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NOW YOU KNOW MEDIA S T U D Y G U I D E

A Retreat with Teilhard de Chardin

Presented by Fr. Donald Goergen, O.P., Ph.D.

A RETREAT WITH TEILHARD DE CHARDIN STUDY GUIDE

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Fr. Donald Goergen, O.P., Ph.D. Ph.D., Aquinas Institute of Theology.

Professor, Aquinas Institute of Theology

onald Goergen, O.P., Ph.D., is a Dominican priest, teacher,

lecturer, and author. He has published many articles and ten

books in the areas of Christology and Christian Spirituality.

His most recent book was Fire of Love: Encountering the Holy Spirit. He

has taught, lectured and given retreats in Asia, Africa, and throughout

North America. He was previously Provincial for the Dominican Friars

of the Central Province as well as President of the Dominican Leadership

Conference. He co-founded the Dominican Ashram, a contemplative

Dominican community and ministry of prayer, in which he lived for nine

years. He previously taught and currently teaches at the Aquinas Institute

of Theology in St. Louis, MO, where he is also prior of the formation

community. His doctorate is in systematic theology, his dissertation on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and

his current interests include contemplative traditions, East and West, the evolution of consciousness, and

the thought of Thomas Aquinas as a spiritual master. Among other honors awarded him, he is the recipient

of the 2010 Yves Congar Award from Barry University in Miami.

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Table of Contents

Retreat Information

Presenter Biography………………………………………………………………….i

Retreat Overview ......................................................................................................... 1

Retreat Materials

Conference 1: Creation and Evolution ........................................................................ 2

Conference 2: A World-Affirming Spirituality ........................................................... 5

Conference 3: The Cosmic Christ ................................................................................ 9

Conference 4: The Eucharist ...................................................................................... 13

Conference 5: Personalization ................................................................................... 17

Conference 6: Christ and the Universe ...................................................................... 22

Supplemental Materials

Suggested Readings ................................................................................................... 27

Timeline of Teilhard’s Life: 1881-1955 .................................................................... 28


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Retreat Overview

Explore the towering mysticism of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in this one-of-a-

kind retreat experience. Presented by gifted professor, author, and contemplative

retreat leader Fr. Donald Goergen, O.P., this 6-conference series is designed to

capture your spiritual imagination and deepen your life with Christ. These

conferences are life-changing.

Trained as a scientist and ordained as a Jesuit priest, Teilhard was one of the most

profound spiritual writers of the twentieth century. He was a mystic with a cosmic

vision, and his spirituality continues to enthrall people around the world. He

seamlessly wove together science and theology, creating a powerful vision of the

universe.

By listening to Fr. Goergen’s conferences on Teilhard, you will come to

understand discipleship and how we are all called to grow spiritually. Whatever

your own calling in life is, Teilhard’s profound spiritual wisdom will speak to

you.

Teilhard’s mystical vision of the world was both universal and deeply personal.

Fr. Goergen’s moving retreat will lead you to discover how this vision can shape

your spirituality today. Let Teilhard accompany you and offer wise guidance in

your journey to eternal life.



Conference 1: Creation and Evolution

Overview

e begin by inviting Teilhard de Chardin to guide us on a spiritual journey in which we

examine his thoughts on the universe and its relationship to our own spiritual lives. It is

helpful to view Teilhard as both a mystic and a seer. Throughout his life, he endeavored to

reconcile his convictions as a scientist with his convictions as a man of faith. He worked to integrate the

scientific idea of evolution with the theological idea of Creation. Nonetheless, these questions of

compatibility are still asked today.

I. Opening Prayer

“Lord Jesus Christ, help us to appreciate the beauty, the significance of Your evolving universe. Help

us to see our place in that universe and to see that universe as reflective of Your glory. Amen.”

II. Scientist, Philosopher, Theologian

Although there are better scientists, better philosophers,

and better theologians than Teilhard de Chardin, what

fascinates us most about him is his ability to integrate all

of these modes of thought. We all thirst for a deeper sense

of integration in our own lives. Teilhard had a profound

capacity for synthesis.

Professionally speaking, he was a deeply committed

scientist, specializing in geology and paleontology.

After his ordination to the Jesuit priesthood in the early

1900s, shortly before the First World War, he studied

paleontology at the Museum of Natural History in Paris.

His studies were interrupted when he was called into

service. He was able to complete his doctoral thesis on

mammals in the Lower Eocene Period in 1921.

He taught geology and paleontology at Institut Catholique

in Paris.

In China, he was involved in the discovery of traces of the

Paleolithic Man or Peking Man. He was very much a part

of the Catholic Church’s efforts to come to grips with the

reality of evolution.

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Teilhard in Jersey, ca. 1902. Photo courtesy

of the Foundation of Teilhard de Chardin.



III. An Evolving Creation

The following texts are from the new translation by Sarah Appleton-Weber, The Human

Phenomenon (Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 1999). The earlier translation was The

Phenomenon of Man, trans. Bernard Wall (Harper & Row, 1959).

