Dante

Check out this superb site about the World of Dante, Italy's greatest poet. Teachers of the Comedy will find a range of materials intended to facilitate the teaching of the poem. They include a video demonstration, which introduces users to the chief components to the site and how to access them; a list of suggested activities; additional readings on the poem and on the artists whose work is included; links to other sites; and a survey. The activities work particularly well if teachers show students how to access the various materials, especially the information available on the combined text pages and search page. Or just read the poem, and enjoy the illustrations, maps, and music.

God gives

Another very fine meditation appeared in Magnificat on 19 April 2012. By Sister Aemiliana Löhr, a German Benedictine nun who died in 1972, it expresses an important insight:

"God gives. This is the founding fact of our belief; on it revelation takes its resting-place. We know about God only because he gives himself; because he gives himself to us. God does not have something; he is everything. When he gives, he can only give himself, and thereby everything. In everything in which we receive, the gifts of nature or of grace, God gives himself; and only to the extent that we recognise that do we really come into possession of what he gives us. For all his gift can be taken from us, yet we remain in possession of his gift and favour when we see God as the heart of the gifts he gives."

For more on the theology of gift see my article here, or (better yet) read the article by Antonio Lopes in the collection Being Holy in the World. Go to the Ignitum Today site for an article on Gift in relation to love and knowledge.