The Sun Being Eaten by the Moon!

 August 21, 2017

Ordinary Time – Season of Stability

Today there is a complete solar eclipse. I remember there being an eclipse when I was a child. My mother had us stay inside with the curtains closed lest we fail to resist the urge to look up and watch the event and end up blind. I wonder about this now. I’m surprised I haven’t heard stories of people going blind after an eclipse. It would seem that if that were the case, there would be thousands or more people over the centuries who had gone blind.

Who were the first people to look at the sun during an eclipse and go blind? There must have been somebody who then passed the message of warning on to future generations. Since this is an infrequent event, how was the message passed on through centuries and across continents, I wonder. Now there are whole groups of people, eclipse followers, who seek out this visual phenomenon.

I understand why primitive cultures might consider it an evil omen. If I were a time traveler, I could go back in time to the day and place of an early eclipse and pretend I was making it happen through magic. It must have been a wondrous and frightening thing to see centuries ago as the sun was slowly eaten away. We now know the science behind this event, but for them it was a mystery.

Every month the moon wanes, as if being eaten by a large monster in the sky. Then it slowly grows back. We are used to that phenomenon of the night sky, but not to losing our sun if even for but a few minutes.

Our world is filled with so many mysteries yet to be uncovered.

The city had no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gave it light.  Rev. 21:23

 

This post is part of a series of reflections on the Church year.   click here to follow blog

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