He wrote, “Indisputably, deep within ourselves, through a rent or tear, an ‘interior’ appears at the heart

of beings. This is enough to establish the existence of this interior in some degree or other everywhere

forever in nature. Since the stuff of the universe has an internal face at one point in itself, its structure

is necessarily bifacial; that is, in every region of time and space, as well, for example, as being granular,

coextensive with its outside, everything has an inside” (24).

1) We can discover an interiority deep within ourselves. According to Teilhard, what we find within

the human being is a key to understanding the rest of the universe.

2) In one of his essays, he defines evolution as the idea that everything comes to be by way of birth

from that which already was. Thus, the interiority we find within ourselves had to exist in some

form in the pre-human world.

3) When we study the universe from the perspective of the “without,” scientifically and

phenomenologically, we see it as evolving. When we look at it from the perspective of the

“within,” from the perspective of faith, the universe is being created. In other words, there is no

inconsistency between saying that the universe is created and that it is evolving.

(a) To evolve is to be created. God creates the universe in time and in stages.

(b) Evolution is also an evolution of consciousness. Teilhard saw an internal attraction towards

union manifest throughout all of creation.

(c) All of reality is both material and spiritual.

What does this say about our own lives?

1) We need to emphasize the dignity of the human being. The coming-to-be of the human person

reveals what creation is and what creation is about. The human being represents the summit, at

least thus far, of evolution, the noblest product of God’s creation.

2) Human reality is a part of the universe, not apart from the universe. We are not separate from the

natural world. We should keep this in mind as we look at contemporary ecological crises.

3) There is a deep interiority within us, one that is able to connect with the inner life of the natural

world. We can retain a deep appreciation for the universe. It is within us and we are a part of it.



Reflection Questions

1. How does Teilhard integrate the scientific theory of evolution with the religious belief in creation?

2. Why does he not see any opposition between them?

3. How do you see the relationship between science and faith?



Conference 2: A World-Affirming Spirituality

Overview

n the previous conference, we situated ourselves within the universe and within creation, gaining

perspective on Teilhard’s concept of evolving creation. Now, we will further explore Teilhard’s

notion of the “within” of things, the heart of matter, and the way in which it relates to his

understanding of spirituality. Just as integration was key to his notion of an evolving creation, we will

come to understand how Teilhard’s both/and mode of thought contributed to his understanding of

Christian spirituality.

I. Opening Prayer

“Lord, help us not to be afraid. Help us not to fear the future. Grant us a sense of adventure, and help

us to enter deeply into the interiority within us without anxiety. Help us to go deep so that we might

better understand ourselves and Your creation. Forever and ever. Amen.”

II. The Divine Milieu

The following texts are from The Divine Milieu: An Essay on the Interior Life (Harper & Row, 1960).

Teilhard’s The Divine Milieu, written in 1927, is an essay on the interior life. Note that Teilhard

expressed these thoughts long before the Second Vatican Council and World War II.

This work exemplifies his understanding of Christian spirituality.

He writes, “And so, for the first time in my life perhaps (although I am supposed to meditate every

day!), I took the lamp and, leaving the zone of everyday occupations and relationships where

everything seems clear, I went down into my inmost self, to the deep abyss whence I feel dimly that

my power of action emanates. But as I moved further and further away from the conventional

certainties by which social life is superficially illuminated, I became aware that I was losing contact

with myself. At each step of the descent a new person was disclosed within me of whose name I was

no longer sure, and who no longer obeyed me. And when I had to stop my exploration because the

path faded from beneath my feet, I found a bottomless abyss at my feet, and out of it came—arising I

know not from where—the current which I dare to call my life” (48).

1) Although we often live our lives at the level of the “without,” with a surface-level consciousness,

there are intra-psychic realities of which we are aware, but often don’t have the courage to explore.

2) We can reflect on these words in relation to our own lives. We are all called to move deeper and

deeper, away from the superficial, conventional, conformist ways in which we ordinarily interact

and live our lives.

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3) At times of retreat and crisis, we may be forced to go deeper within ourselves. At each step, the

person we discover, for better or worse, can surprise us.

4) Early in his life, Teilhard describes a disillusioning experience in which he saw iron rust. What

seemed so durable and enduring was actually fragile and corruptible. He became aware of the

corruptibility of even the toughest things in the material world.

5) What is involved in this self-reflection that allows us to explore our own depths? Teilhard sees his

connectedness. He discovers the mysterious and the unfathomable.

As he pursues the meaning of the spiritual

dimension, he returns to the bifacial aspect of reality

and sees two sides to the Christian life and

spirituality. In The Divine Milieu, he asks, “Which is

better for a Christian: activity or passivity? Life or

death? Growth or diminishment? Development or

entailment? Possession or renunciation? He answers,

“Why separate and contrast the two natural phases of

a single effort? Your essential duty and desire is to

be united with God. But in order to be united, you

must first of all be – be yourself as completely as

possible. And so you must develop yourself and take

possession of the world in order to be. Once this has

been accomplished, then is the time to think about

renunciation; then is the time to accept diminishment

for the sake of being in another. Such is the sole and

two-fold precept of complete Christian asceticism”

(70).

