At America’s “In All Things” blog, Bill Van Ornum invites reflection and opinions about C.S. Lewis’s fable The Screwtape Letters. He points out the parallels between the circumstances today (war in Libya) and the time when Lewis wrote the book (World War II). Van Ornum comments that Lewis “refers several times in Screwtape to the conflict and enmity between pacifists and those adhering to just-war theories, pointing out that each side becomes so certain of their righteousness that this issue becomes more important than what we ask for each time we say the Lord’s Prayer.”
Van Ornum sees an Ignatian streak in Lewis’s thought:
where he encourages us to live each day to the fullest, to be concerned about only each day’s bread, and to remember those lilies of the field that sway so beautiful and remain so protected. Simple pleasures—taking a walk, tea-time or coffee break, reading or re-reading a book, having a pint in a pub—were staples in Lewis’s life and he encouraged others to find activities like this. And like Ignatius, for him gratitude was a cardinal virtue.
