Book Review: Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel

I just finished reading "Galileo's Daughter," by Dava Sobel. It was our RS Book Group's pick this month. It was a little hard to get into, but I'm SO glad that I read it.

"Inspired by a long fascination with Galileo, and by the remarkable surviving letters of Galileo's daughter, Maria Celeste, a cloistered nun, Dava Sobel has written a biography unlike any other of the man Albert Einstein called 'the father of modern physics--indeed of modern science altogether.'"

This father and daughter had a remarkably close and loving relationship. She admired and served him through her handiworks (caring for his clothes and for his health through her medicines she made as an apothecary) and the many letters she wrote him. He supported her financially, but none of his letters to her remain so we really just have one side of their story.

Galileo was a brilliant scientist and mathematician. He invented the telescope and discovered the moons of Jupiter through it. He was one of the first to believe that the Earth moves around the Sun, but the Catholic Church believed the opposite. Due to the power of the Catholic Church and its Inquistion into his writings, Galileo was forced to recant and bow his proclaimed opinion to the demands of the church. What a terrible position to be in ~ to know something to be true through his own observations and study, but to be forced to state the opposite publicly in order to remain in good standing with the religion that he also loved.

I was impressed that both Galileo and Maria Celeste had a deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. In spite of the teaching, pomp and circumstance, (not to mention, some evil practices) of the Catholic Church at the time, it is apparent from their writings that they loved and worshipped a personal Savior, whom they had come to know through their own prayerful devotions to Him. I have often thought about the pre-restoration Christians who have written hymns or other writings that demonstrate their belief in a personal and loving God, in spite of being taught false doctrine about Him in their organized churches. I love the hymn "Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee," attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux, ca. 1091-1153, which touches my heart with his wonderful words of Savior who is obviously very personal to him. Those feelings did not come from the church of day, but from his own prayerful worship of and experiences with Jesus Christ. (Another great pre-restoration hymn that I love: Be Still, My Soul)

Dava Sobel speaking of Galileo:
"He remained a good Catholic who believed in the power of prayer and endeavored always to conform his duty as a scientist with the destiny of his soul. 'Whatever the course of our lives,' Galileo wrote, 'we should receive them as the highest gift from the hand of God, in which equally reposed the power to do nothing whatever for us. Indeed, we should accept misfortune not only in thanks, but in infinite gratitude to Providence, which by such means detaches us from an excessive love for Earthly things and elevates our minds to the celestial and divine."
Galileo understood one of the great truths of the Plan of Salvation ~ that the tests we have in this earthlife are gifts from God that bring us to Him and allow us to grow and learn and become the eternal spirit that we are meant to become.

This quote from the end of his life gave me a smile as I am beginning to feel the effects of such aging in my own life:

"I find how much old age lessens the vividness and speed of my thinking, as I struggle to understand quite a lot of things I discovered and proved when I was younger."