1) Teilhard is always thinking in terms of both/and.

We might use the metaphor: which is more

important, inhaling or exhaling? Clearly, you

can’t have one without the other. We should

consider the material and the spiritual in the same

way, as equally fundamental and foundational. In

this evolving creation, one cannot exist without the

other.

2) Likewise, when we come to the spiritual life, which is more important, self-affirmation or self-

denial? Inhaling or exhaling? One has to have a self before one can deny that self.

(a) In some ways he is looking back on a history of Christian spirituality which, in many ways he

would have seen as distorted, because there was such an emphasis on renunciation,

mortification, self-denial, and the negative dimension of the world.

(b) In modern times, there is a tendency to go to the other extreme, focusing on self-fulfillment

and self-actualization to the point of narcissism.

Teilhard Institute of Advanced Studies,

Tientsin, 1926. Photo courtesy of the

Foundation of Teilhard de Chardin.



(c) According to Teilhard, a healthy Christian life incorporates both self-affirmation and self-

denial. Self-love needs to be accompanied by a detachment from the self.

3) The ultimate goal is to be in union with God.

He later writes, “Once we have fully grasped the meaning of the Cross, we are no longer in danger of

finding life sad and ugly. We shall simply have become more attentive to its incomprehensible gravity”

(78-79).

1) When we probe the meaning of the Cross, we discover that it is not about sadness or morbid

spirituality. Rather, what is revealed in the Cross is the love of God.

III. Christology and Evolution

The following text is from “Christology and Evolution,” (1933), in Christianity and Evolution

(Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971).

He writes, “It used to appear that there were only two attitudes mathematically possible for man; to

love heaven or to love earth. With a new view of space, a third road is opening up: to make our way

to heaven through earth. There is a communion (the true communion) with God through the world;

and to surrender oneself to it is not to take the impossible step of trying to serve two masters” (93).

1) Again, note the integral character of his spirituality and the challenge it presents to us. When we

go deeply into the truth of the world itself, we find God at the heart of matter. A deepened

awareness of the cosmos in which we finds ourselves opens to us the beauty of creation.

2) In a later essay called “The Grand Option,” he talks about whether the movement of Christian

spirituality should be vertical, looking upward, or forward, looking to the future of the earth and

social progress. For Teilhard, there is a third option, through matter to God.

Teilhard can be seen as a prophet of hope. In the midst of everything, he sees hope for the universe

and for us.



Review Questions

1. According to Teilhard, what is an appropriate Christian attitude toward the world?

2. How does Teilhard’s integral or integrated approach to questions help him to affirm both God and

the world, both our destiny in heaven and our life here on earth, both the need for self-development

and self-denial?



Conference 3: The Cosmic Christ

Overview

ust as, in our last conference, we looked at the interdependence of the material and the spiritual as

inhaling and exhaling, in this one we will explore the integration of Christology and cosmology. We

want to probe more and more deeply into our own connectedness with one another and with the

universe, the cosmos, and Christ himself. Is it the cosmos in which we find ourselves, or is it Christ in

whom we find ourselves? Are we to live in Christ or in the world? As suggested earlier, these two ways

of being are not mutually exclusive. We can be both in the world and in Christ at the same time. The

Christian life is not about a withdrawal from the world. It is about a certain way of being present in the

world.

I. Opening Prayer

“Lord Jesus Christ, Risen Christ, raised from the dead, King of the Universe, help us to always live in

You, and, through You, in God, that triune life. Help us always to come to our full participation in that

triune life through our participation in the creation and evolution of the universe. Help us to see us as

cocreators with You, as partakers of Your divine life, through which we not only come to our own

fulfillments, but with us bring the universe to its completion as well. We make this prayer as we make

every prayer, with faith and confidence in You, and grateful for Your trust in us. Forever and ever.

Amen.”

II. The Human Body

This quote is from “What Exactly Is the Human Body?” (1919), in Science and Christ (Harper &

Row, 1968).

Teilhard writes, “My own body is not these cells or those cells that belong exclusively to me: it is

what, in these cells and in the rest of the world feels my influence and reacts against me. My matter is

not a part of the universe that I possess totally: it is the totality of the Universe possessed by me

partialiter” (13).

If you were given the option of having your right-hand thumb amputated or losing a loved one, which

would you choose? Most of us (hopefully) would let go of a physical piece of our body because we

are aware that the emotional amputation would be more painful. In some ways, the Other is a part of

us. I am not who I am apart from others. We are not who we are apart from the universe. We are in

others and others are in us.

Our matter, our bodies, are the whole universe. Each of us has a kind of cosmic extension.

Look back to 1 Corinthians 12: we are the body of Christ. We are all interconnected. In his letter to

the Romans, Paul writes, “For as in one body, we have many members, and all the members do not

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have the same function, so we, though many are one body in Christ and individually, members one of

another” (Romans 12:4-5). Note the slight shift. It is not just that we are all one body in Christ; we are

also all members in one another.

