Eclipse 

If you are reading this article, it means the world didn’t end last week. This, despite the occurrence of a torrential rainstorm, an earthquake, and a solar eclipse all happening within a fortnight of each other. Personally, I found the rain depressing, the earthquake unsettling, and the eclipse fascinating. I remember my first experience of a solar eclipse. I was in high school, and my friend Mike insisted that the pair of Blublocker sunglasses that he had purchased from a television ad for $19.95 were sufficient eye protection to stare directly at a solar eclipse. They were not. Poor Mike was seeing spots for days.  

We moderns tend not to pay attention to the sun, the moon, and the stars. But special events like a solar eclipse can still make us stop and take notice of the movements of the heavens. It is an ancient tradition in the Church to see the sun as an image of Christ and the moon as an image of Our Lady. The moon gives off no light of its own. Instead, it reflects the light of the sun, gently illuminating the night sky. In a similar way, Our Blessed Mother is not a source of her own light. Like the rest of creation, she receives everything she has from Our Lord. But she reflects His goodness and His light more than any other creature. All her beauty is derived from His. While the sun’s radiance is so great that we cannot look at it directly, we take great pleasure in gazing at the gentle beauty of the moon. In a similar way, Our Lord’s glory is terrifying to behold. But that glory becomes accessible as it is reflected by Mary, in whose motherly mildness we seek refuge. 

So, if the moon is a symbol of the Blessed Mother and the sun is a symbol of Christ Jesus, how does a solar eclipse help us to understand their relationship to each other and to us? A solar eclipse takes place when the moon is positioned between the sun and the earth, temporarily obscuring the sun from view. When does Our Lady hide her Son from view? When she is pregnant. She becomes pregnant at the Annunciation, when she consents to the Angel Gabriel’s message that God had chosen her to be the mother of Our Savior. At that moment, God the Son becomes flesh to dwell among us, obscured during those first nine months within the body of His mother. Now, here’s what’s really interesting. Normally, the feast of the Annunciation takes place on March 25. This year, because that date fell during Holy Week, we observed the Annunciation on April 8 – the date of last week’s solar eclipse!  Is this just a coincidence? Perhaps. But with eyes of faith it’s also possible to see this as Creation calling our attention to the deepest mysteries of reality, which we too rarely consider but which are centrally important to everything.

posted 4/13/24