In today’s reading, Caccuiaguida tells Dante what he can expect in the future. Violence. Betrayal. Banishment. Nevertheless, Dante is told to keep the hope—although his future will be a bitter pill to swallow, his future will long outlast those of his enemies.

In today’s reading, Dante’s grandfather Cacciaguida walks him through the greatness that once was Florence, compared to its present degeneracy. After taking his grandson through a whirlwind tour of the great and not so great families of his own time, Cacciaguida references bitterly the murder that sparked the present civil war, and ultimately led to Dante’s banishment.

In today’s reading, having ascended to the fifth level of Paradise (Mars), Dante encounters his grandfather, Cacciaguida. Paternal and wistful, Cacciaguida recounts how things used to be in Florence, before the hideous faction rivalries that would ultimately lead to Dante’s banishment.

In today’s canto, Beatrice asks a pertinent question: what will glory be like in the resurrection? None other than Solomon the Wise answers her, using the beautiful image of a glowing coal. Then, hardly realizing what is happening, Dante ascends to the fifth sphere of Heaven, where he sees an image of the cross of Christ: a promise of the resurrection to come.

Trans. John Ciardi

In today’s canto, Thomas Aquinas performs yet more intellectual winnowing on Dante, explaining how it came to be that none arose wiser than Solomon. To do this, he resorts to much succinctly reasoned Scholastic syllogizing, in which he employs the theory of Platonic forms and decries the largely useless metaphysical hair-splitting of so many thinkers and philosophers.

Trans. John Ciardi

In today’s canto, we look at the second of Dante’s two great poverty-marrying patrons. We hear Bonaventure wax poetic on the life of Dominic, whose intellectually-minded approach to the question of poverty remains a lodestone for believers today. Just one question: what happened? Trans. John Ciardi

In today’s canto, still in the fourth sphere of the Sun, Aquinas waxes poetic on the state of the Franciscan order and its patron, Saint Francis. The Church is at her best when she remembers her duties: prayers, alms, and poverty. Saint Francis married poverty despite the ire of his father, but doing so he reignited a church gone lethargic. Trans. John Ciardi

In today’s canto, Dante ascends to the fourth sphere, that of the sun, where he encounters another of his intellectual heroes: Thomas Aquinas. Here repose the souls of the wise and the great intellectual defenders of the Church throughout history.

Trans. John Ciardi