This interconnectedness makes us who we are. We can expand this to the whole human family. We

are each at the center of a network of relationships. This extends to the whole organic world and then

the cosmos as a whole. Each of us is a cosmos.

So also with Christ. Christ is not who he is apart from the universe.

III. Christ and the Cosmos

In his encyclical on the mystical body, Pope Pius XII wrote, “strange as it may seem, Christ requires

his members.” Due to his chosen intent to become incarnate with us, Christ is not who he is apart from

us.

For Teilhard, in the end, evolution has a human face, Jesus Christ. Thus, Jesus Christ is not who he is

apart from the universe, and the universe is not what it is apart from Jesus Christ. He is the unifying

center or “Omega,” the one in whom and for

whom all creation is evolving.

We can return to the question: cosmology or

Christology?

1) A Christian cosmology cannot be

articulated apart from Jesus Christ.

2) Likewise, a Christian Christology cannot be

elaborated on apart from the cosmic nature

of Christ.

3) Just as Christ has a human nature and a

divine nature, Teilhard suggests that He

also has a “cosmic nature.” In many ways,

the Jesus of history is the Omega of

evolution. The universe is a Christogenesis.

4) The universe is being created in Christ,

through Christ, and for Christ.

5) We are created for something that goes

beyond human nature, for grace.

(a) We often discuss the distinction between nature and grace. Thomas Aquinas saw the two as

interconnected. Grace completes and perfects nature.

(b) Our human nature exists for a kind of supernatural goal. Creation is ordered towards something

beyond the natural world.

Photo courtesy of NASA



For Teilhard, the natural and the supernatural are deeply integrated. The spiritual is the driving

dimension of the evolutionary process.

The more we love Jesus Christ, the more we come to understand the universe of which he became a

part. An expanding awareness of who we are leads to a deepened appreciation of that which makes

this integration possible. We are all united in one reality that is Jesus Christ.



Review Questions

1. At this point in our reflection, can you see how Teilhard emphasizes both cosmology (a cosmic

vision) and Christology (a Christic vision) and how these again are compatible?

2. What is the relationship between Christ and the cosmos? What does one mean by “the cosmic

Christ”?

3. Who or what is Christ-Omega?



Conference 4: The Eucharist

Overview

e have begun to see and appreciate Teilhard’s vision of the deep unity between matter and

Spirit. We can now better appreciate our own oneness with the universe and the universe’s

deep connection to Christ, that there is no Christ apart from the cosmos and no cosmos apart

from Christ. Now, we ask how the Eucharist fits into this evolving universe. In addition to the traditional

insights, how does it capture Teilhard’s cosmic vision? The vision of the evolving creation that we have

been unfolding is beautifully captured in the universe. In the Eucharist, the universe comes to its fruition

as the presence of Christ.

I. Opening Prayer

“Lord Jesus Christ, cosmic Christ, crucified and risen one, word of God, help us to be aware of Your

presence throughout the universe and within us. Help us through the gift and power of Your Spirit to

grow in our awareness of Your infinite omnipresence, and especially of that radiant presence in the

Eucharist, which reveals to us the deepest meaning of cosmic evolution, that all of reality is intended

to be one with You, in You. We give you thanks for Your Eucharistic presence among us. Give us

eyes to see, in our celebration of the Eucharist, Your continuing presence. We make this prayer, Lord

Jesus, in Your name. Forever and ever. Amen.”

II. The Omnipresence of Christ

Have you ever thought about the omnipresence of Christ? We often talk about the omnipresence of

God, that God is not confined by space or time, but we may not always take the next step and appreciate

that Christ is everywhere.

The Eucharist fits into our growing awareness that Christ, present in the Eucharist, is also present in

the world. This ties in with Teilhard’s world-affirming spirituality.

III. The Mass on the World

The following texts are from “The Mass on the World,” (1923), in Hymn of the Universe (Harper &

Row, 1965).

Teaching at the Institut Catholique in Paris, Teilhard gradually discovered that much of the thinking

expressed in his writings was viewed by the Holy Office and the Vatican as somewhat dangerous.

Eventually, his Jesuit superiors decided that he should not be at the heart of theological inquiry in

Paris. Teilhard would go on to spend many years abroad, especially in China.

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1) There, he came to know a different part of the

world and continued his geological and

paleontological work.

2) On one occasion in China, he celebrated the

Eucharist in the company of many non-

Catholics. He had no bread or wine. In this

Essay, he describes his experience of wanting

to celebrate the Eucharist and not being able to

do so in a traditional way. Nevertheless, he saw

himself offering up the entire universe to God,

through Christ.

He writes, “Since once again, Lord – though this

time not in the forests of the Aisne but in the

steppes of Asia—I have neither bread, nor wine,

nor altar, I will raise myself beyond these symbols,

up to the pure majesty of the real itself; I, your

priest, will make the whole earth my altar and on it

will offer you all the labours and sufferings of the

world” (19). He continues, “Once upon a time men

took into your temple the first fruits of their

harvests, the flower of their flocks. But the offering

you really want, the offering you mysteriously

need every day to appease our hunger, to slake your

thirst is nothing less than the growth of the world

borne ever onwards in the stream of universal

becoming. Receive, O Lord, this all-embracing

host which your whole creation, moved by your

magnetism, offers you at this dawn of a new day”

(20).

