So I've been reading the Divine Comedy this semester, canto by canto, for what may well be my favorite English class ever. It's right up there with Shakespeare's Tragedies, for sure. And as I continue to read, I am repeatedly blown away by the intensity, emotion, and utter *beauty* of Dante's words. He truly had a gift for language.

Although I've got plenty of "favorite selections" from Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, I came across this passage out of Paradiso just the other day as I prepared for class. It gives me chills, and I'd like to share it with you; perhaps you'll get chills, too.

Just to give you a little bit of background... Dante and Beatrice (his paradisal guide) have just entered the first (lowest) circle of Heaven, the sphere of the moon. Here, Dante experiences his first up-close encounter with a heavenly soul, a woman named Piccarda. Their interaction in this selection portrays The Pilgrim's finite, human mind and his inability to comprehend the divine contentment of paradisal souls in every sphere of Heaven. Dante stands amazed at the glory of souls transformed and, turning to Piccarda, implores:

But tell me, you who are so happy here,
do you desire a place of greater height
to see more, know more, and be held more dear?"
With the rest of those shades she smiled a bit,
then with such gladness she replied to me,
as a girl in the gleaming of first love:
"Brother, the virtue of our charity
brings quiet to our wills, so we desire
but what we have, and thirst for nothing else.
If we should feel a yearning to be higher,
such a desire would strike disharmony
against His will who knows, and wills us here.
That cannot catch these wheels, as you shall see:
recall love's nature, recall that Heaven is
to live in loving, necessarily.
For it is of the essence of this bliss
to hold one's dwelling in the divine Will,
who makes our single wills the same, and His,
So that, although we dwell from sill to sill
throughout this kingdom, that is as we please,
as it delights the King in whose desire
We find our own. In His will is our peace:
that is the sea whereto all creatures fare,
fashioned by Nature or the hand of God."

Dante Alighieri's Paradiso, Canto III, lines 64-87

:: sigh ::
So beautiful.




May my heart seek contentment in Christ alone until the glorious day when His perfect will and mine shall forever be made one.