We are all children
of the sun, born on a planet flung from its glowing vapour as a
ball of molten gas; children of light too, for the sun's
ultra-violet rays then heated up a rich complex of molecules in the
sea which one day mutated into the ancestors of all later life on
earth, and created the protective layer of ozone that allowed the
process of evolution to run its course.
Among the different
shafts of light which St Francis reflected perhaps the most
original lit up the entire natural context of our existence and the
creatures we share it with. Before him, Christians had interpreted
Genesis as entitling them to treat all other forms of life
as their slaves; he, in contrast, believed that as works of God
they should be respected and loved no differently from
men.
He could not know
that all visible life was dependent for its energy on solar power,
filtered through the ozone, and trapped by the plants for general
circulation through the food chain. Nevertheless observant,
responsive to beauty and a visionary, he noticed wherever he went,
the miraculous effects of the sun's light, warmth, and cycle of
seasons.
The metaphor of
light for God, common to so many thinkers, poets and mystics,
suggests an analogue between it and the modern concept of energy,
fundamental to all existence and activity, terrestrial and
astral.
This is a
proposition uncannily similar to the view propounded by some of the
world's leading physicists.
Studying astronomy
provides the basic information each person needs to understand
where he or she comes from and where the human race is going. There
are universal questions: every religion in the world has a
cosmology and they all contain a grain of truth; modern science
brings a new and much more complete version of cosmology. The
British Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees, then goes on to expound
the Big Bang theory of creation.
Our universe came
into being as a minuscule speck of brilliant light. It was almost
infinitely hot, and inside this fireball was contained the whole of
space. And with the creation of space came the birth of
time.
In fact the theories
of modern science are not all so 'new'. About six years after
Francis of Assisi died, Canon Henri d'Avranches wrote a
versification of Thomas of Celano's life of the saint. In a flight
of fancy he evokes the dialogue St Francis had with the Sultan of
Egypt, which includes this passage.
He reasons . .
.
How it is that all things come from one source,
how a moment
Of that first principle is simple substance, a
simple
Moment in the present, a substance simpler
than
A mathematical point; how its essence is
wondrously present
Wholly, always and everywhere outside of place
and time.