1) In some ways, the Eucharist is a supreme and unique exemplification of what we find going on

elsewhere in the universe. What is revealed in the Eucharistic action is what God is doing

throughout creation.

2) Again, we see Teilhard’s capacity to see what we don’t ordinarily see.

3) Teilhard’s statements could be interpreted as blasphemous. However, in his letter to the Romans,

Paul writes, “We know that the whole of creation has been groaning in travail until now, not only

creation but we ourselves. We have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait for our

adoption as sons and daughters” (Romans 8:22-23).

(a) Paul hints that there is some redemption for the cosmos itself. Traditionally, the Fall had an

impact on the whole cosmos.

Teilhard de Chardin in Peking, 1945. Photo courtesy

of the Foundation of Teilhard de Chardin.



(b) Teilhard was silenced at various points in his lifetime, forbidden to publish some of his spiritual

essays and restricted to writing primarily on purely scientific subjects. It was only after his

death that his theological and philosophical works became widely accepted among Church

leaders.

(c) Recently, Pope Benedict XVI referred to Teilhard in a vespers service on Paul’s letter to the

Romans. He said, “It’s the great vision that later Teilhard do Chardin also had. At the end, we

will have a true cosmic liturgy, where the cosmos becomes a living host.” He continues, “Let’s

pray to the Lord that He help us be priests in this sense, to help in the transformation of the

world, in adoration of God, beginning with ourselves.” Here, Benedict XVI brings together a

cosmotheothropic vision.

(d) Later, the Vatican spokesperson, Federico Lombardi, said, “By now, no one would dream of

saying that Teilhard is a heterodox author who should not be studied.”

Later, in “The Mass on the World,” Teilhard writes, “In the beginning was Power, intelligent, loving,

energizing. In the beginning was the Word, supremely capable of mastering and molding whatever

might come into being in the world of matter. In the beginning there were not coldness and darkness:

there was Fire. This is the truth” (21).

1) Teilhard is speaking in Trinitarian terms about Power, the Word, and Fire, associated God, Christ,

and the Holy Spirit, respectively.

2) Later, he writes, “Once again the Fire has penetrated the earth” (23).

3) The evolutionary process is, in some ways, the whole universe transforming into Christ. The

universe, in its materiality, is revealed to us as having a spiritual innermost depth. We could say

that evolution is the transubstantiation of the universe into Christ.

(a) What we become aware of in the Eucharist is that what is offered in the Eucharist is returned

to us as the real presence of Christ under the appearance of bread and wine. This is a key insight

into what is going on in the universe as a whole.

(b) The sacraments are not supernatural realities apart from the universe. Rather, they are a

celebration of the reality of what is happening in the universe, symbolically making visible and

contributing to the evolution of the universe.

He writes, “Lord, lock me up in the deepest depths of your heart; and then holding me there, burn me,

purify me, set me on fire, sublimate me, till I become utterly what you would have me be, through the

utter annihilation of my ego” (32).

The Eucharist reveals to us that what is happening is a supreme, distinctive manifestation of the

mystery of evolution itself.



Review Questions

4. How does Eucharist, the Mass, fit into Teilhard’s cosmic vision?

5. What is the connection between the Mass and the world?

6. What is happening in the celebration of the Eucharist?



Conference 5: Personalization

Overview

hat does it mean to be a person? This is the question we will attempt to answer in this

conference. In doing so, we set a task for ourselves that we cannot completely fulfill. We

can only touch on several aspects of this question. First, we will explore one of the most

personally and theologically challenging subjects, the role of suffering in our lives. What can we make of

this side of evolution? Is suffering redeemed or redemptive? Next, we will examine Teilhard’s

understanding of sexuality and love in the universe and in human life. What roles do suffering, sexuality,

and love play in the evolutionary process and in our own personal evolution?

I. Opening Prayer

“Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we find ourselves in the midst of Your divine presence. We find

ourselves in the midst of a mystery that we cannot fully grasp. We find ourselves standing in awe

before a mystery revealed: Your presence at the heart of this holy creation, this sacred, evolving,

cosmic world. Continue to sustain the vision within us so that we see ourselves and all that is as

fulfilled in Christ and through Christ, how all creation and we ourselves are brought into deep unity

with You, Father, Son and Spirit, the goal of our hearts desires, help us, Lord, to see, to believe, to

know that You are here, just as You have been under the appearances of bread and wine, so under the

appearances of this material universe. We are one in You and with You forever and ever. Amen.”

II. The Problem of Suffering

At times, Teilhard is criticized for being naively optimistic. However, we should not overlook the

struggles he underwent in his personal life. Teilhard served on the front lines in World War I between

1914 and 1919. In a letter Teilhard wrote to his cousin during the war, he writes, “More than ever,

perhaps, during those days, I felt that I was living in another world, superimposed on the surface of

the other, shaping it, and yet so different! – It was still roads, fields, ripening corn. – And still – what

irony! – in front of us, menacing and impregnable, rose the wooded ridge on which last October I used

to walk. But the whole wore a different face, compounded of horror and something super-human.

