Purgatorio, Canto 18 with Dr. Steve Boyer
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- Опубліковано 16 січ 2025
- Dr. Steve Boyer of the Templeton Honors College introduces us to Canto 18 of Dante's Purgatorio.
100 Days of Dante is brought to you by Baylor University in collaboration with the Torrey Honors College at Biola University, University of Dallas, Templeton Honors College at Eastern University, the Gonzaga-in-Florence Program and Gonzaga University, and Whitworth University, with support from the M.J. Murdock Trust. To learn more about our project, and read with us, visit 100daysofdante...
This is one of the best presentations yet! A fantastic analysis of Purgatorio and also an excellent and timely life lesson. Time is love. Choose how you spend it, wisely. Thank you, Dr. Boyer
Well done, Dr. Boyer. This is the most powerful twelve minutes on Christian transformation I've ever heard. Thank you.
Yes!!! Wasn't it just so very clear?? The pictures made it pop into power!!!
I agree.
While all of the videos have been great so far this has got to be one of the best! Thank you.
Wow. A beautiful presentation that helped me more deeply understand this canto. Thank you, Dr. Boyer. The idea of "guarding your threshold" is a powerful image. Thank you!
Dr. Boyer's presentation is excellent, not only for the content, but for the way he delivers it.
“What are you giving yourself to? Guard the threshold. Go after the love that you were made for, and do it now!” Thank you! Outstanding and very helpful.
Dr. Boyer, you knocked it out of the park. Thank you for this wonderfully clear and insightful commentary on Canto 18.
Dr Boyer absolutely soul stirring. Thank you so much. I could listen to you endlessly. How can one delay Transformation after listening to your explanation.
Masterfully taught and rings truth with my soul.
I believe that if people could view just two of the presentations, Purgatorio, Canto 17 with Dr. Brian Williams and Purgatorio, Canto 18 with Dr. Steve Boyer, it will change their lives forever. It did mine.
Wholeheartedly agree
I’m still catching up, and I think this is the best video of them all.
This was excellent. The best in the 100 Days of Dante so far (of which many have been very good).
Yes, thank you Dr. Boyer. I was struggling with this canto, but your clear interpretation cut through the cobwebs. To "go for the love we were made for. And do it now." is something a newly retired person can take to heart. The verse in Luke cited by Dante noting that Mary hastened (something I had never seen before in this passage) to Elizabeth's side after receiving her calling is also deeply moving to me now. It's sometimes difficult to discern God's will, but we must not allow inaction to rule our lives.
Dr. Boyer, Wonderful commentary on what I found to be a rather difficult canto. But your last message was spoken almost as if you had been watching my life. I tend to waste time with some of the things you listed as being attractive distractions. When I do that, I pay less attention than I should to what is really important - my wife of 40 years and my three adult children from that marriage. I need to choose to deepen those relationships now, as you said. I need to go after those relationships that are important and do it with purpose. All of us, no matter what age, could do with a reminder like this every few months. Thanks for providing one instance of that reminder here.
Just stunning. Best presentation I’ve seen on this canto so far. Congratulations.
Excellent! This commentary has prompted me to make my first post. I really enjoyed and gained much from Inferno but was not expecting Purgatorio to be as good. In fact, it's been better. As an Orthodox Christian - probably in the minority here - and we will begin approaching Great Lent next month with the first of the four pre-Lenten Sundays, the Publican and the Pharisee, on February 13, I find that Purgatorio enhances my spiritual preparation for Great Lent even more than Inferno. The Orthodox terminology for guarding the threshold is different; we would say to guard the heart, the nous - which is the spiritual eye of the heart - from the Passions, a term which goes well beyond emotions.
Powerful. Needed in my case. Clear, so passionately expressed and just plain great.
After so many distinguished presenters, your few minutes shine most brightly.
I will be dwelling on this sobering and encouraging discussion. Thank you Dr. Boyer!
Wonderful. I will need to view this several times to let it pass my threshold.
This was prob the best video to date in this series! Time is Love - wow, how convicting. Thank you for the outstanding insight!
What an inspiring talk - thank you! I love the illustration of guarding the threshold❤️
This was so good, so edifying, and so convicting all at once. I can't help but think of all the mornings I spend lying in bed after my alarm has gone off and I lie thinking how great it would be to get up and spend time reading the Bible, meditating and praying, and exercising. I spend so much time thinking about how great it would be that soon I'm out of time and have to rush to work.
Or the many videos I watch on artistic expression and being creative, whether music composition or writing, and yet how often do I take the time to practice what I've been taught.
Thanks for this. I've got a new fire burning in my soul. Further up and further in!
This was an excellent continuation of the excellent discussion of Canto 17. Thank you both for such meaningful and relevant insights in these past two cantos. I never considered myself slothful in the sense of lazy, but I'm not seeing the sin (and it's workings in my own life) in a new light.
