Culling Flowers on a Bright Pathway?

Dante’s scholars agree that the character of Matelda represents the “prelapsarian” human being, that is, the person not weighed down by original sin. In yesterday’s DM, I argued, following Matthew Fox, that among the peculiarities of women mystics of the Middle Ages, it’s easy to find a kind of disregard for the doctrine of original sin. In Mechtild of Magdeburg’s work, in particular, Love/God calls the soul “Queen” and desires only to embrace her, with no hint of any need to purify it from any stain.

It seems to me, therefore, that the identification of Dante’s character Matelda with Mechtild of Magdeburg is quite solid. This means that the essence of her spirituality was understood and praised at her time, at least a few decades after she died, when Dante composed his poem.

In his voyage on the other side, Dante meets Matelda as a solitary lady who walks around the garden of Eden singing and culling flowers. And the bright colors of such flowers paint her whole path. When Dante asks about her joyful demeanour, she answers that her smile comes from always contemplating the works of God in the universe. Can you get more via positiva than that?

Then she sings a Psalm which begins with this verse: “Blessed are those whose sins are covered.” Granted that she guides Dante toward the top of the mountain of Purgatory, where souls abide for a time in order to be cleansed of their vices — and Dante walks the same way — she is not somebody who had to do that. She is pure already.

Yet she is not a Pollyanna, nor a person without a spine. All of a sudden, she plunges the reluctant Dante into the waters of the river Lete (= Forget), keeping his head under for a moment until he gulps some water — what a lady! — to win Dante’s reluctance not to be forgiven, but to forget his past sins.

The whole point is reaching a place in which, whatever actual mistakes you may have committed in your life, you don’t linger even for a second on them. You are free instead to live a life of gratitude and contemplation.

Does this mean that we can spend our lives free of pain, tragedy, and suffering? That we can simply cull flowers on a bright pathway? Not at all. In Mechtild’s works, we find a whole via negativa side, which she experienced fully in her life. She talks about “sinking into the night”!

But she does not linger in the via negativa. She does not enjoy her lament. She rather offers a way out of it, which is deep, costly, yet rewarding. “From suffering,”— she writes — “I have learned this: That whoever is sore or wounded by love will never be made whole unless she embrace the same love which wounded her.”

We, of course, tend to think that it is other people who wound us. That is true, on a superficial level. And we should make them stop. But on a deeper level, experiencing suffering “for love” in its true sense — that is, for our deeper growth — is the only path to the wholeness and joy for which we were created in the first place.

A life of gratitude and awe and singing and dancing is our aim. Whenever we can, tenaciously, having walked through all the dark valleys. God says to Mechtild —and to each of us: “Woman, you ought to dance merrily, dance like my elected one! Dance like the noblest, loveliest, richest Queen!”

Banner Image: Flowers alongside a bright garden path. Photo by Naoki Suzuki on Unsplash

Queries for Contemplation

What does it mean to you to be “wounded by love”? And does your path lead you toward the Garden of Eden, or do you feel still excluded?

Related Readings by Matthew Fox

Meister Eckhart: A Mystic Warrior for Our Time

Passion for Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart

Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality

Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth

Meditations with Meister Eckhart: A Centering Book

Meditations with Julian of Norwich

Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations