Welcome to our daily rosary meditation. Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Let's call to mind all those we've promised to pray for.

In CS Lewis masterpiece, the Great Divorce, several unpurified souls take a bus ride from hell to heaven.

If they want, they can stay in heaven, or if they want, they can return to hell.

Now, some choose heaven, although the choice usually involves some struggle and most just go back to the bus because hell is

really where they feel at home. One of the souls, however, has a lizard on his shoulder,

and the lizard keeps whispering in his ear,

telling him to go back to the bus to go back to hell.

But the soul meets an angel.

The angel says, off so soon, and the soul says, I'm off and he explains that he knows the lizard on

his shoulder doesn't fit in heaven and he can't make the lizard shut up, so he'll just have to leave.

And the angel tells him he doesn't have to go.

All the soul has to do is let the angel kill the lizard. Now this sounds pretty

drastic to the soul. He knows the lizard on his shoulder is a pain, an embarrassment, but he's not really ready to have the lizard killed.

So the soul tries to change the subject, tries to delay, asks for time to think the angel is

the angel is relentless he keeps asking me to think about it the angel is relentless he keeps asking

may I kill it?

In fact, eight times in rapid succession,

the angel asks the soul for permission

to kill the lizard on his shoulder.

The angel is an angel of death and is ready to pounce in a second,

but he will not destroy the lizard without the man's permission.

...