Stargazer

Expires on Monday 5:45am

Radio 4's daily prayer and reflection with Father Dermot Preston Good Morning. When I was about fifteen I acquired a telescope to study the stars. This was rather optimistic given that in industrial Burnley the night sky was washed-amber by light pollution; and the telescope itself also was poor and rickety - so battered and out-of-focus that my mother reckoned it had once been owned by Captain Ahab and thrown at Moby Dick. I was not amused. But my interest in astronomy has remained, and in recent years I have been entranced by the James Webb telescope orbiting the earth and staring into the outer limits of the cosmos. The telescope is made up of 18 gold, hexagonal mirrors which (on arrival in space) unfurled origami-like and slotted together as an single 21-foot reflector. The calibration of James Webb took 3 months, as each individual mirror had to be focused on one particularly bright, star. When the focus of all 18 mirrors was integrated & aligned they became a single eye scanning-out over creation. The human heart could be looked at as a complex of mirrors which, left untended, can end-up pointing in different & conflicting directions; a life can easily lose its focus and go adrift, questioning who I am? or what I am meant to be doing with my life? Today is St Lucy’s Day; her name means ‘light’ and it is especially celebrated in Scandinavia because her Feast is a beacon which overlooks the longest, darkest nights of the year. Lord, you are the Light that shines in the darkness, a Light that darkness cannot overpower; give me the courage and insight I might need to re-align the mirrors of my heart on You alone. Amen.