Astronomy Bucket List: Experiencing The Wonder!

  • Article (blog post)
  • 1000 words
  • Level: all audiences

Fr. James Kurzynski, writing for The Catholic Astronomer blog, discusses the joy one of his parishioners upon seeing the sun through a Hydrogen-alpha telescope for the first time. Fr. Kurzynski writes:

As I drove home to get ready for our evening Mass with the college students, I thanked God for the experience I had with the Welsch family. It revealed to me that, even as a hobby astronomer, I had allowed myself to become a little desensitized while gazing at some of the wonders of the universe. This desensitization reminded me of my faith life and how so many beautiful aspects of Catholicism can become so common place that we forget their beauty and impact.

For example, I have prayed the “Our Father” thousands of times in my life. However, do I stop and reflect on the beauty of this prayer or do I simply allow it to ramble from my lips to be quickly forgotten? Just as St. Augustine reminds us that the “Our Father” is the perfect prayer, containing within it a prayer of adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and repentance, so, too, does a simple gaze at our star (with the proper filter for eye safety) remind us of the wonders of our solar system, humbling us when seeing a solar storm in which the Earth could easily fit, and the miracle of how our common home is “just right” for life to exist. The lessons our prayer and our wonderment of the universe teach us is that every moment of our lives is to become an act of prayer and that every encounter with creation is to become an opportunity to see God’s glory on full display before us.

Click here to read the full article on The Catholic Astronomer – the blog of the Vatican Observatory Foundation.