Dante’s new year

The middle portion of Dante’s famous masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, covers the pilgrim's journey out of the realm of sin and up a mountain where he will be purified of sin. He called this poem Purgatorio and imagined this theological reality as an earthly mountain, whose levels he would slowly climb as he shed the weight of sin from his soul. Dante subtly bookends this poem with two washings that begin and end his journey up the mountain.

For my seniors, I save our theological reading of Dante, one of my favorite units to teach, until the very end of the school year. I tell them it is because I want this to be the last thing they remember from high school Theology class. It is also the perfect encapsulation of the Christian’s spiritual journey on earth, one which many of us reflect upon at the turning of a new year. As so many take on new resolutions and seek spiritual renewal when the calendar changes, I want to put forward Dante’s Comedy, especially his purgative middle leg of the journey, as a tool to help one in that renewal.

With the popularity of the “Bible in a Year” and “Catechism in a Year” podcasts, as well as the even more daunting “Summa in a Year” project, I think a fitting follow-up to these great works of theology and spirituality would be the timeless Catholic Classic of Dante’s Divine Comedy…in a year (if you are interested in something similar, I recommend the 100 Days of Dante project). Besides its placement as a classic in literature, the Comedy is also a treasure of Medieval Catholic theology and spirituality. It has been called “the Summa in verse” by many because of its profundity and structure.

I began with a reference to the two washings that Dante experiences at the beginning and end of his ascent. These symbolize the importance of baptism of the Christian life, but neither are meant to be perfect allegories (there is only one baptism as St. Paul tells us) as they each fulfill different functions at different stages of the journey.

Dante is first washed by Virgil at the bottom of Mt. Purgatory to clean his face of the grime and tears of Hell as depicted in Inferno, from which Dante and Virgil just emerged. This first washing of sin symbolizes the removal of Original Sin that allows the soul to even begin the process of purification. However, the greater, deeper washing takes place at the top of the mountain, after Dante has crossed the seven thresholds, one for each of the seven deadly sins. It is here, in the earthly paradise, where Dante is washed again in the mythological river Lethe.

This river, which comes from Greek mythology, was in the underworld and was the river of forgetting. It was where the person would forget his/her identity as they crossed into the place of the dead. They became less themselves. However, Dante repurposes this forgetting in his Comedy by making it the final step of his purification. It is not just a purification from sin, but the forgetting of the attachment to that sin. It is this final step that Dante must complete to fully embrace the reality of God’s presence in heaven. It is only after forgetting his past self, a kind of death to sin as St. Paul talks about in Romans 6:11, that his new life could begin.

Though probably the least read of the three poems that make up Dante’s Divine Comedy, my favorite has long been his Purgatorio because of its applicability to the Christian life. I am able to quickly cover some of the theological aspects of the Comedy with my seniors as part of our “Vocations of the Christian Life” course, and we spend most of the time on Purgatorio because this work of the three has the clearest advice for how to live their lives.

The Inferno, the first part of the Comedy where Dante descends into Hell, shows in haunting, grotesque, but fitting, detail the horror of sin. Paradiso, Dante’s flight through the seven heavens toward the Beatific Vision, shows the beauty and true power of virtue. Paradiso, however, is Dante’s slow, methodical climb up the mountain of Purgatory, which purifies his soul of its attachment to each of the seven deadly sins.

Both the content and the structure play an important role as a spiritual guide for the next year. As we are now diving deep into the heart of winter, with its coldness and dormancy, we can follow Dante as he heads into the frozen depths of hell finding Lucifer slowly beating his vast wings as he attempts to ascend to the heights of God, but is actually freezing himself into the waters of lake Cocytus.

Later in the year, we will be experiencing the highs and lows of our ordinal lives just as Dante is experiencing the struggles of his own purification during his climb of Mount Purgatorio. It is in the every day that Saints are made, even when this every day seems monotonous and arduous and feels like little progress is being made. Dante’s climb was slow too, but he got there, and beyond.

Finally, we can end the Divine Comedy at the perfect time of year both meteorologically and liturgically. Just as the light of the sun seems to be leaving the world, but we recognize the Light of the Son coming into the world, we can move into the heavens and among the stars with Dante as he finally gets to see the presence of God. Light is a huge theme in Paradiso because of its association with vision and Dante the pilgrim is here experiencing the Beatific Vision. He gets to look upon “The love that moves the sun and the other stars”