Spiritual Direction From Dante: Ascending Mount Purgatory

by Paul Pearson

Overview

In Spiritual Direction from Dante: Ascending Mount Purgatory, Oratorian Father Paul Pearson provides the second installment of his detailed but accessible spiritual commentary on Dantes masterpiece triptych, the Divine Comedy—this time, on the middle volume, Purgatorio. Fr. Pearson takes readers step-by-step through the text, explaining the spiritual lessons Dante intends his readers to learn about this mysterious place reserved for the purification of souls.

Purgatory is the least understood of the three possible ;destinations; when we die (though unlike heaven or hell, it is not an eternal one). It is confusing to many Christians and even to many Catholics today. As he did in his first volume in the Spiritual Direction from Dante trilogy, Avoiding the Inferno, Fr. Pearson adroitly draws out the great spiritual insights hidden in the Divine Comedy and clears up the fog. Readers will:

Learn about the purgation required of souls whose penances and venial sins were not taken care of while on earth

Learn how Purgatory is ordained by God's infinite mercy, rather than out of vindictiveness

And learn that, while Purgatory is a merciful place, it should never be our goal, since pure love will always lead to Heaven

Fr. Pearson continues his 3-part exposition of Dante's Divine Comedy from a spiritual lens, focusing this time on the souls being purged of the effects of their earthly transgressions. A reading experience like no other, Spiritual Direction from Dante: Ascending Mount Purgatory will both educate and entertain you, but most important, will help you to be purged of sin while in this life, so as to bypass Mount Purgatory in the next!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781505117554
Publisher:	TAN Books
Publication date:	07/14/2020
Series:	Spiritual Direction From Dante , #2
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Father Paul Pearson converted to Catholicism during his university days, entered the Toronto Oratory in 1985, was ordained to the priesthood in 1989, and began serving as Dean of Saint Philip’s, the seminary run by the Oratorians, in 1992. This series of books has arisen out of classes he has given to seminarians there for many years. This volume, Ascending Mount Purgatory, and his previous and forthcoming ones on Inferno and Paradiso have been written so that a wider audience may benefit from “spiritual direction from Dante.”

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Spiritual Direction from Dante Vol. I: Avoiding the Inferno
 
Fusing practical advice about how to live one’s Christian vocation with a piece of high art from the Middle Ages is not an easy thing to do. Father Pearson carries it off superbly, and while doing so, he gives the reader a fresh appreciation of Divina Commedia.
 
- K.V. Turley, National Catholic Register
 

. . . an authentic and original view of one of the great works of the Renaissance is difficult to come by. However, in the first installment of an expected trilogy on the spiritual lessons of the Divine Comedy, the Oratorian Fr Paul Pearson has provided just that.
 
Patrick Cusworth, Catholic Herald
 

Pearson treats the Inferno — volumes on the Purgatorio and Paradiso are forthcoming — as a repository of spiritual wisdom for the life of disciples. Dante’s guided tour of hell is meant to help his readers avoid it. 
 
Rev. Raymond J. De Souza, Grandin Media
 

From the Publisher