In Him All Things Hold Together

Recently, amidst all the chaos of the current times, the world looked up in amazement at the stellar first photographs from the James Webb Telescope, the farthest, sharpest images of the universe we have seen. The telescope’s images are expected to greatly advance the field of astronomy.

The telescope launched on Christmas Day last year, and its orbit is almost a million miles further out in the solar system than earth. Its mission to capture images of the first stars and light from the very beginning of the universe, to study galaxy and star formation, and to search for the origins of life.

Webb’s infrared technology allows it to find dimmer, cooler, and older objects than we have previously seen. Because the universe is expanding, as light travels, it becomes red-shifted. Webb’s technology is expected to be able to see as far back as just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. The best of our technology seeks to know our origin, to see the past as clearly as possible.

The first released images were, well, other-worldly. And beautiful. It seems so impossible to adequately comprehend the vastness of the universe—the grandiose size of stars, the vast emptiness of space, the temporal distance that keeps us always looking in the past. The image above of the Carina Nebula, seen two weeks ago, is in reality how it looked 8,500 years ago; it just took that long for the light to reach here.

What are we to make of just grandeur? Some people look at the universe and feel so small on this tiny rock circling a small yellow star in a corner galaxy. And we are small. But not unimportant.

I see the beauty and vastness and grandeur of God’s creation. We focus on our world and ourselves, but his creation is so much bigger than just us. That doesn’t diminish our existence nor does it diminish the love his has for us. He created a universe full of galaxies and nebulas and black holes, and he cares for it so tenderly, so delicately, that he still knows every hair on my head.

Christ was there when those galaxies formed, when those stars first emitted light. Christ will be there when they burn out. The Christ at the beginning of the universe is the same one who walked the streets of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago and same we meet at every Mass now. The earthly, here-and-now is not so different from the vastness of space and all of time.