Amy Kulesa, Director of the Sisters of Bon Secours Associates and frequent retreat presenter at our Center, shares the following reflection about Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Coincidentally, we just added a special retreat about Teilhard to our calendar for next summer too. We’re looking forward to having Sr. Kathleen Duffy with us next July when we presents, “Dawn to the Road of Fire: Teilhard and Struggle” which is based around her latest book Teilhard’s Struggle: Embracing the Work of Evolution. You can click here to learn more about this inspiring retreat. Please take a quiet moment with us now to read this reflection and prayer.
On the Feast of the Transfiguration in 1923, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Jesuit priest and scientist, found himself alone at sunrise in the Ordos desert in China, watching the sun spread its orange and red light across the horizon. He was deeply moved by the grandeur of the early morning, by the mystery of life itself. What he most wanted to do in response was to somehow consecrate the whole world to God. Here is the prayer he prayed over the world, awakening to the sun that morning in China.
“O God, since I have neither bread, nor wine, nor altar, I will raise myself beyond these symbols and make the whole earth my altar and on it will offer to you all the labors and sufferings of the world.
“As the rising sun moves as a sheet of fire across the horizon, the earth wakes, trembles, and begins its daily tasks. I will place on my paten, O God, the harvest to be won by this renewal of labor. Into my chalice I will pour all the sap which is to be pressed out this day from the earth’s fruits. My paten and my chalice are the depths of a soul laid widely open to all the forces which in a moment will rise up from every corner of the earth and converge upon the Spirit.
“Grant me, Lord, to remember and make mystically present all those whom the light is now awakening to this new day. As I call these to mind, I remember first those who have shared life with me: family, community, friends, and colleagues. And I remember as well, more vaguely but all-inclusively, the whole of humanity, living and dead, and, not least, the physical earth itself, as I stand before you, O God, as a piece of this earth, as that place where the earth opens and closes to you.
“And so, O God, over every living thing which is to spring up, to grow, to flower, to ripen during this day, I say again the words: ‘This is my body.‘ And over every death-force which waits in readiness to corrode, to wither, to cut down, I speak again your words which express the supreme mystery of faith: ‘This is my blood.‘ On my paten, I hold all who will live this day in vitality, the young, the strong, the healthy, the joy-filled; and in my chalice, I hold all that will be crushed and broken today as that vitality draws its life. I offer you on this all-embracing altar everything that is in our world, everything that is rising and everything that is dying, and ask you to bless it.
“And our communion with you will not be complete, will not be Christian, if, together with the gains which this new day brings, we do not also accept, in our own name and in the name of the world, those processes, hidden or manifest, of enfeeblement, of aging, and of death, which unceasingly consume the universe … Lord, God, we deliver ourselves up with abandon to those fearful forces of dissolution which … will cause our narrow egos to be replaced by your divine presence. We gather into a single prayer both our delight in what we have and our thirst for what we lack.
“Lord, lock us into the deepest depths of your heart; and then, holding us there, burn us, purify us, set us on fire, sublimate us, till we become utterly what you would have us to be, through the annihilation of all selfishness inside us. Amen.”
1 reply on “Teilhard’s Prayer”
Once again, this reflection was perfect timing. I had just finished two guided meditations on Insight Timer – both of which talked about the sun – and the purifying fire. This reflection was just what I needed! Thank You!