Comments for The Key That Fits the Lock, Part Eight at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 6 out of 6 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Tue, 21 May 2013 23:45:07 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-eight.html#comment-14080 Oh, yes, please Grump and Tony have that lunch. And sell tickets to it! I hav'nt enough erudition to participate but I would sure like to watch. - Marilyn Sat, 27 Oct 2012 07:29:55 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-eight.html#comment-14050 Dear Grump -- I would dearly love to do that. Till We Have Faces is a brilliant book -- and it is steeped in everything Lewis ever read from the ancients and the medievals and those Renaissance poets who really weren't far from the medievals. I have so much already on my docket -- a book about the poetry of old hymns, for instance. Right now I am writing an essay you might like, for presentation at a conference coming up at Hillsdale, on epic. The topic was assigned to me: What Is Epic? I am arguing that epic is fundamentally theological; and I'm drawing on Homer, Hesiod, and Virgil from the ancients, and Dante (naturally), Spenser, Milton, Tasso, the Grail author, and others from the moderns ... All kinds of people put in a cameo appearance: Lewis, Undset, Dostoyevsky, Melville, Tolkien ... Grump, I wish we could have lunch someday! - Tony Wed, 24 Oct 2012 17:50:39 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-eight.html#comment-14040 Thank you sir, for your inspiring article! The Odyssey and Quest for the Holy Grail are two of my favorite great books, and it was wonderful to see how you brought them together to make such a good point. God bless you! - A Young Lady Wed, 24 Oct 2012 02:41:25 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-eight.html#comment-14039 I read all eight installments of Mr. Esolen's series "The Key That Fits the Lock" in one sitting. Although I was raised Catholic, I never read the Book of Genesis. Actually, I don't recall ever reading the Bible growing up. But in my late thirties, I experienced an awful crisis of FAITH. It was not a crisis of faith in God (I did not believe in God). It was a crisis of my faith in my self --- in my ability to endure. Actually, I could not justify the point in the effort of enduring at all. But this story is way too long for a blog, so I'll skip to the end. My FAITH in God became important to me when I first discovered FAITH is the only antidote to fear --- fear of intimacy, fear of exposure, fear of abandonment --- name it --- FEAR. As creatures of God, we have good reason to fear. Adam and Eve hid for shame. I hide in fear. This is why FAITH (which is completely irrational) is the only antidote to fear. Unfortunately, my undergraduate degrees are in engineering and my graduate degree is in mathematics, so understanding religious language was a serious hardship. But this story is also way too long for a blog, so I'll skip to the end. This led to my second discovery. I 'know' something only when I find the words --- like Adam naming plants and animals --- or my self when I can reduce a phenomenon to a non-singular array of equations. But words can get in the way of understanding --- like the Tower of Babel or non-Euclidean geometries. My faith journey flashed before my eyes when I read Mr. Esolen's articles. So, thank you, Mr. Esolen, for your gift. KNOWLEDGE follows LOVE and everything begins with a gift. - Facile1 Wed, 24 Oct 2012 02:36:23 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-eight.html#comment-14033 Very nice. But rather than compare Galahad to Odysseus - which obviously like to unlike - the fairer comparison would be from one pilgrim to another, Christian and pagan. This is what C.S. Lewis does in his last and perhaps greatest novel, "Till We Have Faces". In it the Eleusinian Mysteries are explored for their deep spiritual significance, and held in a strange parallel fashion to be some sort of inkling of the Paschal Mystery. Would you, Professor Esolen, feel up to writing on Lewis' presentation of ancient paganism as foreshadowing of Christianity in this novel? I know it'd be interesting to read ... - Gramp Tue, 23 Oct 2012 19:38:41 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-eight.html#comment-14032 Sublime Professor Esolen! Let us cast off all predictions of future failings and spurn all faulty attributions of absurd causes and fling ourselves into the ship of Faith. May Christ's peace be with all men of good will! - Achilles Tue, 23 Oct 2012 19:36:21 +0100