Oh my this was excellent!!! I listened 4 times and finally took clear notes, stopping every few seconds. The acedia idea was truly insightful. I love the picture of the threshold and our setting up images for ourselves to love. Years ago I had the eating disorders horribly and I wonder if that's what I did, set that up and draw toward it. But it was a devilish image. Now that the beautiful version of Jesus is there, it definitely puts other loves in their places!!! I love time BEING love! And we were made for such a higher love!! Thank you so much!!!
This is as good as any homily. Beautiful.
Wow! What a pointed and profound discourse. Thank you Dr. Boyer!
My favorite canto yet! “Time is Love” summarizes it well and gives an entirely new (and much better) interpretation to the sin of sloth! Our “threshold” (so to speak) is rightly governed not only by reason but by free will - unless we have a free will that is well tempered and fine tuned through experience and grace, we will fall to the lust of our eyes, our other senses, and our hearts. This fine tuning is a lifelong challenge!
Rita, you put this beautifully. Thank you very much.
What a wonderful challenge to us, the modern pilgrims pilgrims who walk this journey. I love the image of the threshold and letting in that which is worth the love. That time is love is a marvelous insight with which to begin the day.
Dr. Boyer, this was a fascinating lecture - probably the best and most touching for me so far. Thank you so much for your clear insight!
Wow! An excellent and insightful presentation with some many important points, just as much today as then in Dante's time. Thank you!
Excellent! Thank you!
Wow.....this was amazing. Thank you so much.
Both convicting and inspiring. Thank you so much.
Wow! What a beautiful convicting message! Bravo!
Thank you very much for your time and preparation. I wonder what post-Reformation thought would say to free will and reason guarding the threshold, and I wonder if living in a time of overwhelming, unlimited choice makes acedia worse.
Excellent. The best so far in the series. Great teacher, important subject, clear exposition.
It was painful for me to watch this insightful presentation because it forced me to see a reality. The discussion of acedia just brought to mind the many times I have faced those situations and been unsuccessful, but I think the presentation has given me a clear way to deal with it.
Loved the connection of this canto with real-life examples
I wish I had access to this wisdom when I was a younger person...it would have saved so much struggle and pain. Thank you.
Such powerful lessons! An analysis to return to again and again. Thank you.
This is powerful stuff! This is good news. Many thanks, Dr. Boyer
Outstanding!!
Suc a fantastic talk. I There are so many of these lectures that are just Grade-A, Top Notch. This is one of them.
Having said that, I am hesitant to point out one very minor detail. I do so, only because it supports Dr. Boyer's point. Gollum was not given the ring as a birthday gift. He claimed it as one, but in actuality, he killed to gain possession of it after just seeing the ring. I think this difference strengthens what Dr. Boyer said.
This minor point, in my mind, does not diminish in any way, the talk. This was one of my favorite. Maybe it is because he referenced Tolkein. 🙂
Thank you.
Wonderful!
Powerful. Reminds me of a christian rapper from a few years back, “it’s all designed to waste your space and fill your head until your dead”
Superb! So clear and powerful and very helpful to all of life. Thank you so much!
Such a clear explanation!! Thank you!
Amazing insight, thank you!
Canto 18: Although Dante is internally concerned he might be asking Virgil to explain too much about Purgatory, he is pleased Virgil will comment further on how love can lead to both good and not-good. At the moment of its creation, the mind is drawn towards love because it senses what pleases it. The mind, perceiving the real form around it, creates its own image and retains those expressing beauty, which results in desire, more love. However, the perceived image may not be a true representation of reality, just as any wax impression of a signet ring may be smudged. Faith, as Beatrice will explain later to him, is required to obtain a valid image of reality’s beauty. Evil is an imperfect quest for love and beauty. The quest requires informed free will. Beatrice will unfold to him how instinct should be informed by intellect. The mature adult has the noble power (noble virtu) to constrain love so that good love can result, and guilty love be avoided with the outcome being a good or evil action. While living, the slothful were unwilling to take time to decide what love was needed to drive them towards good or be constrained to avoid guilty love. Consequently, they are now driven to make amends for this lack through their racing around this fourth terrace. The haste of Mary in visiting Elizabeth following the Annunciation is a positive exhortation whereas the reluctance of the Hebrews during their Exodus is a negative exhortation of the zeal needed by slothful penitents for their purgation. Dante admits his mulling over Virgil’s discourse on love, beauty, free will and the dichotomy of good/evil has made him drowsy; he nods off in a dream!
However the professor says free will within reason or reasonable free will. It sounds like soft determinism and I’m not sure this is the point of the writing. I would have to go back and review what open theism is… maybe a little closer to it 🤷♂️
As the Josh Turner song goes, "Time is love--gotta run!"
FFAAAARRTTTTTTTTTT
Excellent, thank you!!