Evening under Lamplight Podcast

Our final encounter on the sphere of the Sun, as we find out what kind of splendour we'll experience after we have been reunited with our bodies after the world's end. And the ascent to the next sphere, Mars, and the experience there that Dante is unable to express to us.

An almost impossible exercise for our imagination, an account of creation, and a warning about making hasty conclusions - it all fits together for us.

A new group of souls appears, circling around the circle of lights circling around Dante and Beatrice. St Bonaventure speaks out from this new group, praising St Dominic, and criticising his own order of Franciscans, who have fallen away from the standard. The theme here seems to be harmony, which we consider in several different aspects.

Most of the canto is dedicated to celebrating probably the best-loved saint in the calendar: St Francis of Assisi, with the praise coming from a member of the rival order, the Dominicans.

We come to the sphere of the Sun, the place of divine light, where we are introduced to some great thinkers, though the only real back-and-forth here is between Dante and us, the readers. 

Still on Venus, we meet some reformed promiscuous souls, and get a divine perspective on the violence and greed that overtakes the world we live in. There's also a lot about interpenetration, the gracious way these souls share their joy.

On the sphere of Venus, we learn the more heavenly way of loving, a reaching out to give joy to the other person, creating a unity in variety. Dante meets an old friend, and has a discussion about why things go wrong in our world.

Still on the planet Mercury, with its characteristic intellectual interplay, we hear about the way the Incarnation restored the relationship between divine and human, and try to explain this with some everyday examples.

A famous Roman Emperor takes up the whole canto to show us the sweep of history and our paradoxical place in it.

How do you make up for a broken promise or vow? We get the answer, and much more here, and then rise up to the next planet, where we get a brilliant greeting.