From Canto XXXIII of Paradiso by Dante Alighieri
Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 
 
Thou Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son,
    Humble and high beyond all other creature,
    The limit fixed of the eternal counsel,
 
Thou art the one who such nobility
    To human nature gave, that its Creator
    Did not disdain to make himself its creature.
 
Within thy womb rekindled was the love,
    By heat of which in the eternal peace
    After such wise this flower has germinated.
 
Here unto us thou art a noonday torch
    Of charity, and below there among mortals
    Thou art the living fountain-head of hope.
 
Lady, thou art so great, and so prevailing,
    That he who wishes grace, nor runs to thee,
    His aspirations without wings would fly.
 
Not only thy benignity gives succour
    To him who asketh it, but oftentimes
    Forerunneth of its own accord the asking.
 
In thee compassion is, in thee is pity,
    In thee magnificence; in thee unites
    Whate’er of goodness is in any creature.
 


 
Dante’s Divine Comedy is one of the great poems in any language – a late medieval epic which is a masterpiece of poetry and of faith. This poem helped to shape Italian identity and even the Italian language. Many lines and images from Dante’s work have entered into our collective imagination and—whether we’ve read the book or not – still color the way we think about hell and heaven.
 
Most people know only a small part of this great epic, and most of what they know comes from part 1, the Inferno. The cover of my edition says it all – Inferno in great big letters; Purgatorio in medium size letters; and then Paradiso in small letters. And that’s upside down, because the whole journey culminates in Paradiso. Without the vision of Paradise, this would be a divine tragedy, not a divine Comedy.
 
The Divine Comedy tells the story of a journey as Dante is taken on a guided tour – or, better, a guided pilgrimage- through the afterlife – hell, purgatory, heaven. In hell and most of Purgatory his guide is the Roman poet Virgil. Then Beatrice, his ideal woman, takes over, and leads him into Paradise. At the very end of the poem, St. Bernard of Clairvaux is his guide. The passage that Lisa read, in the translation by the 19th century American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, is from the very last canto of Paradiso, making these some of the last lines in the entire epic. Here, the poet’s pilgrimage comes to its glorious destination, that place where Mary, the angels, and the saints dwell in the presence of God.
 
Dante now longs for a glimpse of the “primal love,” the first love: God himself. St. Bernard points Dante’s attention to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and offers a prayer to her, asking Mary’s intercession that Dante might be granted his longed-for glimpse of “the love that moves the sun and the other stars.”
 
Our poem is part of St. Bernard’s address to Mary for this grace. It is a song in praise of the Mother of God; it is a prayer; and it is a reflection on the place of Mary’s intercession in the life of faith.
 
Dante delights in paradox, and we see that clearly in the first verses. “Virgin Mother,” “daughter of thy Son,” “Humble and high.” This is not paradox as contradiction, but paradox as miracle. Mary is a creature like us – but Mary is also the Mother of God. In her womb, the divine love was “rekindled.” Mary is the best of us, the first disciple. She who had a special role in the history of salvation continues to have a role.  Even in heaven, which is light itself, she is a source of light: “a noonday torch.” And for us on earth, she is more – “the living fountain-head of hope.” So great is Mary, that the one who wishes for grace and does not turn to Mary is like a person who wants to fly without wings – it’s just not going to happen!  Mary’s gentleness and goodness helps those who ask her – and even those who don’t – “oftentimes / [it] forerunneth of its own the asking.” Mary is compassion, pity, magnificence, and goodness.
 
How does Mary respond to Bernard’s prayer?  She does not respond with words. Instead, Dante focuses on her eyes: she looks first at Bernard, and then turns her gaze towards God, “the Eternal Light.” And Dante does the same. And here, after 100 cantos of the Divine Comedy, the poet has no words. “My vision was greater than our speech, which fails at such a sight.”  That glimpse for Dante is like the memory of a dream, where only the feeling of it remains: “my vision almost wholly fades, and still there drops within my heart the sweetness that was born of it.”
 
Mary is the great intercessor, but there is nothing mechanical about her role. She doesn’t receive our prayers like letters which she then sorts and forwards on to God. Rather, she points toward God – she directs our gaze to God – and she looks towards God and loves God along with us.
 
May is Mary’s month, a good time to reflect on Mary’s role in the Church. We mark key moments in Mary’s life—her Immaculate Conception, the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Assumption—but Mary is not just an historical figure. Mary, assumed body and soul into heaven, is an active part of the Church, a loving heart interceding for us—sometimes even before we ask her to. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.