By Ignatius Jesuit Centre
Guelph, ON, Canada
The Stations of the Cosmos is dedicated to Fr. Thomas Berry.
Thomas Berry, Passionist priest and eco-theologian, argues that our culture needs a “new story” to guide it into a less destructive ecological age. Such a story integrates the scientific story of the emergence of the universe with the experience of a sacred presence within the cosmos. The Stations of the Cosmos will tell such a story by way of a spiral meditative walk.
The Stations of the Cosmos is a way of bringing our knowledge of the 15-billion-year Universe process from our heads to our hearts. A spiral representing the entire 15 billion years of the cosmic and evolutionary journey is laid out on the ground. Each instance of emergence in time is marked at a proportionate distance along the length of the spiral. Each such station is marked by beautiful photographs, many taken on this property, celebrating our Creator’s magnificence in creating such species as well as important points in our human time span. The first station, located near the very center of the spiral, represents the Flaring Forth of the Universe itself.
Among the other complimentary significant “moments of grace” adjacent to this walk are stations depicting the World Religions,as well as the traditional and ecological Stations of the Cross.