Abandon Hope

Shawshank Prison and Dante’s Inferno emerge as a united realm where authentic “Hope” of escape, of once again finding the “True Path” of Liberation from suffering seems “impossible” and hopeless. The creature, left to its own devices, existentially “divorced” from its Creator, lacks any capacity to free itself from the nightmare that it has entered; “Without me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Only the intervention of “outside” help can guide the soul to the insights and breakthroughs necessary to “enter by the narrow gate that leads to life.” Dietrich von Hildebrand adds: “He knows that…he is in need of redemption…Within him lives a deep yearning for the Redeemer, Who by divine force will take the guilt of sin and bridge the gulf that separates the human race from God.”