You’d have taken it for a place where what lies before death was in the very act of passing into what

lies beyond death. The relative proportions of things, the normal scale of their values, were altered,

ceased to apply. All the time I felt, very strongly, that my own turn to die might come: – a thing that

never happened to me at the beginning of the war.”

1) During the war, Teilhard saw another face of the evolutionary process and the human phenomenon.

In the end, his hope is not a naïve optimism.

2) He struggled with the fact that, in his own lifetime, much of his work was suspect. Later in life he

wrote to a friend, “Pray for me that I do not die bitter.”

W



This quoted text comes from “The Significance and Positive Value of Suffering,” (1933), in

Human Energy (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970).

“The more we reflect, making use of what we have learnt from science, philosophy and religion, each

along its own lines, the more we see that the world must be compared not to a bundle of elements in

artificial juxtaposition but to an organized system, informed by broad unity of growth proper to itself.

Through the centuries, a general plan appears truly to be in course of realization around us. Something

is afoot in the universe, a result is working out which can be compared to gestation and birth: the birth

of a spiritual reality formed by souls and the matter they draw after them. Laboriously, by way of

human activity and thanks to it, the new earth is gathering, isolating and purifying itself. No, we are

not like flowers in a bunch, but the leaves and flowers of a great tree, on which each appears at its time

and place, according to the demands of the All.

This conception of the world in the state of growth might seem ingenious but abstract. In fact it has

important practical consequences. For it leads to nothing less than the renewal in our minds of the idea

we have ourselves formed either of the value of personal human effort (which increases with the whole

work of the universe of which it is part) or (and it is only this that interests us here) of the value of

individual human pain. Let us explain this last point a little, by returning to the comparison of the

bunch of flowers and the tree.

Morning coffee at arrival on the trenches, Verdun (Teilhard on the far right).

Photo courtesy of the Foundation of Teilhard de Chardin.



In a bunch one would be surprised to see imperfect or ‘sickly’ flowers because the constituents have

been gathered one by one, and artificially put together. On a tree, on the other hand, which has had to

fight against inner accidents in its development and the external accidents of bad weather, broken

branches, torn leaves, parched sickly or wilted flowers are ‘in place’: they express the more or less

difficult conditions of growth encountered by the trunk that bears them” (48-49).

1) Teilhard offers us this image for our understanding and consolation. The universe is in a process

of growth and becoming. Like all things that grow, it is susceptible to other forces working against

it.

2) There is a beauty to nature that artificial collection can never capture, but those in the garden are

subject to the vicissitudes of life.

III. Personalization and Sexuality

These quoted texts are from “Sketch of a Personalistic Universe” (1936), in Human Energy (1970).

The process of personalization is the process by which we move from becoming individuals to

becoming persons.

Which is more important, individuality or relationality? Again, you can’t have one without the other.

In a way, we can see this notion of personality as growth or development, whereby an individual

becomes who he or she is intended to be.

Teilhard often used the axiom, “Union differentiates.” In other words, union doesn’t destroy that which

it brings together. Instead, it perfects or completes what it brings together. He writes, “True union does

not fuse the elements it brings together, by mutual fertilization and adaptation it gives them a renewal

of vitality. It is egoism that hardens and neutralizes the human stuff. Union differentiates” (63).

1) True individuality cannot be separated from personalization, the process by which we become one

with others. The goal of our own personal life is to become a person. Centration, the process of

becoming centered, is accompanied by ex-centration, moving outside of ourselves. Ex-centration

culminates in super-centration.

2) Ultimately, to be a person is to become a universe, just as, in the end, the universe is a person, the

human Christ.

In “Sketch of a Personalistic Universe,” Teilhard writes, “That the dominant function of sexuality was

at first to assure the preservation of the species is indisputable. This was so until the state of personality

was established in man. But from the critical moment of hominization, another more essential role was

developed for love, a role of which we are seemingly only just beginning to feel the importance; I

mean the necessary synthesis of the two principles, male and female, in the building of the human

personality” (73).

1) Sexuality evolves with humanity. What is sexuality manifested in the “hominized” being in

contrast to sexuality manifested in the pre-human being?

2) Teilhard had a deep appreciation of the role of women and the feminine.



IV. The Evolution of Consciousness

These quoted texts are from “The Heart of Matter,” (1950) in The Heart of Matter (Harcourt Brace

Jovanovich, 1978).

In “The Heart of Matter,” he writes, “In the first place, it seems to be indisputable (both logically and

factually) that there can be for man – even if he be devoted to the service of a Cause or of a God, and

however great that devotion – no road to spiritual maturity or plenitude except through some emotional

influence, whose function is to sensitize his understanding and stimulate, at least initially, his capacity

for love. Every day supplies more irrefutable evidence that no man at all can dispense with the

Feminine, any more than he can dispense with light, or oxygen, or vitamins. Secondly, however

primordial in human psychism the plenifying encounter of the sexes may be, and however essential to

its structure, there is nothing to prove (indeed, the opposite is much more true) that we yet have an

exact idea of the functioning of this fundamental complementarity or of the best forms in which it can

be effected... First we have the appearance of a reflective monad, and then, to complete it the formation

of an affective dyad” (59-60).

