God, the Universe, and Hubble
On September 23rd, 1924, the universe got a little bigger – at least from our perspective. The ancients – Aristotle, Plato, Ptolemy – thought the cosmos more or less the size of our Solar System, stretching as far as Saturn, with a sphere of fixed stars rotating just beyond that. When modern telescopes were invented, first by Galileo in 1609 (based on a toy version by the Dutchman Hans Lippershey) astronomers eventually noticed that the stars were much, much farther away than had been thought. Distances began to be counted in light-years (the speed of light was first measured by Ole Romer in 1676) – how far light travels in one year, about 6 trillion miles, an unimaginably vast distance. Not only that: it was soon surmised – by Galileo, Kant and Herschel – that our own star, the Sun, is one of billions of stars in a galaxy we call the Milky Way, about 100,000 light years across.
So far, so vast. But on this day, nearly a century ago, the astronomer Edwin Hubble, a dashing, pipe-smoking all-American, who had been a star athlete – ha, ha – in college, playing football, baseball, basketball and running track – noticed as he peered through the 100-inch telescope at the Mount Wilson observatory in California, that one of the bright objects in the sky was not a star, but a whole new galaxy, the Andromeda Nebula, itself 2.5 million light years away.
Hubble eventually estimated there may be 2 billion such galaxies, although others now think perhaps 2 trillion, each one with billions of stars and separated by billions of light years. Hubble also discovered that these galaxies are moving away from each other at fantastic speeds, with greater velocity the farther they are from any given point (the so-called ‘Hubble’s Law’, which would provide evidence a few years later for Le Maitre’s theory of the ‘Big Bang’, but more on that later). For all we know there is no end to the universe, as space expands. (We will leave aside for now the question of other life forms, whether or not sentient, possibly inhabiting these countless planets)
Why? Why did God make a universe so big, that we would only realize its immense size in the twentieth century?
As the Catechism says, God created the world to manifest His glory to mankind, even if that remained partly hidden for aeons. After all, what else could show forth the nature of ‘God’ but an quasi-infinitely vast, measureless universe? The heavens are telling the glory of God.
As Saint Thomas puts it, in his own inimitable pithy way:
For He brought things into being in order that His goodness might be communicated to creatures, and be represented by them; and because His goodness could not be adequately represented by one creature alone, He produced many and diverse creatures, that what was wanting to one in the representation of the divine goodness might be supplied by another. For goodness, which in God is simple and uniform, in creatures is manifold and divided and hence the whole universe together participates the divine goodness more perfectly, and represents it better than any single creature whatever. (I.47.1)
All those galaxies, stars, planets, nebulae, for us, that we may wonder.
If this is the glory of this heaven and earth, the form of which is already passing away, how can we imagine what the next will be? Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, the things which God hath prepared for those that love Him.
So fret not, dear reader. The Almighty has counted the hairs of your head, as well as the stars of heaven. You are worth more than many sparrows, and any number of galaxies.
Carney’s Amoral Majority
After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading→
Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress
This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→
A Tale of Two Benedicts
A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading→
My Name is Bernadette
April 16th is a propitious day, for besides the anniversary of Father de Valk’s death, who founded Catholic Insight in its print form decades ago, and the commemoration of the ‘two Benedicts’, mentioned in accompanying posts, today we also recall Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times at[…]Continue reading→
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam (1380 – 1433) was one of the countless and glorious ‘victim souls’ in the history of the Church, those whose lives are filled with suffering, often of an unimaginable intensity, but who suffer joyfully. She was a fifteen-year old Dutch girl, out skating one day, when she fell and broke one[…]Continue reading→
The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus
As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→
Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów
We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→
Saint Gemma Galgani
On this April 11th, in 1903 – the same year that the Italian Guiseppe Sarto was elected Pope later that summer as Pius X – a lovely, young Italian woman died, by the name of Gemma Galgani. She lived a brief life of 24 years, as did a number of other young saints, including Pier[…]Continue reading→
An Ideological and Improper Translation
I noticed something odd with the psalm reading at Mass the other day. Our bishops’ conference here in Canada has decreed that the Mass in English – Novus Ordo – use the ‘NRSV’, the ‘New Revised Standard Version’, an ‘updated’ translation of the original RSV, first published in 1952. This ‘new translation’ has the tendency[…]Continue reading→
Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle: A Teacher for Teachers
Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (1651 – 1719), a French nobleman, ordained a priest, founded the first order in the Church’s history entirely without priests, and this came about almost by accident. I say ‘almost’, for, of course, there are no accidents with God. Destined for ordination from an early age, Jean-Baptiste never looked back, even[…]Continue reading→