Cantos XXIX, XXX. Dante walks along the stream, following Matilda who is on the other side. After a while a masque approaches, with figures representing the books of the Old and New Testaments, the three theological virtues and the four cardinal virtues. A chariot is drawn by a griffin,dappled red and white in symbolism of both parts of the bible, the divine and human natures in Christ, and the bread and wine of the Eucharist. On this chariot is Beatrice. She reproaches Dante, who weeps.

Dorothy Sayers calls this first masque the Pageant of the Sacrament. It has the form of a Corpus Christi pageant, where the host would be carried on the chariot. It represents, in its figures, the Scriptures which point to the incarnation (Old Testament) and attest to it directly (New Testament). The griffin symbolizes this unity of the scripture, the two-fold nature of Christ, and the sacrament through which we can participate in that mystery directly. However, in this case, Beatrice rides in the Chariot. She is Dante’s own God-bearing image, the sign which first pointed him to God. She is also a symbol of the Church, the mystical body of Christ, and so stands in for the Body of Christ in a sacramental procession. In the second of the two Cantos she speaks plainly of how Dante’s natural talents, and the gift he had been given in his first vision of her, have been squandered. He has, by grace, been brought to this place where man is happy, i.e. where fully human flourishing is possible, but must recognize how he has strayed in the past, and repent.

Today, Holy Thursday, we look back to the upper room, and the institution of the Eucharist, when Christ gave us the sacrament of his body and blood. All symbols draw us to this one, which both shows us the presence of Christ, and makes it real. We have been brought, via the slopes of Mount Purgatory, to this pivotal moment between the Old and New Testament stories, and to the verge of the events of Good Friday which change everything.