1) In human evolution, there is the reflective dimension of consciousness, the “noosphere,” but also

an affective dimension or dyad. The affectionization of the universe involves union.

He writes, “A world on the way to concentration of consciousness, you think, would be all joy? On

the contrary, I answer. It is just such a world that is the most natural and necessary seat of suffering.

Nothing is more beatific than union attained; nothing more laborious that the pursuit of union” (85).

1) Here, Teilhard returns to the notion that the evolution of consciousness goes hand in hand with

suffering.

The function of sexuality is not only the preservation of the species. Love also plays a vital role. In a

way, the evolution of the universe is the evolution of love. Love is the energy at the heart of the

universe. Love completes us personally while uniting us with another.



Review Questions

1. What is the difference between individuality and personality? Between an individual and a person?

2. How does Teilhard describe or understand the process of personalization?

3. What is the role of suffering in the universe? The role of union?

4. What is the relationship between the sexes that he envisions?



Conference 6: Christ and the Universe

Overview

here are many facets to Teilhard’s spirituality and thought. In the final conference, we will pull

together several strands and gather some of the insights from previous conferences. We see

ourselves in the universe. We see the future of the planet as in one way in our hands and in

another way in the hands of God. We are more aware than ever of the tragedies and suffering that are part

of the evolutionary nature of creation. An evolving creation is an unfinished creation. We ourselves are

not born into the world as finished beings. The universe unfolds in Christ and through Christ.

I. Opening Prayer

“Christ, Jesus, Risen Lord, Head of the Cosmos, hidden in the heart of things, omnipresent, come to

be with us in this evolving journey that we call our lives. Sustain us in the midst of suffering. Teach

us how to love. Gather us together in unity. Make us one that we might all be one, the entire human

family and Your entire creation. Reveal to us the power of love and the love You came to reveal. Help

us Lord always to be grateful for the universe in which we find ourselves, the lives You have given

us, and continue to gather us together and bring us home. We make this prayer, Lord, in Your name,

trusting in you forever. Forever and ever. Amen.”

II. Teilhard’s Spirituality

Teilhard de Chardin died in 1955 in New York City, where he spent the last years of his life. He was

buried at the former Jesuit Novitiate at Saint Andrews on the Hudson.

His last essays lend us insight into the mature Teilhard.

In his journal, he summed up his spirituality as cosmogenesis=Christogenesis=St. Paul. In other words,

cosmic evolution is, in some ways, the evolution and maturation of the Christ. He makes special

reference to 1 Corinthians 15, which culminates in Paul seeing God as “all in all.” Today, this might

be described as panentheism (different from pantheism), seeing God in everything and everything in

God.

1) “Then comes the end, when Christ delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every

rule and every authority and power. For Christ must reign until he has put all his enemies under

his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God has put all things in subjection under

Christ’s feet. When all things are subjected to Christ, then Christ himself will also be subjected to

the one who put all things under him, that God may be everything to everyone” (1 Corinthians

15:24-28).

(a) In Paul’s vision, the cosmic, the anthropological, and the theistic are wedded together.

T



Again, there are better scientists, philosophers, and theologians than Teilhard, but he has a unique

capacity for integrating different ways of thinking.

III. The Mystic

In the end, Teilhard can be thought of as a mystic.

Is there a flaw in Teilhard’s overwhelming vision?

1) He presented his vision optimistically, but not naively. He experienced suffering. Still, his

spirituality can lend itself to a kind of utopianism. We should keep in mind that the movement of

evolution is not simply inevitable progress.

(a) Evolution is not necessarily accompanied by moral progress. Teilhard was aware that once

human freedom enters on the scene, evolution had the potential to go awry.

(b) Ultimately, Teilhard’s faith leads him to hope for the future. He believed in the power of God

and the power of love.

In The Heart of Matter, he writes, “That spark, through

which ‘my Universe,’ as yet but half personalized, was

to attain centricity by being amortized, that spark

undoubtedly came to me through my mother: it was

through her that it reached me from the current of

Christian mysticism and both illuminated and inflamed

my childish soul” (41).

1) In this essay, he writes of how this spark of love

comes from his own mother.

He continues, “The time had now come when I could

see one thing: that, from the depths of the cosmic future

as well as from the heights of Heaven, it was still God,

it was always the same God, who was calling me. It

was a God of the Ahead who had suddenly appeared

athwart the traditional God of the Above, so that

henceforth we can no longer worship fully unless we

superimpose those two images so that they form one”

(53).

1) Having studied and reflected, he still senses the

same God that was with him as a child.

2) Both the God of the Ahead and the God of the

Above, the horizontal and the vertical, are needed.

Teilhard recognizes a God who is world-affirming

and calls upon us to build the future and to immerse

ourselves into the universe.

