I have very much enjoyed reading the two Homilies of the Holy Father on St Francis made available by Sandro Magister. When I came across this quotation:
Man is truly both greatness and misery: he is greatness, because he bears within himself the image of God and is the object of his love; he is misery, because he can make evil use of the freedom that is his great privilege, ultimately pitting himself against his Creator
I was reminded of a passage from C.S. Lewis’ “Prince Caspian”, which I read recently to my daughters:
“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,” said Aslan. “And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth.”
Ah, the wonderful writings of C.S. Lewis. That portion really does beautifully connect to the Holy Father’s words.
Thanks for posting this.
I am only just reading the later books in the Narnia series now that I am reading them to the kids–I didn’t have them when I was a boy.
I must say that I didn’t find “Prince Caspian” up to the standard of the others. Then, Lewis could be all over the place with his writing (Perelandra, for instance was much better than the other two in his sci-fi trilogy).
I often get the impression that he never went back over his material to improve it, but that it ws written down as it came out of his head and stayed that way. Quite unlike Tolkien who fiddled with his stories over and over again.