Life and Love: The Cosmic Saga - By: Fr. Keating

From Fr. Keating of Local St. Lawrence Parish

How can Adam and Eve and the Book of Genesis be understood in the context of a universe spanning billions of light years? Do angels really exist, both good and bad, and how do they influence us? How could the Devil and his followers turn from the God of all goodness? Using cosmology, history, and imaginative storytelling to highlight the truth, Fr. Eamon C. Keating, OFM offers a view of Christianity for the 21st-century reader in light of divine revelation and contemporary scientific discoveries.

Fr. Keating had the inspiration for Life and Love while assigned in the early 1970s as a Franciscan priest in the El Salvadorian town of Gotera, when he came across an article on the hypothesis of polygenism. He was surprised to see polygenism included in a Catholic publication, as it contradicted the long-held belief in monogenism, which posits that the human race is descended from a single couple, i.e., Adam and Eve.

Polygenism states that human beings are of different origins, either from several individuals whose offspring eventually emigrated worldwide or from separate evolutionary lines that eventually converged. Fr. Keating began to consider the possible impact of understanding Christianity in the light of revelation and science, including polygenism. In his book, polygenism deals with THE HUMAN BODY. We only become PERSONS by an act of God, who gives us a soul.

Throughout his book, Fr. Keating offers a speculative narrative contemplating the cosmos from a view beyond our earthly sphere. The concepts presented are plausible, and he uses imaginative storytelling to highlight the truth, in the mode of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and other great Christian thinkers of the ages.

Eamon Keating was born on June 2, 1927, in Cork City, Republic of Ireland, one of four children to parents Catherine and Jeremiah Keating. He grew up during the Great Depression and World War II, greatly impacted by his family's strong Catholic faith.

After finishing secondary school, Eamon was offered a position at the historic Post and Telegraphs in Dublin, but he felt he needed something more and decided to pursue the priesthood. He attended the Friars Minor novitiate in Killarney for one year, earned degrees in philosophy and economics at Galway University, then moved on to the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium for theology, and spent three more years in Rome. He was ordained a priest on July 6, 1958.

After ordination, he was assigned to the Irish College in Louvain for nine years. His superiors recognized his ability to handle challenging situations and sent him to El Salvador for six years in the seventies, during a tumultuous period of the Cold War. He returned briefly to Ireland, then was assigned to Northern Ireland during the peak of the disturbances between the Protestants and Catholics. Next, he served in Chile, first under Marxist President Salvador Allende during a period of dramatic economic decline and poverty, and later under dictator Augusto Pinochet during a reign of terror.

Fr. Keating returned to Ireland again but accepted an assignment in Tampa, Florida, in 1985 to serve the Hispanic community. After a brief retirement in Ireland, he volunteered to return to Tampa's St. Lawrence Parish in 1994. In 2008, at the age when all priests are required to retire, he continued his ministry, even though legally blind at the age of 92. He still celebrates Mass and impacts parishioners with his unique teaching style and theological brilliance.

"I had never before attempted anything of the magnitude of writing a book," says Fr. Keating. "Nonetheless, I could not shake the notion that I had been given this book to write. I did not have time to start it while in El Salvador. I began the process when I returned to Ireland for a brief vacation. And now, with the help of the Holy Spirit, more than 40 years later, Life and Love is complete."