Ascend – The Great Books Podcast

Episode: "Purgatorio: Gluttony and Lust (Cantos 23–27)"
Hosts: Deacon Harrison Garlick, Adam Minihan
Guest: Fr. Patrick Briscoe, OP
Date: March 17, 2026

Episode Overview

In this rich and lively episode, Ascend continues its deep-dive into Dante’s Purgatorio, exploring Cantos 23 through 27 with special guest Fr. Patrick Briscoe, OP. The focus narrows on the final two terraces of Mount Purgatory: gluttony (sixth terrace) and lust (seventh terrace), examining how love’s excesses are healed and how our loves are "straightened" as we approach the threshold of Paradise. The conversation blends literary insight, theological reflection, and practical spiritual wisdom, clarifying Dante’s moral vision and offering concrete guidance for modern spiritual struggles—especially resonant during the Lenten season.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Introduction to the Dominican Context

Timestamps: 03:24 – 12:41

• Fr. Briscoe introduces the Dominicans, emphasizing their historical context and spiritual mission: engaging emerging urban society through study and preaching, echoing the intellectual climate of Dante’s own age.
• Dominican Heritage in Rome: Santa Sabina as a spiritual and academic center; roots of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa written there and its role in forming future global Church leaders.
  • Fr. Briscoe: “Dominic proposes… a new kind of religious life, one that combines some elements of monasticism… but unlike monks, we don’t stay in the monastery. We go out for various apostolic activities.” (06:38)
• Fr. Briscoe’s role as Director of Communications: Making the Order’s life and work visible both internally and externally, fostering unity and evangelization.

2. The Structure and Thematic Movement of Purgatorio

Timestamps: 12:41 – 14:42

• Recap of the Mountain’s Structure: Sins are purged according to misdirected (pride, envy, wrath), deficient (acedia), and excessive loves (avarice, gluttony, lust).
• Why lust and gluttony are at the summit:
  • They are not the gravest sins but rather closest to true love—a distorted excess of what is good, not a total inversion of good itself.
  • Fr. Briscoe: “Our temptation… is to consider lust and lustful sins as the most egregious of sins… the reason that gluttony and lust are here at the height of purgatory is because they’re not as grave.” (13:42)

3. The Terrace of Gluttony (Cantos 23–25)

a. Contrapasso: Gauntness, Hunger, and the Image of God

Timestamps: 14:42 – 25:57

• The gluttonous are emaciated—punished by eternal hunger and thirst, tormented by the scent of nearby fruit and water yet unable to consume them.
  • A: “Their skin took form directly from their bones… it looks like they’re fasting, they’re starving, they struggled with gluttony.”
• Fr. Briscoe on the “OMO” (man) motif: Medieval commentators saw the Latin word “uomo” written on the human face—eyes as “O”s, nose as “M”—referring to being made in God’s image, now restored in self-mastery and fasting.
  • Fr. Briscoe: “You can see it on the face, meaning the two eyes are the O’s, and the nose forms the M… the image is going to be refashioned, that the sin has been the deformity, and that purgatory is the purifying and perfecting of the image.” (17:53)

b. Friendship, Intercession, and the Power of Prayer

Timestamps: 25:33 – 29:51

• Dante’s reunion with the poet Forese Donati—playful banter underscores the humility of Purgatory and the power of intercessory prayer.
  • Forese’s rapid ascent is attributed to his wife Nella’s prayers.
  • Fr. Briscoe (paraphrasing Benedict XVI): “My prayer for another is not something extraneous to that person, something external, not even after death… my prayer can play a part in his purification.” (27:41)

c. Examples and Biblical Echoes

• Literary and biblical references (Ovid’s wasting, Mary’s Annunciation, Christ on the Cross) accentuate the movement from bodily excess to spiritual hunger.

d. Gluttony as Spiritual Analogy

Timestamps: 31:16 – 44:59

• Gluttony encompasses more than overeating—a disordered attachment to food (and by extension, any material good) that quashes vigilance or right action.
• Fasting is extolled as a path to rediscovering true hunger, and the two “catechetical trees” (one unreachable, one barren) reinforce how our loves must be reordered:
  • B: “What Dante is telling us is that our desires must be subjected to reason, that we must intentionally practice virtue, and that we are led… by wisdom.” (43:25)
• Freedom and Will: Christ’s “choice” of the Cross is juxtaposed to Adam/Eve’s “choice” in Eden; purification realigns our will to God.
• Notable quote:
  • A: “Eve is more free in not taking of the fruit… taking of the fruit is actually not a true act of freedom.” (44:59)

e. Beatitude for Gluttony

• “Blessed are those whom grace illumines… whose hungering is always in just measure.” (50:59–52:15)

4. Philosophy of the Soul and the Body (Canto 25)

Timestamps: 52:15 – 62:01

• Statius delivers a quasi-Aristotelian, medieval account: Human souls move from vegetative, to sensitive, to rational; creation of life explained through contemporary embryology.
• The soul, without its body, shapes a “shadow” body in the afterlife.
  • A: “The soul as the form… so craves a natural state of being in the body that it creates a body of this air around it.” (62:01)
• Parallels to Plato’s bruised souls, Christian hylomorphism, and the eschatological hope for bodily resurrection.
  • B: “Dante is not content to have just spirits roaming around in a kind of ghost town. All of this is emphasizing the body, which is one of the constitutive parts of Christian doctrine about the last things.” (60:55)

