Paradiso: The First Sphere, The Moon
We see when we meet the inconstant the contrapasso of heaven, proving the idea that our state of being in life determines our state of being in the afterlife. In this case, those who broke their vows to God are assigned to this lowest of spheres, represented by the moon because of its changing nature. Not only are they here who were forcibly stripped away from their vows, such as Piccarda and Constance, but all souls who, as Ciardi notes, "offered up a vow of any sort and then failed to observe it strictly" (620). Now, this isn't a bad thing, of course, for as Piccarda explains, "the essence of this blessed state of being/ is to hold all our will within His will,/ whereby our wills are one and all-agreeing" (79-81). When Dante hears this, he understands that "everywhere/ in Heaven is Paradise, though the Perfect Grace/ does not rain down alike on all souls there" (88-90). Keeping one's promise to God is important and all the moreso when God calls us to it, but there are many ways to serve God, and all of these souls still have thrones in the Empyrean as we'll discover in the following canto.
Dante's exhortation here is clear -- we should honor our word and use the power we have as agents of God's peace to grow closer to him every day as Blessed Ludovico of Casoria did when he had his mystical vision and devoted his life to the service of the poor and suffering where our faith might become "light in the darkness, help in sickness, blessing in tribulations, paradise in the crucifixion and life amid death" as we work to strengthen the bonds of brotherhood in the greater humanity created in God's image. This strengthening of community must be attended by a desire on the part of the individual for its good, and only through experience acting toward that one good, as Aristotle points out, will the desire for communal good convert intention into profitable action, for "to those who desire and act in accordance with a rational principle knowledge about such matters will be of great benefit" while those who flit from one passion to another, like these inconstant, then all the knowledge in the world will not help them.
S.
Dante's exhortation here is clear -- we should honor our word and use the power we have as agents of God's peace to grow closer to him every day as Blessed Ludovico of Casoria did when he had his mystical vision and devoted his life to the service of the poor and suffering where our faith might become "light in the darkness, help in sickness, blessing in tribulations, paradise in the crucifixion and life amid death" as we work to strengthen the bonds of brotherhood in the greater humanity created in God's image. This strengthening of community must be attended by a desire on the part of the individual for its good, and only through experience acting toward that one good, as Aristotle points out, will the desire for communal good convert intention into profitable action, for "to those who desire and act in accordance with a rational principle knowledge about such matters will be of great benefit" while those who flit from one passion to another, like these inconstant, then all the knowledge in the world will not help them.
S.
posted by Sebastian Mahfood at 12:00 AM
7 Comments:
"In his will is our peace." How this famous dictum of Dante's Paradise applies to those who have not been totally faithful to their vows (as opposed to those who have intentionally violated them) is worth reflection. They reside in heaven, but a lower level. They do not long for a higher place in heaven, for such is not the will of God as it has played out in their life. There is food for thought here for the many who have (legitimately) been divorced, left the priesthood or religious life, or some other serious commitment. Some moderns may be offended by this, but Dante is logical and consistent here: a lesser fidelity brings a lesser happiness - in this life as well as the next.
Exactly, Fr. Earl. It's evidence of a lesser capacity in us to orient our wills as fully as we ought toward the Good. There's a developing interpretation of the reason for this throughout the Paradiso; for instance, in Canto VIII, Charles Martel explains that we're all given various charisms by the stars that provide the necessary diversification of a community (for what community could exist if everyone had the exact same abilities and the exact same inabilities). The problem that we face in orienting ourselves to the Good lies in our not pursuing tasks for which these charisms are suited. He writes, "If the world below would learn to heed the plan/ of nature's firm foundation, and build on that,/ it then would have the best from every man./ But into holy orders you deflect/ the man born to strap on a sword and shield;/ and make a king of one whose intellect/ is given to writing sermons. And in this way/ your footprints leave the road and go astray" (142-9). There are other such explanations, but you'll get to them in time.
The point is that it's not that we're assigned to a lower sphere as a consequence of our actions but that we commit those actions as a consequence of the capacity of our wills to orient themselves to God. Were we to be steadfast in our resolutions to give our wills over to God then we'd be living the realization that once given over, our wills are no longer our own to do with as we please. The souls in the sphere of the moon also reside within the Empyrean (as you'll learn in the next canto), but they are metaphorically triple A batteries (fully charged but with a smaller charge) compared to the monster truck battery that Beatrice is carrying around with her.
S.
"In his will is our peace". This is a very thought-provoking passage from Dante as Fr. Earl has mentioned.
So those who do the will of God are able to enjoy a greater amount of happiness than others who made it but were no so perfectly attuned to the will of their heavenly creator. I was thinking of this comparison in terms of a shot glass and a German Beer stein instead of batteries, but I suppose both work just fine. So those here at this level are perfectly content but those farther up are more perfectly content or more deeply perfectly content. Is this the way it goes?
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