Pastoral Message

Dear Flock:

Last weekend, I attended a men's retreat at Bellarmine Retreat House in Barrington, IL. The retreat was themed, A Jesuit's Guide to the Stars led by a Jesuit priest who used to be the director of the Vatican Observatory.

I don't have too scientific a mind, but I learned some things that are informative for our Christiar spirituality.

Scientists now figure the universe is 13.8 billion years old and is still continually expanding. We can now see 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 galaxies with our most modern telescopes. (I don' know what you call that number, but it is a ten with twenty zeros behind it). There are 8000 planets that we can now see and none is like earth.

Of course, scientific understanding is ever-changing. "You just live with it," our speaker said. But the things that we keep learning do unfold for us more and more about how God creates. The bigness of it all. Our smallness. Yet, our specialness. We ponder in awe the vastness of it all from our finite piles of skin, bones, and brains. We are but dust, and yet, we are allowed to see the stars. As our speaker said, "Looking at the stars reminds you that God has such a longer view of things than we do."

In these days of trying politics in the nation and wars across this unique planet, I find myself needing a little hope. A little hope in God's long view of things. Hope in God's ability to keep creating. Hope in Christ and the Spirit's work. Hope that, when faced with the enormity of it all we can each feel empowered by this triune God to do our part to produce fruit for the life of the world. Hope that our destiny really is in God's hands.
Yours,
Pastor Dan