5. The Terrace of Lust (Cantos 26–27)

a. Contrapasso: Purgation by Fire

Timestamps: 67:07 – 71:13

• The penance for lust is walking—and lingering—through a purifying wall of fire.
• Contrasting examples: Virgin Mary (Annunciation) and Artemis/Diana as models of chastity; the group sings hymns celebrating chaste married couples.
  • B: “Part of how they are healed of their lust is by singing praises to virtuous and chaste married couples, which is phenomenal.” (70:52)
• Sexuality is affirmed as a created good; the vice is its excess, not its existence.
  • A: “Sexuality is a good. What happens here at the top of purgatory, we’re dealing with excessive loves. So it’s not that the thing loved itself is bad… but that a good is loved in a disproportionate way.” (71:13)

b. Unity of All Lusts—Hetero and Homo

Timestamps: 74:02 – 80:11

• Dante places all forms of lust (heterosexual, homosexual, bestial) on the same terrace; the self-seeking core of lust is highlighted.
• The journey is a movement from perversion and animality to a purified, rational eros aligned with God’s design.
  • B: “The fundamental disorder here is a kind of selfishness… a soul’s self-seeking.” (77:21)
  • A: “He is using such a grotesque and bestial example as the meditation for souls being purged of heterosexual lust.” (79:16)

c. Liturgical Procession and the ‘Kiss of Peace’

• The shades greet one another with peace, signifying an elevation of eros from carnal to communal and sacramental love.
• Only in lust’s terrace do souls move both up and down the mountain—emphasizing both the gravity and potential redemption of disordered desires.

d. The Final Purification: Passing Through the Flames

Timestamps: 81:02 – 92:28

• Dante’s fear of passing through the fire is only overcome at the mention of Beatrice—his memory of her pure love propels him to accept even the pain of purification.
  • B: “He shook his head and smiled as at a child won over by an apple… Well then, what are we doing on this side?” (85:09)
  • A: “The memory of a woman can get him to enter into this flame… the feminine form as an icon of God’s beauty… an invitation for the soul to ascend.” (85:38, 88:27)
• Virgil’s guidance, representing human reason, brings Dante just to the threshold of the Garden of Eden—now, divine revelation (Beatrice/grace) must take over.

6. Virgil’s Farewell: The Fulfillment of Freedom

Timestamps: 90:23 – 94:12

• Virgil crowns Dante, declaring his will now "upright, wholesome, and free”—the soul, having undergone full purification, is fit to rule itself.
  • Virgil: "Now is your will upright, wholesome and free. And not to heed its pleasure would be wrong. I crown and miter you, lord of yourself." (90:25)
  • A: “It’s only after he’s been purified… that his freedom has been configured to the good… his interior life is an image of Christ, he can do what’s in his heart.” (92:28)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Fr. Briscoe: “Lord, open my lips. Let my whole day belong to you… all that comes forth from the mouth has to be consecrated.” (17:53)
• A, on Dante and Beatrice: “Beatrice’s idea endures through the purging of lust.” (85:38)
• B: “The eyes, which are the symbol of the image of God… to look into another's eyes is to see the soul of the other.” (88:27)
• A: “Fasting… does show you the power of fasting. Purgatorio is a spiritual map—it offers you: if you struggle with gluttony, here’s how to fight it.” (24:52–25:33)
• Fr. Briscoe: “The gospel doesn’t constrain us—it liberates us.” (92:28)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:24 – What’s a Dominican? / Dominican life in Rome
• 12:41 – Position of gluttony and lust at the top of Purgatory
• 14:42 – Imagery and examples of gluttony
• 25:33 – Friendship, prayer, and the effects of intercession
• 31:16–44:59 – Two trees, fasting, catechetical/liturgical moments
• 52:15–62:01 – Philosophy of body and soul; Dante’s medieval biology; hylomorphism
• 67:07 – Contrapasso for lust, musical prayers, and purifying flames
• 74:02–80:11 – The psychology and equality of lustful sins
• 81:02–92:28 – Virgil and Dante at the wall of fire; Beatrice as the final summons
• 90:23–94:12 – Virgil’s farewell and Dante crowned “lord of himself”

Flow & Tone

The episode blends humor (“don’t invite centaurs to anything ever!”), scholarly precision, and practical direction for spiritual growth. References jump from classical myth to medieval theology, always tied back to Dante’s poetic method and the drama of the human soul in formation. The interplay between the hosts and Fr. Briscoe brings both clarity and warmth, especially in demystifying tough passages (like medieval embryology or distinctions between beatitude and vice).

Final Takeaways

• Purgatorio's upper terraces reveal that the greatest dangers lie not in monstrous evils, but in distorted goods—love for pleasure or persons wrongly ordered.
• Dante’s world is relentlessly embodied: prayers, fasting, and friendship matter, in both Earthly and heavenly time.
• Purification is both personal asceticism and communal intercession; our will participates more in God’s freedom the more it is “straightened.”
• The path from gluttony and lust isn’t just “don’t do it”—it’s re-ordering desire so that eros, appetite, and ultimately all love ascends to the highest good.
• The ascent through purgatory is a pattern for Lent—a “miniature purgatory”—aimed not at mere abstention but at robust, positive human flourishing in Christ.

For further resources:

• Follow Fr. Briscoe and the Dominicans at op.org (new site coming) and on social (Ordo Predicatorum).
• Fr. Briscoe also co-hosts Godsplaining.

Next: Earthly Paradise with Dr. Michael West – Cantos 28-31.

End of Summary