Moment of Oneness, August 20, 2025 - Prepared by Rosie Smead

Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ
May 1, 1881  - April 10, 1955

Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81507551772
Meeting ID: 815 0755 1772
To connect by phone dial: +1 646 558 8656

OPENING PRAYER

Holy Mystery of Love and Unity, we offer gratitude for the life and work of Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, your priest and servant. We ask for an increase of patience and trust, as the lives of mystics and saints show us. Your timing is not our timing, Loving One, and we seek to have faith and hope in what is difficult to see today. By our study of your mystic, scientist, and profoundly holy one, grant us increased insight into the changes over time in our lives, and the strength to continue when we struggle with connections and understanding.  Help us walk forward through times when we suffer from the rejection of others, even repudiation from those whom we call family and friends, as did Fr. Chardin. We watch and wonder at your presence in our world and the universe, and commit to being actively involved in helping others to open their eyes and hearts to your plan of universal wholeness and love. Fr. Chardin’s life sets us on fire to experience a moment of your eternal presence in the cosmos and our own backyard. We celebrate the life and legacy of your mystic who lived his beliefs, and offered us insights beyond his time. Amen

VIDEO I     Teilhard de Chardin   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBYmuqYSDh4 

                                                             

REFLECTION I       

Teilhard for Beginners: Trying to do justice to a mystic, prolific, complicated, scientist, priest, poet, and prophet who gave us a new way to envision the Universe and our Spiritual Heritage.

Fr. Teilhard de Chardin provided the 20^th Century with astounding insights, never before articulated, to move our thinking about our origins and our journey forward. When a courageous, bold, prolific, mystical person does such, it necessarily inspires some and offends others. This is the path of all the mystics we have encountered; exemplars we often have difficulty understanding. As we have experienced, our lives change and morph over the years, and we build on our temperament, personality, environment, and experiences, to begin our excursion into the next circle of our life. Fr. Chardin’s childhood burned a love for science and religion into his being, and a curiosity of how all matter could be drawn into unity in the Universal Holy Mystery. These cosmic vibrations drew him into experiencing the “numinous presence” that burned in him all his life. A love of honesty, being aware of the scientific data he rubbed his nose in daily as a paleontologist, drove him to stick with his observations and understanding even though he suffered greatly from the hands of both his Jesuit family and some of the scientific community he valued. Yes, all of the mystics have experienced rejection. They teach us to be patient and deal with those experiences in our own life.     

POEM: Patient Trust  (in the slow work of God) by Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—

and that it may take a very long time.

And so, I think it is with you;

your ideas mature gradually — let them grow,

let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on,

as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)

will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.

Give Holy Mystery the benefit of believing 

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.  Amen

REFLECTION 2    From Simple to Profound

How are we to understand, appreciate, and learn from Fr. de Chardin, a highly advanced thinker and unusual mystic? Sr. Ilia Delio, founder of the Center for Christogenesis, promotes the understanding of Teilhard de Chardin’s works and discoveries, and shares a gift with us.  After one of her freshman students had studied Teilhard in her class, he shared the following in his assignment. These provide us with essential insights from our mystic, Teilhard. She quotes: 

1. 1. Teilhard de Chardin saw the cosmos as an unfolding process in which everything is evolving toward greater complexity and unity. He called this the movement toward the “Omega Point”, a future of wholeness in love. He said love is the driving force behind the movement of all things. 

1. 2. Understanding this process changes our sense of purpose. Instead of thinking that my goal is to find a destination, I now see I am part of something still in motion. My actions, relationships, and decisions all contribute to this ongoing story. 

1. 3. I am not just living in the world; I am part of its growth. Evolution is not just a biological fact; it is also spiritual and moral.  

1. 4. God is not far away or confined to some distant heaven but is right here within all things. Instead of reaching out toward something external, I am learning to pay attention to what is within and around me; my deepest self is in constant relationship with the sacred.

1. 5. God is not found in perfection but in presence, especially among those who are most excluded. 

1. 6. I have stopped thinking of religion as a checklist of beliefs, and I have begun to see it as an experience of connections. God is not a distant observer but the very depth of life.

1. 7. This new sense of divine presence helps me see my responsibility to the Earth. Before, I thought of environmental care as important but mostly concerned with scientific or political matters. Reading the Pope Francis ‘Laudato Si’ has shown me that care for the earth is also a spiritual issue. The environment, the poor, and our hearts are all connected. If we destroy nature, we also harm the most vulnerable people and dull our own sense of wonder and responsibility. Ecology is about honoring the sacredness of all life. The Earth is not just a backdrop for human activity; it is our shared home, woven with spirit and story. Pope Francis says the Earth ‘cries out’ under the weight of greed and neglect, and it is our task to listen and respond.

