I have recently had the pleasure of renewing my acquaintance with the great Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin. I heard parts of his ‘Mass on the world’ read as a meditation. I was enthralled, and set about searching for his work. I had discarded my original books in one of my many de-cluttering projects, and as often happens, I then regretted the losses! I asked others about him, I searched second hand book stores and, of course, combed the internet. I only recently found and downloaded it. I am nourished by his prayer and powerful images every morning. As I spend time with the text I feel I am reading a long poem that enters my heart and gives me amazing images. Take, for example, his sense of the sunrise and its power over our world:

Over there, on the horizon, the sun has just touched with light the outermost fringe of the eastern sky. Once again, beneath this moving sheet of fire, the living surface of the earth wakes and trembles, and once again begins its fearful travail. I will place on my paten, O God, the harvest to be won by this renewal of labour. Into my chalice I shall pour all the sap which is to be pressed out this day from the earth’s fruits.

Reading this I feel united with all that is awakening in our fragile world. He succinctly expresses my prayer for this amazing universe in which I have the privilege to participate. It reminds me of witnessing the sun appearing on the horizon in Newgrange a few years ago, and like our ancestors I am humbled by this divine manifestation.

And then my prayer for those known and loved by me and those who are suffering in this troubled world is expressed by him:

One by one, Lord, I see and I love all those whom you have given me to sustain and charm my life. One by one also I number all those who make up that other beloved family which has gradually surrounded me, its unity fashioned out of the most disparate elements, with affinities of the heart, of scientific research and of thought. And again one by one — more vaguely it is true, yet all-inclusively — I call before me the whole vast anonymous army of living humanity; those who surround me and support me though I do not know them; those who come, and those who go; above all, those who in office, laboratory and factory, through their vision of truth or despite their error, truly believe in the progress of earthly reality and who today will take up again their impassioned pursuit of the light.

The images and the prayer feed me at odd times of the day. Standing at a checkout I recall his prayer and realise that these shoppers are some of those who ‘who surround me and support me though I do not know them’, or I can be challenged during my frequent distracted reveries at Mass to remember that I am part of ‘the vast anonymous army of living humanity.

by Marion Reynolds SSL