Bishop Barron on C.S. Lewis' “The Great Divorce”

well my capacity now is until we fish about in LA I have a Santa Barbara pastoral region which is by far the biggest an area of all the region's covers two counties and the result is they got to drive a lot so I'm in the car all the time so I've kind of recovered the art of listening to books on books on tape I call them it's totally outdated audible books you know and one of them is listed recently with CS Lewis's great kind of theological fantasy called the Great Divorce and it was a joy to listen to it again I think I read it many years ago but largely had forgotten it so it's fresh in my mind and you know he has such a gift for combining high theology with very vivid imagination it makes his books very memorable just a couple things that stayed in my mind from this I want to share with you really just to encourage you to pick the book up or maybe as I did listen to it it's a meditation as you know on what the medieval is called the refugee reom which is the idea of the souls in Hell getting a kind of vacation once in a while they get a refreshment a break when they can come up to heaven so Lewis imagines a sum of the souls in Hell getting on a kind of bus but the bus takes off from the dreary streets of Hell and flies up through the sky and then lands in this beautiful country which they recognized in time to be the sort of forecourt of heaven and the idea is during the refugee reom this the souls from Hell come up and then the great spirits from heaven come to meet them and they're trying to convince them but trying to lure them into heaven so that's the drama of the book as the because of the ghosts of Hell meet the spirits of heaven and what happens in those dynamics and you get a lot of reflection about the nature of sin about grace about heaven hell purgatory all of that so just three things from the book that have really stayed my mind the first one is the wonderful play between the grandeur and nothingness of Hell so as the book opens up he's in the Jewish roots of Hell he's wandered a long time to get to this bus stop he says that he'll spreads out like this infinitely large city and the reason is obvious people always fighting in hell so each soul wants to get as far away from the others as possible so the the houses just spread out out out out ever further and he says that it might take centuries for a given ghost to make his way to the bus stop you know that's how big El is then when they take off they fly up way through the sky long distance before they get to heaven right so you get the impression of hell is a really big impressive place so as the narrator is talking to one of the spirits in heaven when he gets there he says yeah you know we're exacting do we come from where did that bus get off you know where did it stop and the guy the spirit heaven says he takes a little blade of grass one blade of grass and then using the tip of the single blade of grass he indicates a little barely visible fissure in the ground a little crack that he indicates with the tip of a blade of grass he said that's where you came through he said we were talking about that's right hell is giant is huge no no that's that's where you came through in other words from the standpoint of heaven see which means reality reality how was like nothing it's like none being Agustin said sin is a state of being cravat through sense a right I'm caved in around myself my world becomes super small or the saint has the Magna anima right the great soul cuz open to reality it's the grandeur of heaven compared to which hell is like this little tiny barely perceptible crack in the ground we think see we who are living in hell and all of us sinners due to varying degrees we think it's a big deal right my ego and my plans and my life and but it's like nothing it's nothing surrender to love and your world opens up that's the point you know here's a second image I love from it one of the ghosts from Hell shows up and I'm his shoulder is this little kind of creepy reptile it's kind of creepy slimy creature and the creature is whispering in his ear telling him sent over to him comes as great an angel a great angelic spirit and the guy pulls back from the angel and the angel looks at the reptile and he brings his hands near it like this and he says may I kill it and the guy says no no I'm gonna kill it I mean I know he's a little difficult and I know he's always bossed me around but no no I don't want you to kill it may I kill it well not am i killing I mean I I'm he's difficult I wish you could do something about it but may I kill it and so finally the spirit the ghost says yes he acquiescence and the angel crushes the reptile but then the narrator notices at that moment this soul and souls are all kind of cramped and warped they're small you know at that moment he begins to take on thickness and height and and substance and then the reptile which had been kind of thrown to the side actually begins to change now and is transformed into this mighty beautiful stallion upon which the man then jumps and rides off toward the mountains so what does that mean well it becomes clear that this little reptile stands for lust there's some kind of creepy thing that's making suggestions all the time and actually resulting in the in the shrinking down of this person right the angel her standing for the power of God here wants to kill that off you gotta get rid of it but Noah's pleased and Lois is so strong in it he has to ask permission he can't just do it even though it's the best thing possible for this guy he has to have his permission may I kill it he's he's uncompromising I gotta argue with it may I kill it but may I kill it and only when the man gives his permission can the angel do his work but then knows what happens not only does the man grow in grandeur but that lust is transfigured into what it was meant to be which is the sort of great stallion of erotic desire see erotic desire is a great thing gives a little our power of our energy our Verve our purpose it becomes a mighty stallion that we can ride to the mountains would stand for the realm of God in Lois it's great images we all have it some degree we got this this creepy little thing on our shoulder maybe say to God yes you may kill it yes I give you permission and see what happens here's the last one the narrator see is coming from the distance this beautiful stately procession there's a woman comes up on a like a sadya just to Toria and this high chair and there's a great procession before and then all these angels and spirits around her praising her and honoring her so right away he thinks oh could this be the Blessed Mother you know and his guide says oh no it's a woman named Sarah Smith Sarah Smith well on earth the guide says she was a nobody no one nor on earth she ran she was a woman that ran a boarding house or something ordinary city in England she has known as ordinary name you can imagine Sarah Smith right but he said everybody that she met became her son or daughter she was so loving and brought them to life even the animals that she came across were cared for and they were alive and by her she was a life giver in the both radical way no one the earth newer no historian we write about her she had no fame no honor no glory but in the eyes of heaven she's honored to the enth degree there's a lot more to the story but I just want to focus on that part of it because what a what a rack we get into when we just fuss about worldly honours all the time what's the world think of me let me finally who cares the world which passes away how long is our life 70 years 80 for those who are strong the Bible says comes and goes maybe you're honored by the very worst people maybe the biggest idiots in society are honoring why are you fussing with worldly honors rather as Jesus says don't store up treasure on earth store up treasure heaven don't worry about honors on earth worry about being honored in heaven you know there's a whole spiritual revolution I think in that image if we let it sink in all right I've given you just a little tiny hint of the riches of this great book the Great Divorce do read it or listen to it it's one of the great explorations I think of the spiritual life and especially of you know what finally matters so go get the Great Divorce

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

Views: 186,620

Rating: 4.9348965 out of 5

Keywords: C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, book, heaven, hell, Bishop Barron

Id: rwJ8j-gNosQ

Length: 9min 48sec (588 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 23 2016