Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. This is Matt Petrucick, Senior Director of the Word on Fire Institute.

This week we are excited to bring you, once again the first lecture from Bishop Barron's popular

course Dante's Catholic Imagination, which is available in its entirety inside the Word

on Fire Institute.

We hope you enjoy this deep dive into Dante's evergreen, always relevant, poetic, moral, and theological genius.

I'll tell you a little bit about my own sort of personal relationship with the writings of Dante

it all began I know exactly when it was the summer of 1990 so God help me 30 years ago

I was in Europe I was getting my doctoral work done, and the summer of

1990 I went from Paris to Freiburg and Briesgau because I was doing an intensive German class from like July through the end of September.

And it was intensive. It was I think 9 to 3 every day, just non-stop German reading writing debating you know everything

so I enjoyed the class a lot but at the end of the day I was kind of you know

worn out I remember I don't know what possessed me but before I left Paris I grabbed from my room this little

paperback I think I just brought the the first part of the divine comedy the inferno and

thought well I'll read this just, you know,

kind of for relaxation.

So I had this little paper back in my room

and I was just exhausted at the end of the day

from all this German.

So I remember I was living in this kind of crummy dorm room.

They had us in a dorm room that had been semi-abandoned by a student, you know, some

undergraduate student.

So I'm in this crummy college dorm room. I remember lying on my stomach

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