Paradiso: Canto XXXIII -- GOD!
The last canto ended with the idea that through "the act of looking at God man is given the power to see Him. Such is the gift of grace, and to the extent that grace is given, a man may see more or less deeply into God's glory" (888). St. Bernard indicates this to Dante when the time comes for him to turn his eyes away from she who enraptures Anna and onto the beatific vision of God himself. Adam Henjum proved quite insightful in an actual face-to-face conversation in noticing that even Dante seems to grow in his capacity to understand the complexities of theological understanding of God and that this can be seen as one progresses through the cantos, "this man who from the final pit/ of the universe up to this height has seen,/ one by one, the three lives of the spirit" (22-4). Whatever the origins and consequences of this sacred mystery, the fact stands that we are in the presence of God. Take off your shoes, for the ground on which you stand is holy.
As Dante stares into God, and as we also stare into God, the more he looks, "the more unchanging semblance/ appeared to change with every change in me" (113-4). The self is not lost in God but finds itself growing within God, for the virtues that brought us here -- justice, temperance, prudence, fortitude, faith, hope, and love -- were preparatory to this experience -- to the vision of the three circles constant in circumference, brilliant in rainbow and fire. At the point of greatest bliss and understanding, Dante realizes that though he "yearned to know just how our image merges/ into that circle, and how it there finds place; ... [his] were not the wings for such a flight" (137-9). Like St. Peter Chanel, Dante finds himself cleaved "in a great flash of light" (141) and, as though clubbed to death, thrown into the extacy of God's being. And then, a sigh -- and Dante the poet sits at his desk and writes the last lines: "Already I could feel my being turned--/ instinct and intellect balanced equally/ as in a wheel whose motion nothing jars--/ by the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars" (143-6). God bless you, and good night.
S.
As Dante stares into God, and as we also stare into God, the more he looks, "the more unchanging semblance/ appeared to change with every change in me" (113-4). The self is not lost in God but finds itself growing within God, for the virtues that brought us here -- justice, temperance, prudence, fortitude, faith, hope, and love -- were preparatory to this experience -- to the vision of the three circles constant in circumference, brilliant in rainbow and fire. At the point of greatest bliss and understanding, Dante realizes that though he "yearned to know just how our image merges/ into that circle, and how it there finds place; ... [his] were not the wings for such a flight" (137-9). Like St. Peter Chanel, Dante finds himself cleaved "in a great flash of light" (141) and, as though clubbed to death, thrown into the extacy of God's being. And then, a sigh -- and Dante the poet sits at his desk and writes the last lines: "Already I could feel my being turned--/ instinct and intellect balanced equally/ as in a wheel whose motion nothing jars--/ by the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars" (143-6). God bless you, and good night.
S.
posted by Sebastian Mahfood at 9:49 PM
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