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DENVER CATHOLIC | JUNE 13-26, 2020
I
n his Life of St. Augustine, the 5th-century bishop Possidius tells us
that the greatest of the Latin Doctors of the Church, knowing that his
earthly end was near, had four penitential psalms copied and hung
on the walls of his room. "From his sickbed," Possidius writes, Augustine
"could see these sheets of paper…and would read them, crying constantly
and deeply." It was an act of deep piety that we all might ponder ways to
emulate.
Were I to do something similar, however, I might add Psalm 42 ("Like
the deer that years for running streams, so my soul is yearning for you,
my God/My soul is thirsting for God, the God of my life; when can I
enter and see the face of God?") – and a few color prints from Astronomy
Picture of the Day, an extraordinary project of the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration, available for free at apod.nasa.gov. NASA
has come in for a lot of ( justified) criticism in recent years. By contrast,
Astronomy Picture of the Day is a service for which I'm delighted to pay
federal taxes. Every day, it provides me a preview of what I hope to see
post-mortem: the glory of God declared in a display of astronomical
wonders that vividly illustrate the extravagance of the divine creativity.
Astronomy Picture of the Day lifts my spirits, which is why I try to
"The heavens
declare
the glory
of God…"
GEORGE WEIGEL
The Catholic Difference
George Weigel is a distinguished
senior fellow of the Ethics and Public
Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
Perspectives
