St. Anthony Messenger: Contemplating the Nature of the Universe

"If you want to know how science and religion are related, first come to know the deepest truth of yourself,” writes Sister Ilia Delio, OSF, in Birth of a Dancing Star. “This is what I realized when I looked into the nighttime sky: I saw myself in the stars and the stars within me.” 4:00 in the afternoon of April 8, 2024: That was when I interviewed Sister Ilia for St. Anthony Messenger. It’s a fitting thing to talk to someone like Sister Ilia in the middle of a solar eclipse. Theologians like her don’t come along often. Their orbits and alignment change the colors of our skies. They invite us into mystery, to contemplate the nature of the universe. They are phenomena. We experience beauty and emerge changed. 

“Well, we have to admit: We live in a wondrous universe,” she beams, her common expression when talking about anything related to science or theology. “Francis of Assisi was awed by the beauty of nature and its natural and miraculous ability to grow, to be wild, to have this kind of spontaneous beauty to it. The fact that we’re in a solar eclipse, moving around the sun as the moon moves around us—in this orbital phase of life—I’m reminded of how often we get stuck on ideas, like we are never going to change, when in fact we are in movement already...” 

Read the remainder of this feature in the June 2025 issue of St. Anthony Messenger HERE. This is the sixth article in a series that shares stories of people, ministries, or organizations that are doing healing work in the world.