1. 8. Humanity is not something we are born into – it is something we grow into. If God is Love, and if being in God’s image means being able to love, then personhood is not limited to where we come from, but how we love.

1. 9. We are part of something bigger, deeper, and more mysterious than we often realize. What I know is that the world is unfinished. What I must do is participate in its healing with humility and love. 

1. 10. What I may hope for is that through love and awareness, we are moving    toward something better. This is not abstract to me. It means choosing  kindness even when it is hard. It means seeing value in the Earth and in each person I meet. 

1. 11. Faith is no longer about being certain. It is about being open to thought and mystery. 

1. 12. Reason is not about having the final answer – it is about asking better questions. 

PRAYER 2    by Fr. Teilhard de Chardin

Lord, by every innate impulse and through all the hazards of my life,

I have been driven ceaselessly to search for you

and to set you in the heart of the universe of matter.

Thus, I shall have the joy, when death comes,

of closing my eyes amidst the splendor

of a universal transparency aglow with fire.

Under your influence and yours alone,

the sheath of organic isolation and of willful egoism

which separates us into tiny individuals

is rent asunder and dissolves,

and the multitude of lives rush on towards that union

which is necessary for the maturity of the world.

Only love can bring individual beings to their perfect completion,

as individuals, by uniting them one with another,

because only love takes possession of them and unites them

by what lie deepest within them.

Lord, once again I ask: which is the more precious of these two beatitudes,

That all things are means through which I can touch you,

or that you yourself are so ‘universal’ that I can experience you

and lay hold on you in every creature?

Let us then establish ourselves in the divine milieu.

There we shall be within the inmost depths of our being

and the greatest consistency of matter.

There where all forms of beauty come together

we shall discover the ultra-vital, ultra-perceptible,

ultra-active point of the universe

and we shall also experience in the depths of our own being

the fullness of our powers of action and of adoration –

for this world is indeed full of You O God.

Let us leave the surface, and, without leaving the world,

plunge into God.

There and from there, in God and through God,

we shall hold all things and find again the essence and the splendor

of all the flowers, the lights, we have had to surrender

here and now in order to be faithful to life. Amen

God is not remote from us. He is at the point of my pen,

my (pick) shovel, my paint brush, my (sewing) needle – 

and my heart and thoughts.   Fr. Teilhard de Chardin

REFLECTION  3    Hand in Hand with Fr.  de Chardin

Fr. Chardin was a deeply spiritual Jesuit priest, who loved his priesthood and loved his science. Both of these loves had many living friends attached to them, and Fr. Chardin reveled in sharing his ideas and discoveries, including mainstream scientific achievements. In his enthusiasm, he found himself running into major issues with his Jesuit superiors because of his beliefs about evolution and the doctrine of original sin. Filmmakers Frank and Mary Frost, who produced the PBS special on de Chardin put it this way: 

“He didn’t mean to. (run afoul of the Church) He did so in all innocence and conviction, because he was deeply in love with his science of the earth. He thought that he had learned something, as a scientist studying evolution, that the church would love, because it could help them to address the modern world and increase dialogue with scientists. So, he went about advocating evolution robustly. Then he was challenged by a theologian of the old school who said, if you really believe in evolution, then you don’t believe in Adam and Eve. And if you don’t believe in Adam and Eve, then what happens to the doctrine of original sin? Teilhard didn’t really comprehend, I think, how fundamental the concept of original sin was to church authority, which for centuries had been built on the necessity of salvation from it. Teilhard had devised a different approach, one that reached back before Aristotle and Aquinas to early scientists who believed in a dynamic universe that was always changing and growing—but he didn’t say original sin was not a true doctrine. He was trying to think about it in a different way, a way that he could reconcile with science.

His writings were placed under a Vatican monitum in 1962 (for “dangerous ambiguities and grave errors.) Many have hoped for years that Pope Francis would remove any Vatican warnings from Teilhard’s writings. “In 2017 scholars from the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture noted Teilhard’s “prophetic vision,” and four different popes—Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis—have referenced his writings positively (including, most recently, in “Laudato Si’”). 

