“The heavens call to you and wheel about you,revealing their eternal splendors,” Virgil told Dante at the end of Purgatorio 14 (148-151),“but your eyes are fixed upon the earth.For that, He, seeing all, does smite you.”
While we could blame light pollution or television or lack of interest or any number of other modern maladies, but it’s clear that, just as in Dante’s time, the heavens call and wheel about and us most of us never notice. If, for example, you know the phase of the moon today, you’re part of a tiny, tiny minority of modern people. Virgil accuses us as well, “your eyes are fixed upon the earth.”
Dante lived at the turn of the 14th century and in his writing used a model of the universe conceived in the second century by astronomer and mathematician Claudius Ptolemy. Born in AD 100 in Alexandria, Egypt, Ptolemy argued from observation of the heavens that the earth (a sphere) was at the center and around it the moon, sun, planets, and stars rotated.
Clearly we no longer believe that, but Ptolemy still has a great deal to teach us about observing the sky and marking it’s beauty and regularity. Dr. Henry Zepeda taught Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Galileo with high school students who have been here at Wyoming Catholic College for our PEAK Program.
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"Shakespeare's Rome": The 2021 Wyoming School of Catholic Thought with Dr. Glenn Arbery
Taming the Christmas Rush with Fr. David Anderson
Time, Space, and Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity with Dr. Michael Bolin
"This Holiday of Spirits": Jane Austen, Courtly Love, and Happy Endings with Dr. Tiffany Schubert
Fear and Kingship: The Life of Saul with Dr. Jeremy Holmes
Advent: Season of Waiting with Msgr. Daniel Seiker
The Civic Virtue of Thanksgiving with Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos
Carpe Diem: The Poetry of Horace with Prof. Eugene Hamilton
Euclid: From a Point to "The Death Star" with Dr. Henry Zepeda
Hospitality in Homer's "Odyssey" with Prof. Adam Cooper
Why Sacred Art is Necessary to the Faith with Prof. David Clayton
Chaplaincy and Spiritual Life at Wyoming Catholic with Msgr. Daniel Seiker
Pursuing Poetic Knowledge with Dr. Jim Tonkowich
The Constitution, Philosophy, and Pope John Paul II with Judge Leon Holmes
The Founding of Rome and the Question of Honor with Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos
The Wrath of Achilles: Reading Homer's Iliad with Dr. Glenn Arbery
Lecture: "Beauty is Truth: How Poetry Enriches Science" by Dr. Tiffany Schubert
Lecture: "Beauty is Truth: Beauty and Science" by Dr. Jeremy Holmes
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