{"id":386133,"date":"2026-04-07T10:01:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T10:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/386133\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T10:01:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T10:01:07","slug":"easter-the-greatness-of-man-and-the-artemis-ii-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/386133\/","title":{"rendered":"Easter, the Greatness of Man, and the Artemis II Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many Americans would consider 1968 as the nadir of the American experiment. It was a year of prominent political assassinations and cultural upheaval, of an unpopular war and a sexual revolution. That unholy year represented the rejection of all that came before, in order to create a new America, one based on false premises about man and our world. As a recent Crisis article<\/a> sums it up: 1968 was in many ways a year of death.<\/p>\n

Yet 1968 also witnessed an event of breathtaking magnificence; an event that symbolized the God-given brilliance of man\u2019s intellect and our ability to \u201csubdue\u201d the world as God commanded (cf. Genesis 1:28). It embodied what can be accomplished by man when united under a common purpose to achieve a dramatic goal. It also epitomized the greatness of America: what this country can achieve with our incredible resources, our drive to succeed, and our passion to conquer any obstacle. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m referring, of course, to the Apollo 8 mission, when man, for the first time in history, travelled to the moon. On Christmas Eve 1968, the crew of the Apollo 8 orbited the moon, sending back amazing footage that captivated the nation and the world. It is estimated that one billion (yes, billion) people watched the Christmas Eve broadcast, when the crew (Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders) read the first ten verses of the Book of Genesis while showing grainy, black-and-white footage of the lunar surface passing below.\u00a0<\/p>\n

1968 also witnessed an event of breathtaking magnificence; an event that symbolized the God-given greatness of man\u2019s intellect and our ability to \u201csubdue\u201d the world as God commanded (cf. Genesis 1:28).Tweet This<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard not to compare 2026 to 1968. We also live in a year impacted by political assassinations, cultural upheaval, an unpopular war, and sexual revolution. Forces on both the Left and the Right are trying to remake our country in a new image, and both visions are based on false premises about man and our world. Yet like 1968, our current year does not only consist of upheaval and revolution, as a trip to the moon again calls our attention away from the problems of this world. <\/p>\n

Right now, as I write this, a group of four astronauts (Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen) are circling around the moon, in a mission very similar to Apollo 8, although these four astronauts will travel farther away from Earth than any human in history. One of the crew\u2014pilot Victor Glover\u2014spoke of the beauty of God\u2019s creation in an impromptu Easter message that harkened back to the Christmas message of Apollo 8\u2019s crew.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the first time in more than 53 years man is travelling to the moon, demonstrating the magnificence of man united in a common cause, as well as the prowess of America. It also illustrates our capacity for courage. These four astronauts have willingly placed themselves in a ship (which they named Integrity) the size of a large SUV, which sat on top of a rocket with the power of 42 Boeing 737\u2019s, and allowed themselves to be launched 250,000 miles into the emptiness of (deadly) space, all to advance our knowledge of the universe. This takes a special kind of courage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That courage is even more evident when we realize that travelling to the moon is an incredible feat of precise physics and engineering, one that is hard to even conceive and that is fraught with dangers. Flying to the moon is beyond our comprehension; it\u2019s something we can\u2019t wrap our brains around. Most people, when they think of a ship flying to the moon, imagine a straight line approach\u2014basically like standing still and shooting a stationary target in the distance. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s nothing like that, however. Imagine instead standing on a spinning platform and then trying to shoot a target moving by at an incredible speed. Flying to the moon is even more difficult. Speaking of spinning platforms, the calculus involved to successfully make it to the moon (and return safely) can make your head spin, even for math geeks like me. Yet that\u2019s exactly what Artemis II is currently doing. It\u2019s mind-boggling.<\/p>\n

One of the crew\u2014pilot Victor Glover\u2014spoke of the beauty of God\u2019s creation in an impromptu Easter message that harkened back to the Christmas message of Apollo 8\u2019s crew.Tweet This<\/a><\/p>\n

Both 1968 and 2026 perfectly represent fallen mankind. We are made in the image and likeness of God, given the ability to reason, to understand and even conquer the universe God has created. Since we were cast out of the Garden, man has explored the mysteries of the \u201cbook of nature,\u201d continually advancing our knowledge of God\u2019s creation, driven by our God-given curiosity. Yet we left the Garden with a deformed reason that abuses our divine gift to conquer not just the universe, but our fellow man. This deformed reason also often tempts us to give into our most base desires, rather than making choices that draw us closer to God. To make ourselves into gods that don\u2019t need God or His commandments. Man is both magnificent and disgusting, all at once.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to be cynical in today\u2019s world, to see only the disgusting evil that surrounds us. And of course it\u2019s important that we don\u2019t ignore that evil; we are called to challenge it, to join with Christ in defeating sin and death through His Resurrection. But Artemis II reminds us of our potential for magnificence, what can happen when we take God\u2019s beautiful gift of reason and apply it for good.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sadly, some Catholics\u2014particulary those wrapped up in today\u2019s cultural battles in the Church and the world, those who wallow in the cultural mud\u2014dismiss the Artemis II mission as a distraction or a waste of time. That\u2019s not a healthy Catholic attitude. This mission is important for reasons beyond the scientific: it reminds us of the dignity of man, of the divine spark that is within each of us. Of what we can do when we put our minds and wills to a task. And what our exceptional country is capable of accomplishing, even in a time of deep divisions.<\/p>\n

We are now in the season of Easter, when we rejoice at the Resurrection of Christ which completely destroyed the sin of Adam and raised us to share in his divinity. It\u2019s not a season for cynicism, but a season to exult not only in the redemptive act of the God-man, but even in the acts of man, and the acts of our country, that display our intelligence, courage, and our ability to conquer any obstacle. It is a season to recognize man\u2019s magnificence, a magnificence that comes from being made in God\u2019s image and likeness.<\/p>\n

Godspeed, crew of Integrity, and come home safely!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many Americans would consider 1968 as the nadir of the American experiment. It was a year of prominent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":{"0":"post-386133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}