Teilhard examining a stone tool. Northern

Rhodesia, August, 1953. Photo courtesy of the

Foundation of Teilhard de Chardin.



Later, he writes, “I find myself now irresistibly led – and this precisely because it enables me both to

act and to love in the fullest degree—to a view that harmonizes with the spirit of St. Paul: I see in the

World a mysterious product of completion and fulfillment for the Absolute Being himself. It is no

longer participated Being of exposition and divergence, but participated Being of pleromization and

convergence. It is the effect, no longer of creative Causality, but of creative Union” (55).

1) Since God freely chose to create, we cannot see God as apart from creation. He is now not only

goodness itself, but also the God of creation. In that sense, the universe brings something to God.

2) The role of Christ in the universe is to unite all and then hand it over to God. The culmination of

universal evolution then brings joy to God.

IV. The Christic

These texts are from “The Christic” (1955), in The Heart of Matter (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,

1978).

In his essay “The Christic,” written in the last year of his life, Teilhard discusses “The Consummation

of the Universe by Christ” (91-92) and “The Consummation of Christ by the Universe” (93-94). Once

Christ becomes incarnate, the cosmic evolution of the universe brings Christ to completion as we move

towards the Omega of evolution.

He writes, “The Christ of Revelation is none other than the Omega of Evolution...” (92). In other

words, the culmination of the evolutionary process is Christ, the same Christ who is revealed to us in

the scriptures and celebrated in the Eucharist, with whom we conform our lives. That conformity to

Christ is its own contribution to the evolutionary process.

V. Conclusion

What do we find in the thought of Teilhard that might nourish our own spiritual journeys?

1) Teilhard is a prophet of hope. He has a hopeful vision for the future of the Earth.

2) No matter how much our world is expanded with further discoveries in cosmology, the cosmos is

still one in Christ. We come to God through Christ and, for Teilhard, we come to Christ through

the Church. Christogenesis involves an ecclesial genesis.

3) Moral progress is not inevitable. We are not necessarily more moral or spiritual than our ancestors.

We all need to go through our own process of personalization and spiritualization.

4) Teilhard’s cosmic vision should encourage us to give ourselves to the ecological and social

concerns of our world and challenge us to see our relationship to the universe as one of

participation rather than domination. The universe and I are one, just as Christ and I are one.

5) Teilhard’s theology of evolution sees the universe in God. Christ or God the evolvers are at the

heart of matter.



6) We should be open to the world and its goodness. We are challenged to make a contribution, to

move out of our own selfishness and realize that the completion of our individuality lies in the

giving of oneself to others.

7) The role of prayer, the celebration of sacraments, and secular professional contributions are all

seen in the context of a universe that belongs to Christ, in whose heart Christ is, in whose hands

we all are.



Review Questions

1. You have seen the central elements in Teilhard’s cosmic mysticism. What are some of them? How

can they become more operative in your own spiritual life?

2. What has most impressed you about Teilhard de Chardin as a thinker, as a spiritual man, as a man

of our times?

3. Do you think of him as a mystic?



Suggested Readings

Faricy, Robert, S.J., Teilhard de Chardin’s Theology of the Christian in the World (Sheed and Ward,

1967).

King, Thomas, S.J., Teilhard’s Mass, Approaches to “The Mass on the World,” (Paulist Press, 2005).

King, Ursula, Spirit of Fire, The Life and Vision of Teilhard de Chardin (Orbis Books, 1996).



Timeline of Teilhard’s Life: 1881-1955

1881 May 1, born at Sarcenat in the Auvergne in central France

1899 Entered Jesuit novitiate at Aix-en-Provence

1901 Took first vows in the Jesuit Province of Lyons

1901-1905 Years of philosophy on the island of Jersey (England)

1905 Assigned to teach physics and chemistry in Cairo

1908-1912 Four years of theology at Ore Place, Hastings, South England

1911 Ordained to the priesthood

1912-1914 Studied paleontology at the Museum of Natural History, Paris

1914 Called into the French army and attached to the medical corps

1915 Appeared in the front lines as stretcher-bearer during World War I

1918 Made solemn vows

1919 Demobilized

1921 Handed in doctoral thesis on mammals of the Lower Eocene Period

1920-1923 Taught geology and paleontology at Institut Catholique in Paris

1923-1924 First period in Tientsin, China; the discovery of traces of Paleolithic Man

1924-1926 Paris interlude, but the license to teach at Institut Catholique revoked

1926-1927 Second Tientsin period

1927 Finished The Divine Milieu

1927- 1928 Another interlude in France

1929-1938 China, the discovery of Sinanthropus/Peking Man at Chou-Kou-Tien

1932 His father’s death; Three American trips

1936 Mother’s death



1938-1939 Interlude in France and America.

1939-1946 Second period in Peking, the time of the Second World War

June, 1938-June, 1940 The Human Phenomenon substantially written while in Peking

1944 Permission to publish The Human Phenomenon refused

1946-1951 Paris

1951-1955 In America, with visits to South Africa

1955 March, “Le Christique,” his last great essay; April 10, dies on Easter Sunday in New

York City

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