Father Wesley Walker

That's one of my favorite two cantos just for that reason.

You see them setting aside the rivalry and realizing they work together for a common end.

I have a question for you two since you're both so well-versed in all of this.

Is what Dante is depicting here a return to prelapsarian humanity or is it something beyond that?

I think as Americans, we're very uncomfortable with this.

This is why we have such a problem with this text.

We're so tied up into what we do and that really determines who we are and sort of – we even attribute I think too much by way of judgment in terms of dignity based on what we do.

But someone like Therese of Lisieux I think is a good kind of maybe counter –

And articulates much of what we just said.

It was her sister, I believe, who when she asked this same question, gave her the analogy of the different size cups.

The thimble can only hold so much water.

It's not that it's not the difference isn't the variable isn't the amount of water that's poured.

It's the it's the capacity to receive.

But also you have this beautiful passage where she says, well, God even needs wildflowers for his garden.

And so whatever these wildflowers are, we may deem them insignificant, but they beautify the whole thing.

They play an integral part in the larger whole.

And so we need them.

It kind of strikes – go ahead.

I was just going to say it strikes me as he's doing for Dante on the front end what Lady Philosophy is doing for Boethius on the back end.

When she arrives, Boethius is in tears.