I've been reading the Divine Comedy and it's been an enormous help on recognizing the need for repentance and good guidance. I find it to be no coincidence that I've started going to Orthodox Church for the first time while reading this great poem.
Could you say it was "divinely falling apart"? I know I could sound like I'm justifying my failures but I have had it all together and then lost it all. Wife, children, farm, home school, business, success, Orthodox Church, friends. And now it's all gone. Of course we all continue to have God and I am fortunate to still have a good spiritual father and I am in the Church but I have lost it all and I wonder the earth looking for a home.
The Divina Commedia is an incredibly Orthodox poem? I agree- but I suspect that the fundamentalists will baulk at that given the fact that the poem is suffused with the theology of St Thomas Aquinas.
“Not too many years ago a young monastic aspirant went to Mount Athos. In talking with the venerable abbot of the monastery where he wished to stay, he told him, “Holy Father! My heart burns for the spiritual life, for asceticism, for unceasing communion with God, for obedience to an Elder. Instruct me, please, holy Father, that I may attain to spiritual advancement.” Going to the bookshelf, the Abbot pulled down a copy of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. “Read this, son,” he said. “But Father!” objected the disturbed aspirant. “This is heterodox Victorian sentimentality, a product of the Western captivity! This isn't spiritual; it's not even Orthodox! I need writings which will teach me spirituality!” The Abbot smiled, saying, “Unless you first develop normal, human, Christian feelings and learn to view life as little Davey did-with simplicity, kindness, warmth, and forgiveness-then all the Orthodox ‘spirituality’ and Patristic writings will not only be of no help to you-they will turn you into a ‘spiritual’ monster and destroy your soul…” - as told by Fr. Seraphim Rose of blessed memory.
![Rod Dreher: How Dante Saved My Life [LECTURE]](/img/n.gif)
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I've been reading the Divine Comedy and it's been an enormous help on recognizing the need for repentance and good guidance. I find it to be no coincidence that I've started going to Orthodox Church for the first time while reading this great poem.
Awesome...
I like Rod. I once met him in a small parish in Hungary, we had dinner and a good talk. I hope we'll meet again! :)
Forgiveness is powerful.
Could you say it was "divinely falling apart"? I know I could sound like I'm justifying my failures but I have had it all together and then lost it all. Wife, children, farm, home school, business, success, Orthodox Church, friends. And now it's all gone. Of course we all continue to have God and I am fortunate to still have a good spiritual father and I am in the Church but I have lost it all and I wonder the earth looking for a home.
Was or was not Dante Alleghieri also a Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church?
The Divina Commedia is an incredibly Orthodox poem? I agree- but I suspect that the fundamentalists will baulk at that given the fact that the poem is suffused with the theology of St Thomas Aquinas.
Dreher, unfortunately, is one of the worst representations of Orthodoxy. Vindictive, mean and petty in his public writing.
I thought this was an Orthodox channel
“Not too many years ago a young monastic aspirant went to Mount Athos. In talking with the venerable abbot of the monastery where he wished to stay, he told him, “Holy Father! My heart burns for the spiritual life, for asceticism, for unceasing communion with God, for obedience to an Elder. Instruct me, please, holy Father, that I may attain to spiritual advancement.” Going to the bookshelf, the Abbot pulled down a copy of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. “Read this, son,” he said. “But Father!” objected the disturbed aspirant. “This is heterodox Victorian sentimentality, a product of the Western captivity! This isn't spiritual; it's not even Orthodox! I need writings which will teach me spirituality!” The Abbot smiled, saying, “Unless you first develop normal, human, Christian feelings and learn to view life as little Davey did-with simplicity, kindness, warmth, and forgiveness-then all the Orthodox ‘spirituality’ and Patristic writings will not only be of no help to you-they will turn you into a ‘spiritual’ monster and destroy your soul…”
- as told by Fr. Seraphim Rose of blessed memory.
Interesting. 🤍👍