Pride, Humility, and Bending Below Boulders: Lenten Dante Series, No. 5 (Ep. 26)

Having washed off the soot of Hell, it's time to enter Purgatory. But not without humbling ourselves at Peter's Gate. The door is readily opened, we just have to humble ourselves before the angel guarding the way, expressing our contrition and sorrow for sin.

Once on the inside, it's time to make our crooked loves straight. The first to uncrook is our pride. The purgation isn't easy. Here we find the proud bowed low under boulders fit to the pride they carried through life.

These souls know the good of their labor, though. And in these cantos we find ourselves rightly reprimanded for the pride we in this life allow to stiffen our necks, denying the common stock of humanity.

Fear not, though. Our steps will become all the more swift as we make our ascent to the heights of Mt. Purgatory.

My companion for this trip is Paul Camacho, who is Associate Director of the Augustinian Institute and Assistant Teaching Professor in the Augustine and Culture Seminar at Villanova University.  He also writes a weekly newsletter, "Will This Be On the Exam?" which is well worth the read. 

If you have any questions or comments you'd like us to address in a future recording in this series, please send your thoughts along to [e-mail]

Links:

1. The Purgatorio by Dante, a verse translation by Jean Hollander and Robert Hollander
2. The Digital Dante from Columbia University
3. Lenten Dante Series, No. 1
4. Lenten Dante Series, No. 2
5. Lenten Dante Series, No. 3
6. Lenten Dante Series, No. 4
7. www.paulcamacho.com
8. "Will This Be On the Exam?"

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