Canopy of the Stars: Some Reflections for the Jour

For more than twenty years Christopher Gleeson was at the head of two Jesuit school communities, Xavier College in Melbourne and St Ignatius Riverview in Sydney. Over that time, he was called upon to present numerous public speeches, homilies and reflections, spoken and written. Dotted among these commentaries were numerous quotations from many sources. Indeed, one of his colleagues has painted him as a ‘scavenger’ of other people’s ideas and sayings- a title he accepts with enthusiasm. Since he is pleased to present to his many audiences the jewels of other’s thoughts that he has come across along the way. Here then is a collection of these jewels- ‘nuggets of wisdom’, as he calls them. He finds them glittering like stars in all he reads and hears. The stars, he says, have an accessibility and companionability about them. They not only light up the darkness, but ‘fill the darkness with order and light’. Why gather these pieces together? Chris Gleeson sees them as opportunities for and prompts to reflection. He takes inspiration from the great German mystic Meister Eckhart: ‘We progress by stopping.’ He offers the reader a chance to stop, observe and to reflect, attracted by a particular star, a particular gem of wisdom.