.

There is a tension in the Comedy between the contemplative life of the Christian and the active life of the Christian.  In these final cantos of Purgatory, Matelda represents the active life, always prodding the pilgrim to move.  The contemplative life is good as well, but it easily consumes Dante.  He doesn't even hear some of Matelda's words as he admits,

I do not know if she said more than this,

for now I was allowed to see again

the one who reigned completely in my mind.

Like the disciples, Dante and I need to hear the voice saying, "Get up! You've got something to do!"

This Lent, may we all contemplate the divine, but also here and respond to the command, "Rise!"