The Mind of God

I don’t know if you’ve seen the first image from the James Webb Space Telescope (well if you’re reading this I guess you have now) but there’s something I didn’t realize about it at first. There are only about 13 stars in that picture. (They’re the ones with the star-like distortions.) All the other objects in the picture are galaxies! And the light they emitted is incredibly old. More than 12 billion years old. Which means we are looking back in time to see a tiny sliver of the universe 12 billion years ago.

Numbers like that make my brain hurt. Those distances, that amount of time won’t fit in my mind. I try contemplating, and words like wonder and awe and majesty aren’t enough. No words are enough. And all of this reminds me of what else won’t fit in my mind. The one who is the source of this tiny sliver of the universe. And the source of the universe that is many orders of magnitude greater than what is in this picture.

Of course the human mind can’t contain God. But images like this, realities like this, help to stretch what I can conceive of. And remind me of the vastness of what we are trying to talk about when we say God. The human mind can’t contain God. But that’s ok because God can contain me. And does. In love.

-Fr Lou