The Devil’s Tricks
Saturday, January 14, 2017
7:00 pm | Second floor
The Human Adventure Series
A commentary and staged reading of The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, organized by the Well-Read Mom reading group, with Dr. James Como, a founder of the New York C. S. Lewis Society, introduced by Marcie Stokman, Well-Read Mom Founder. The Letters will be read by Jacob Donaldson, actor.
Whereas C.S. Lewis remains one of the best known contemporary Christian authors, The Screwtape Letters is probably not one of his most read works, compared not only to his popular Narnia series, but also to his more explicitly apologetic or autobiographic works. Yet, The Screwtape Letters, in spite of its brevity and unusual literary genre, is a truly profound meditation on the deep theological significance of the human relationship with the realities of the world, including material reality in its most banal aspects.
According to Lewis, reality itself is the instrument through which God calls man to himself, so much so that the devil's main trick is to pull man away from it. Not by chance, among Lewis's books The Screwtape Letters was the favorite of the late Monsignor Luigi Giussani, who once wrote: "What is the formula for the journey to the ultimate meaning of reality? Living the real. There is an experience... of an archane, mysterious presence to be found within the opening of the eye, within the attraction reawakened by things, within the beauty of things." This basic truth is echoed many times in the passages by Lewis that will be read at this event.
