Photo: Hobble Telescope Hodge 301. Courtesy of NASA.
Astronomy has opened up for our minds the wonders of a vast universe which stretches beyond our understanding. We are asking:
Are there other intelligent creatures in the universe? My opinion is that matter is for life, that is, principles of life are constituents of matter ready to emerge as evolutionary conditions brought about by cosmic powers both physical (e.g. gravity) and intelligent (angels) who give direction to the evolutionary processes according to God's Plan.
Lower forms of life, as we have observed on our planet, paved the way for beings whose biological complexity became such as to allow God's paramount creation of intelligent forms, man and woman and other intelligent forms may at this moment be on other planetary systems of our galaxy and beyond.
Is Christ also the King of these intelligent beings even though not of earth?
St. Paul seeing Christ from a cosmic respective wrote:
"For in him were created all things
in heaven and on earth,
the visible and the invisible,
whether thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers;
all things were created through him
and for him." (Col.1:16)
The Incarnation
is an repeatable event
in the history of the Universe.
And here we puzzle and ask, how can that be?
1. Do all these intelligent creatures also need Redemption?
2. If so, are human beings destine to bring the faith in Christ to other planets?
3. Possibly, in a long cosmic history, we could pass on Christ's faith to another planetary culture and they in turn would be able to pass it on to another, and so on.
4. There is also the possibility of passing on the faith through electronic communications.
5. If mankind will not be able to spread the faith cosmically, I am sure God would reveal it to them in some way.
I don't pretend to have answers to these questions except to quote St. Paul:
"For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God;
for creation was made subject to futility,
not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it,
in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption
and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God." (Rm 8:19-21)
Finally, I found a poem Christ in the Universe by Alice Meynell (1847-1922) part of which reads:
| No planet knows that this Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss, Bears as chief treasure, one forsaken grave. Nor, in our little day, But in the eternities, |
to Realms of Christ's Kingdom