In spite of being suppressed, Teilhard’s work has proliferated in the 21^st Century, as we become more familiar and comfortable with discoveries and thinking about the universal truths Fr. Chardin literally dug up from the earth and panned in the mine of his mind. We are questioning the medieval mindset of belief systems that do not take into account the changes in science, culture, and human growth we experience today. Fr. Teilhard de Chardin exploded our thinking but also provided us with prayers, meditations, quotations, and dozens of books, articles, and written works to assist us as we grapple with today and our own future.

VIDEO 2      Ilia Delio on Hope for the future    

https://youtu.be/VgVxmb977tU 

CLOSING PRAYER   Glorious Lord Christ  from Hymn of the Universe

The divine influence secretly diffused and active

in the depths of matter,

And the dazzling center where all the innumerable fibers

of the manifold meet;

Power as implacable as the world and as warm as life;

You whose forehead is of snow,

Whose eyes are of fire,

and whose feet are brighter than molten gold;

You whose hands imprison the stars;

You who are the first and the last,

The living and the dead and the risen again;

You who gather into your exuberant unity every mode

of existence;

It is you to whom my being cries out with a desire

as vast as the universe:

In truth you are my Lord and my God.

REFERENCES AND RESOURCES

VIDEOS ABOUT FR. CHARDIN

https://youtu.be/eFAhET1viCY Quotes for our Lives: Fr. Chardin   

https://th.bing.com/th?&id=OVP.ts6DI5vFKQ8UlxH2r8_ofgHgFo&w=168&h=94&c=7&pid=1.7&rs=1

https://youtu.be/zy4G-5gVr8U   16 minutes  outstanding video on Teilhard’s Omega Point  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBYmuqYSDh4    Teilhard de Chardin   Ed Sirios video

PARTIAL LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

Teilhard's complete works were first published in 13 volumes by Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1955 to 1976. They have been published worldwide; some of the most widely read follow:  

Delio. (2014). From Teilhard to Omega : co-creating an unfinished universe. Orbis Books.

Delio, I. (n.d.). The Unbearable Wholeness of Being. Orbis Books.

Delio, I. (2016). Personal Transformation and a New Creation. Orbis Books.

Delio, I. (2019). Hunger for Wholeness, A. Paulist Press.

Delio, I. (2021). The hours of the universe : reflections on God, science, and the human journey. Orbis Books.

Delio, I. (2023). The Not-Yet God: Carl Jung, Teilhard de Chardin, and the Relational Whole. Orbis Books.

Duffy, K. (2014). Teilhard’s Mysticism. Orbis Books.

Duffy, K. (2019). Teilhard’s Struggle. Orbis Books.

Duffy, Kathleen, ed., Rediscovering Teilhard’s Fire. Philadelphia: St. Joseph’s University Press, 2010.

Libby, O. (2023). Teilhard de Chardin. Orbis Books.

Maalouf, J. (2018). Teilhard’s Proposition for Peace. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Savary, L. M. (2021a). Teilhard de Chardin on the Eucharist. Paulist Press.

Savary, L. M. (2021b). Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man Explained. Paulist Press.

Teilhard de Chardin, P. (2008). The Phenomenon of Man. Harper Perennial Modern Thought.

Teilhard, P. (n.d.). Human Phenomenon.

Teilhard, P. (1965a). Building the Earth. Wilkes-Barre, Pa. : Dimension Books.

Teilhard, P. (1965b). Hymn of the Universe.

Teilhard, P. (1978). The Heart of Matter. HarperCollins.

Teilhard, P. (1984). On Love & Happiness. HarperCollins Publishers.

Teilhard, P. (2001). The divine milieu. New York Perennial Library.

Teilhard, P. (2002). Christianity and Evolution. HMH.

Teilhard, P. (2004). The future of man. Image Books.

Teilhard, P. (2021). The Making of a Mind; Letters From a Soldier-priest, 1914-1919; Hassell Street Press.

Teilhard, P. The Mystical Milieu.  in Writings in Time of War. Translated by René Hague. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968.

WEBSITES DEDICATED TO FR. CHARDIN

Mass on the World: a Georgetown University video   https://youtu.be/m2EzRmZzCe0

A Curated List of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Quotes and Their Meanings  https://snugfam.com/exploring-pierre-teilhard-de-chardin-quotes-timeless-wisdom-for-modern-life/

https://www.teilhard.org.uk/teilhard-de-chardin/the-cosmo-mystic/  

Declare Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S.J. a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church

https://action.groundswell-mvmt.org/petitions/declare-pierre-teilhard-de-chardin-s-j-a-doctor-of-the-roman-catholic-church