(Last night was the longest night of the year, peak darkness, and a long-time reader was reminded of this post from a while back, which I happily reprint. –AB ’24)

I’ve been watching the images coming from the James Webb Space Telescope, and when I wrote the piece on the catastrophic rise in newborn deaths presented by Dr. John Campbell the other day, and how men like Campbell, and really anyone outside of the One True Faith and the One True Church risk slipping into the false belief that evil – the darkness of the abyss – is all that there is, something occurred to me.

In looking at deep field images from both the Hubble telescope, and now the considerably more-powerful James Webb Space Telescope (I will always spell the name ‘James Webb’ out, because Webb was rightly and justly insistent upon purging “homosexuals and sex perverts” from the Federal Government as security risks, and thus there is a drive to re-name the telescope, which we should all fight by ALWAYS spelling out the name JAMES WEBB), and it seems to me that the entire sky – which is referred to as “the firmament” in scripture – is SOLID LIGHT.

As our ability to see deeper and deeper into the universe increases at an astounding rate, it is now estimated that there are 2 TRILLION galaxies in “the observable universe” – and as I just mentioned, the definition of “observable” is expanding literally daily. To put that in perspective, there are “only” 100 to 400 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy.

When we look at these Deep Field images, in which a telescope is pointed at a MINISCULE patch of sky – smaller than a patch of sky that would be covered if you took a single grain of sand and held it up at arms length against the sky – and just open the shutter and let the exposure cook for a few hours (12.5 hours on the latest James Webb Deep Field) or days (22 days for the most famous Hubble Deep Field), what we see is that there are SO MANY GALAXIES, that the sky is essentially a solid three-dimensional tapestry of light – albeit dim, but the whole universe in every direction is a solid mosaic of galaxies, some nearer, some farther.

If I were in charge, I would point the James Webb Space Telescope at a random patch of “the abyss”, open the shutter, and let the exposure cook for… a YEAR. And you know what I suspect we would see? SOLID. LIGHT. I strongly suspect that the “blackness” of the “abyss” of space would be completely eliminated by the light of the galaxies. I think the “blackness” of the “abyss” of space is really just a misunderstanding on our part as human beings – but a misunderstanding that is actually referenced multiple times in scripture:

Psalm 138: 11-12
And I said: Perhaps darkness shall cover me: and night shall be my light in my pleasures.
Et dixi :
Forsitan tenebrae conculcabunt me; et nox illuminatio mea in deliciis meis.
But darkness shall not be dark to thee, and night shall be light as day: the darkness thereof, and the light thereof are alike to thee.
Quia tenebrae non obscurabuntur a te, et nox sicut dies illuminabitur; sicut tenebrae ejus, ita et lumen ejus.

Psalm 18: 2-7
The heavens shew forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands.
Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei, et opera manuum ejus annuntiat firmamentum.
Day to day uttereth speech, and night to night sheweth knowledge.
Dies diei eructat verbum, et nox nocti indicat scientiam.
There are no speeches nor languages, where their voices are not heard.
Non sunt loquelae, neque sermones, quorum non audiantur voces eorum.
Their sound hath gone forth into all the earth: and their words unto the ends of the world.
In omnem terram exivit sonus eorum, et in fines orbis terrae verba eorum.
He hath set his tabernacle in the sun: and he, as a bridegroom coming out of his bride chamber, Hath rejoiced as a giant to run the way:
In sole posuit tabernaculum suum; et ipse tamquam sponsus procedens de thalamo suo. Exsultavit ut gigas ad currendam viam;
His going out is from the end of heaven, And his circuit even to the end thereof: and there is no one that can hide himself from his heat.
a summo caelo egressio ejus. Et occursus ejus usque ad summum ejus; nec est qui se abscondat a calore ejus.

And, of course, the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel, proclaimed at the end of almost every Mass in the Traditional Rite:

John 1: 5
And the Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend It.
Et lux in tenebris lucet, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt.

I believe that we are, right now, the first people to be able to make this connection to the notion that the Night Sky is an allegory of God Himself TO THIS EXTENT, especially the words “and the darkness did not comprehend it.” The light in the sky is there, always and everywhere, the entire firmament is a solid, saturated field of galactic light ALWAYS shining upon the earth, but we can’t see it unless we look. HARD. It is OUR OWN HUMAN LIMITATION that keeps us from seeing the objective reality of what literally surrounds us – unceasing, omnipresent light from every direction.

This is a near-perfect allegory of our perception of God.

Even the mechanical means of seeing into the depths of the physical universe are allegorical. A telescope must be still, and simply open its shutter in silence and let the light enter and accumulate on the exposure plate. The longer the exposure, the more light hits the exposure plate, is collected, and seen. How is this not an allegory of PRAYER?

I’m cheerfully pessimistic, if I may be permitted the phrase, that we are in a run-up to what I refer to as “The Big Show.” There is an Antipope in the Vatican, who gives every indication of being THE False Prophet Forerunner of the Antichrist. Nearly half of the human population has been injected with a poison sterilant. Demoniacs are demanding that parents physically mutilate their children in service to sodomites. We are probably months away from a literal, physical “Mark of the Beast”, and nuclear war would be received as almost a merciful relief to many people.

It thus seems to me that technologies like the James Webb Space Telescope are a wonderfully merciful part of the Divine Providence meant to BOLSTER OUR FLAGGING FAITH so that as we ride this bull, we can look up at the night sky, into what our eyes and brains can only process as “the abyss” and instead say and truly mean, “The Heavens declare the glory of God. The Light SHINES EVERYWHERE AND ALWAYS in the darkness, and the darkness does not, and will never encompass or extinguish Him.”

As always, I hope this helps.