Astronomers and lovers of celestial phenomena had high hopes for a comet nicknamed “Atlas.” It had been heading toward a near pass by Earth and was hoped to produce a nice show in May. Now recent observations suggest it has broken up and may not even be visible with the naked eye when it comes by this vicinity of the solar system. It probably will not survive to turn around and come back again.
Turning around is the key for comet longevity. A comet is a big ball of ice and dirt. Beyond the orbit of Pluto, there is a huge collection, about a hundred billion, of these big dirty snowballs. It’s called the Oort Cloud. Mostly the Oort Cloud stays where it is, way out where ordinary folks do not notice it. But every once in awhile, one of these snowballs gets bumped or nudged and it is captured by the sun’s gravity and begins to fall into what we call the solar system, toward the sun.
By a marvelous trick of God’s design, the huge force of the sun’s gravity can pull a comet in for all that distance — a trillion miles or more — and then, in one beautiful cosmic moment, turn it around on a dime and send it speeding back out again in a blaze of glorious light. The sun acts like an anchor for the turn. It is like someone on roller skates whipping around a sign pole, letting the pole anchor her for a spin into a whole new direction. A comet falls within cosmic inches of the sun, whips around it, and soars back out again. If it has fallen just right, it is now in an orbit, drawn by the sun’s gravity into a huge elliptical path that will bring it back now, again and again.
Sometimes we hope for big turnarounds like a comet makes, for our favorite team to quit losing, for the stock market to go back up, and painfully now, for the number Covid-19 cases and deaths to quit going up and turn and go down. These turnarounds are important to our happiness and well-being, but there is one turnaround which, brighter than any comet, outshines them all.
In our Gospel reading for this Easter, John 20:1-18, verse 14 says, “she turned around.” On the first Easter Sunday morning, Mary made a turn that reversed a fall she began on Friday afternoon. Though she did not expect it at all, she met again the person around whom her whole life had turned for the past few months. She turned and saw Jesus.
This week as we desperately wait for a turnaround in the national news, for a more promising outlook on health and the economy, let us remembered that Jesus has already turned everything important around for us. He has turned defeat into victory, sadness into joy, and death into life.
Right now, then, while our Lord definitely cares about our national health and economic condition, what He most wants to turn around is, like Mary, our own selves. As we spend so much time watching screens or listening to radios filled with bad news, He would like us to turn from all that and turn to Him, to be renewed with faith, hope and love for Him and for each other. Our Lord who has already turned death around, now wants to turn you and me around, to head with Him into life eternal.