Dr. Junius Johnson

It's what you allow God to make of the self, not what you can make of the self.

That's one of the proofs that he's medieval and not Renaissance.

But I digress.

So I think we have to say something about this hierarchy of heaven.

And for me, I always go to Picard for this because I think she's got one of those puddle glum moments.

It's one of the great mic drops of the whole commedia when Dante asks her this question in Canto 3.

He says...

In your radiant faces, there shines I know not what of divine that transmutes you from what we knew of you before.

Therefore, I was not quick to remember, but now what you say helps me so that making out your features comes more easily.

But tell me, you souls who are happy here,

Do you desire a higher place so as to see more and to share more love?

And this is a really urgent question because you might think, okay, I mean, you shouldn't be ungrateful.

You're in heaven, right?

We focus on what you have and not on what you don't have.

But at the same time, how could it be wrong to long to see more of God, to long to love God more?

And so I remember I read that and I thought, wow.

Yeah, Dante, that's a good question, right?

How's she going to handle this one?

And she starts off, brother.

Brother, our will is quieted by the power of charity, karita, which causes us to desire only what we have and does not make us thirst for anything else.