‘Bacon Is My Beatrice’

Teaching the Divine Comedy to his students at Petra Academy in Bozeman, MT, Sam Koenen was trying to convey how the pilgrim Dante sees Beatrice sacramentally. Struggling for a way to explain to them how sacramentalism works, he drew on the Jim Gaffigan routine about bacon (“the most beautiful thing on earth”). This:

The pig is an amazing animal. You feed it an apple, it makes bacon. The pig is turning an apple, essentially garbage, into bacon. That’s magic…!

One of the students said, “Mr. Koenen, it sounds like bacon is your Beatrice.”

Well, yeah, the teacher said.

So they made him a bumper sticker. And they made one for the author of How Dante Can Save Your Life. It will be on the bumper of a certain 2007 Honda Accord before sunrise Monday. Thanks, y’all!