Back in my college days, I had the pleasure of reading C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. The series of seven books records Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy’s adventures in Narnia. Lewis, a gifted author, pulled me into Narnia for an experience I remember to this day.
Lewis wrote the stories for Lucy, his Goddaughter. In the dedication to the first book, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” he says: “I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales….But some day you will be old enough to start reading fair tales again.”
I recently read that Disney Studios is making a movie of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” I knew I needed to reread these books before this powerful story was washed through the lens of Disney. (On the web at www.narnia.com) Now that I am a few years older with a wealth of experience under my belt, I’m once again enjoying my own but different adventures in Narnia.
Lewis has a gift for including Christian principles, values and images in his works and the Chronicles of Narnia are no exception. To my great delight, I’ve stumbled on some wonderful spiritual reading for Lent. The power of a great story moves my heart, inspires and challenges my images and thinking. Like the story of the temptation of Jesus in today’s Gospel, my world is upended and I’m given the opportunity to see with new eyes.
”Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.” (Ps 51 cf 3a)