March 16, 2012

Blind to Beauty

Giotto, Lucifer
Cappella degli Scrovegni - Padua
This comes at the right moment: after my latest post, the subject of which was Dante’s Divine Comedy and its politically correct opponents. But this time there are neither opponents nor enemies, just people of good will trying to learn from that literary and philosophical-theological masterpiece. Like Fr. Robert Barron, who recalls that Dante places Satan, encased in ice, at the center of the earth (Inferno, Canto 34). Thus, Dante’s Satan is a perfect symbol of the soul stuck in the ice of self-absorption—all Satan does is weep from his six eyes, and his tears, born of his frustrated egotism, blind him to the beautiful that could liberate him from his prison...

Watch the compiled CATHOLICISM footage relating to the Scripture readings for next Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Lent.