St. Thomas and "The Mission"

[djeter]

In his book The Strangest Way, Fr. Robert Barron relates this scene from the Purgatorio: When Dante and Virgil come to Peter’s Gate, the portal to the mount of Purgatory proper, they face a great bronze door with three steps in front of it colored white, black, and red. These stand for the three attitudes of the repentant soul: confession, contrition, and satisfaction:

“In the brightly polished white of the first step, sinners see themselves with clarity and uncompromising honesty; in the black of the second step, they appreciate the hard, grinding work of contrition, feeling the pain that sin has caused themselves and others; and in the red of the third step, they sense the work of satisfaction that must be done. Acknowledging sin is not enough; restitution must be made in order that justice (right order) might be restored. The word “satisfaction” comes from the Latin satis facere, literally, to make enough, to do the required work.”

The souls doing their purgatorial work release themselves from bondage, because only they know when satisfaction has been done. In the film The Mission, Mendoza, a mercenary and slave trader, murders his brother in a jealous rage. Overwhelmed with guilt, he sits in a squalid cell, refusing to communicate or eat. The Jesuit missionary Fr. Gabriel challenges him with brutal directness, and Mendoza agrees to accompany him to his mission deep in the jungle. But the murderer resolves, as a penance, to drag behind him a terribly heavy bundle containing the accoutrements of his former life – swords, helmets, muskets, and the like.

Through jungle, over mountains, up streams, the poor man drags this load, until his fellow travelers have had enough. They beg Fr. Gabriel, saying, “We think he has taken this far enough.” The priest responds, “But he doesn’t think so, and until he does, I don’t think so either.” Only when he has lugged his penitential burden up a steep cliffside and arrived at the mission does Mendoza relent. When the bundle is cut away, he breaks down in tears both remorseful and joyful: finally he knew that satisfaction had been made.

This is Dante’s third step of red. A lot of what is related in The Mission originates not only in Dante but in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. To deepen your appreciation of that Brian Davies has written on St. Thomas, Sin and Satisfaction – the goal of the incarnation.