Making A Difference – Part 2 - Being Good

Is being a good person, without more, good enough? No, at least not according to Dante Alighieri. Simply being good and rationalizing that things eventually change regardless of the good work, if any, that is done is not enough to get into Paradise without a period of atonement in Purgatory. Through Virgil, Dante said:

" ' That love of good which in the life before
lay idle in the soul is paid for now.
Here Sloth strains at the once-neglected oar.' " [1]

In the notes to these three short lines, John Ciardi explained that sloth “must not be understood as physical laziness or slovenliness but as torpor of the soul which, loving the good, does not pursue it actively enough,” and that central to Sloth is Acedia. “Acedia, however,” he said, “is not simply the failure to perform good works for others, though it readily involves that failure. It is, more specifically, the failure to pay enough attention to the good, to make enough demands upon oneself. Were one to give all of his energy to the pursuit of God’s truth, good works would follow automatically. Acedia may consist in being too torpid to arrive at a vision of the good, or in achieving that vision but neglecting to pursue it.” [2]

Like everything in life, there is a choice. Having almost surrendered to my fears of failure and success and frozen in my status quo, I can only go so far in being good but not doing good works. If that means a lengthy purgatory but no eternal hell, still it would not be easy, I would need to die to truly regret it.

However, should I desire to shorten my stay in Purgatory, I must know what good means in order to pay enough attention to it and know what good deeds are in order to do them.

[1] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Canto XVII, p.430, lines 85-87. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003.

[2] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Notes, p. 433-34. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003.