Flowers for the Immaculate Conception (Super Flower Blood Moon NASA donkey edition)

That short animated video from NASA demonstrates what’s happening tonight up in North America, Eastern Standard Time.

• Super = closer than farther, making the moon appear to be quite a bit larger to us here on earth.
• Flower = when, in the Northern Hemisphere, flowers are in bloom (a bit hemispherist!).
• Blood = the color thereof, because we’re so dramatic when it comes to astronomy. It’s just atmospherics, I know, but it’s still rather dramatic that the shadow this earth casts is blood red.

This isn’t the solar eclipse – sun to moon to earth – that took place on Calvary as our Lord died on the Cross. This is a lunar eclipse – sun to earth to moon. A dear reader asked me for an analogy using this event. Let’s see, our Lady, clothed with the sun, stands on the crescent moon…

Can we stand with our Lady in the light of the Son?

In thinking about this I do have a story about how I was compared to a jackass by a certain rather influential priest while in Italy. He was standing in the shade of a carport whilst I was standing in the sun.

• O, Giorgio, che fa un asino nel sole? (Oh, George, what does a donkey to in the sun?)
• Padre, un asino fa un po di ombra nel sole. (Father, a donkey makes a little bit of shade in the sun.)
• Hai raggione, Giorgio, asino che sei. (You are correct, George, donkey that you are.)

This made for a round of laughter amongst other ecclesiastics, who were happy both to witness my progress in Italian after having just recently arrived, and to see my willingness to have myself condemned as a being a mere donkey.

It was not yet known that I love donkey history, such as donkeys always being in the midst of the Holy Family from Nazareth to Bethlehem to Egypt and back, and then with Jesus going into Jerusalem to be crucified, every donkey also having his hour.

When we choose to be donkeys, standing in the Light of the Son, we clearly see the blood shadow we have cast upon the universe, not suppressing the truth of who we are before God. It is then that we are brought into the midst of the Holy Family. We have all of us crucified, shed the blood of the Son of the Living God with original sin, our own sin. His dear Mother stands next to Him, she being clothed in the grace of God, “the rays of the sun”, of the Son. We can choose to remain in the shadows (look at how shadowy is that moon under her feet), or we can, by grace, come into the light, becoming the children of God, donkeys that we are.

Methinks it’s good to be a donkey in the sun, in the Son.