Anime Lectio: The Duke of Death and His Maid Season 3

                                                           1. Why do Anime Lectio? 

Anime Lectio is a time for us to stop and take a breath. Between work, activities, family life, and social media, our minds are always moving. We rarely take time to contemplate and ask, why am I watching this anime? What’s the point of all this? And, how is this making me feel? 

2. Put away all distractions 

(phones, work, etc.)

We are so enslaved to things that stimulate our minds. Let this be a moment for us to free our minds, look inside of ourselves, and be at peace.

3. Deep Breathing

Take several deep breaths. Let your mind relax. If you’ve had any questions, desires, or struggles that you’ve been hiding or stuffing away, let them rise up to the surface. 

4. Open yourself to God’s Presence

Remember God places all our thoughts and desires inside of us, and He uses them to draw us closer to Himself. God gives us a community to help us understand who we are and what He is calling us to do. The faces of other people you know and don't know are like signs of God’s presence.  

5. Think About What’s on Your Mind in Relation to the Anime

Think about what’s been on your mind in relation to the anime.  The following is an example of such thoughts written by me. 

Sometimes it takes time for relationships to really start since building up a relationship with another person, or relationships with several people, requires things like trust (relationships with several people are more complicated, especially depending on what the relationships, and the people involved in them, are like).  There can also be other circumstances/reasons preventing the relationship, or relationships, from moving forward that need to be resolved.  An interesting example of the resolution of such circumstances/reasons can be seen in the third season of The Duke of Death and His Maid.

6. Brief and written explanation of the anime

Pay attention to how the brief and written explanation of the anime seen on this blog, or seeing the anime for yourself since that's better than any explanation, might “speak” to you or shed light on the things that have been on your minds.

In the third season of The Duke of Death and His Maid, the duke and his maid find out how they can actually break the duke's curse of the touch of death with the help of new friends, as well as friends they made in seasons one and two (I wrote about seasons one and two in an older post on this blog).  This involves going back in time with these friends in order to stop the witch that cursed the duke when he was a child due to her jealousy of loving his grandfather, but him not loving her the same way (or something like that).  After finding this witch and convincing her to help them, she doesn't curse the past duke and simply undoes the future duke's curse.  Despite wanting to marry his maid now that his curse is gone, and due to spending a lot of time together, he has to marry someone his mother chooses for him in order to continue their noble lineage.  However, the duke has a brother who ends up doing this for him (he loves the witch's sister, but she is of noble lineage), so the duke ends up marrying his maid anyway.

7.  Reflect on the anime

Has this brief and written explanation of the anime shed any light on what's been on your minds?  The following is an example of a reflection on the anime from me.

The circumstances/reasons that prevented the relationship between the duke of death and his maid from moving forward that needed to be resolved were mostly based on a magical curse that caused the duke to bring death upon whatever he touched. However, there was another curse that they had to deal with that could also stop them from being closer to each other despite wanting to - the curse of nobility (in the sense of marrying someone chosen for you, not who you choose). Figuring out how to break a magical curse, or something like it (a body ailment for example since that's a way of understanding what the duke's curse was), is simply a matter of finding who or what caused the curse, or something like it, and finding out how to stop it based on who or what you find, even though this takes time. Breaking the curse of nobility, however, isn't like figuring out how to break a magical curse. The only thing that can save you from this curse is having someone else who can continue your noble lineage for you so you can marry who you want to marry, which luckily happened with the duke so he could marry his maid (it also worked out for the duke's brother, which is even luckier).

8. Final Prayer

Please voice any prayer intentions for friends, family, or people around the world that relate to this anime.  The following is an example written by me.

Let us pray that we can figure out how to either break or live with the curses (whatever they may be) in our lives.