Paradiso: The Third Sphere, Venus and the Amorous

2005-04-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

The sphere of Venus is likely where Francesca and Paulo (and Romeo and Juliet if Sean's still following us) would have gone had they the opportunity to repent before they died after spending some time on the cornice of lust in Purgatory. (And who knows, but that Dante, too, would find this his final home instead of in the sphere of the inconstant or the sphere of those who sought honor.) These souls, now replete with caritas, are those who might have manifested the least of the capital sins in their having oriented themselves toward love of the creation rather than the creator, understood while they still had within them the power to sin that their love was misdirected. Since we're all oriented toward the good by virtue of our being children of God, the misorientation that drives us to perdition is a result of our natural talents being misdirected into situations inharmonious with their expression. As Charles Martel explains, "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" (142-4). In order to appropriately direct our love and desire toward the good, we have to find more harmonious ways of interacting with one another. "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," Martel explains, "your footprints leave the road and go astray" (145-50). Man would be worse off without a social order, for man is a social creature and is designed for community, which we've learned already.

Because the best society is that which exists harmoniously within itself, then it is up to us to find where our strengths lie and pursue them to the greater glory of God through the grace that God has bestowed upon us. If our discernment along our walk with God leads us to the realization that our aptitude is more oriented towards preserving the peace of our community, then it is better to become a policeman and more fully engage the talents given us by God than it is to collar ourselves and lead a life, though good, that is different from what God had called us to be through his distribution of our talents by secondary causes. In fulfilling our purpose, we ought to do so with grace and deference to the greater community we are all called, in whatever capacity, to serve. As the commentator writes of St. Benedict the African, "the Church needs men and women ready to put their best energies into leadership— but men and women who are gracefully willing to go on to other work when their time of leadership is over." In such a manner, we exercise the virtue that is present within us, a virtue to which we're also naturally oriented because in virtue we find happiness. "[V]irtuous actions must be in themselves pleasant. But they are also good and noble," Aristotle teaches, for through virtuous action we achieve happiness, which is "the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world."

S.

Heaven: Canto 8 -- Ascent to the Third Heaven

Paradiso: The Third Sphere, Venus and the Amorous