Teilhard de Chardin - some writings. Notes from parish bulletin of October 15, 2000

Unlike the Gospel according to Matthew or the Gospel according to Mark or the Gospel according to Luke, the Gospel according to John, that we just heard, does not begin on this planet. It begins beyond time and space and it views Creation as coming forth from the wisdom and the word of God and finding its fulfillment in the light and glory of Jesus Christ. The Spiritual Star of the Millennium who I want to reflect on with you this morning must have loved this passage very very much.

Teilhard de Chardin was born in France in 1881. He was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1911. He served as a medic in the trenches of World War I. But he was most noted, and is most famous as a paleontologist, (a studier of the ancient fossils of the earth) and a theologian, as a scientist of the first rank and as a visionary. Unlike many Church leaders before him, he did not grudgingly accept the findings of modern science or just barely justify the theory of evolution. He actually enthusiastically embraced it and recast it with a vision of Christian faith. He developed a philosophy which tried to marry the science of the material world with the spiritual wisdom of the Church. You have to be honest that neither the scientific community nor the leaders of the Catholic Church were very quick to welcome his work. The scientific community felt that he was too much of a faithful believer to be that sound a scientist. And Church leadership felt he was too good and faithful a scientist to be that sound a believer.

He spent from 1923 to 1946 on major excavations in Africa and China. He was among those who discovered the Peking Man, which was the earliest human remains found at that time. He published hundreds of well-received, scholarly articles about his research. But his Jesuit superiors would not allow him to print anything on theology and his writings on religion and science. And they were delighted that he was spending most of his time down in Africa and out in China and not in the theological limelight of Europe. His writings were limited to be circulated among a small circle of friends who were very enthusiastic about him and supported him a lot.

And his fame grew enough that, for example, last evening, after the 5 o'clock Mass, one scientist came up to me and said when he was studying in Berkeley in the early 1950's he remembers the sensation it caused when Teilhard de Chardin arrived to give a lecture at UC in Berkeley. And the Vatican even put out a warning against his religious thoughts. That's enough notoriety, I guess.

But the circle of friends was very small. When he died in New York City, in 1955, on Easter Sunday, of all things, (And he had prayed to die on the Day of the Resurrection.) at his funeral there were only six people. And only one priest, only one person, went with his remains to the cemetery. And they misspelled his name on the tombstone.

But, his friends immediately began publishing his works and within five years, in 1960, this photo of him appeared in the Vatican pavilion at the World's Fair, where they bragged that he was "one of the greatest Christian thinkers of the twentieth century." Within ten years, his concepts and his vocabulary had woven their way into the official declarations of the Second Vatican Council. And, by then, his writings had inspired countless scholars and scientists and theologians throughout the world.

With many other scientists of his day he rejected Darwin's Theory that what makes evolution work is the survival of the fittest. But he went beyond those other critics. They settled with random chance and necessity as explanation enough. But, for Teilhard, the journey of the Universe is driven by guided chance and guided necessity. And then he dared to ask the question, "If evolution is going somewhere and being led somewhere, who's leading it? And where is it going?"

Decades before the first time we got a view of our planet from outer space, and long before satellites surrounded our globe as well as cell phones and the internet and the world wide web, Teilhard de Jardin viewed our planet as becoming a "conscious global village," linked with conscious communication and a common destiny. He begins with the simplest elements, with rocks and stones, and, even there, he finds the imprint of the energy and the imprint of a loving God. And he goes on to a global vision of the Universe, where matter and spirit, and body and soul, and science and faith find their source in God and their unity in Christ.

Now, his thinking is fairly complex. And if you want to know a little more of it, there are some of his phrases in the foldout in the bulletin. And also on Friday night, I'll be giving a summary of his teaching. And Brian Swimme, a modern physicist, will be giving an update on the view of the Universe today. And you may want to join us for that.

But, what lessons does he have for us today? I would say the first lesson is a warning. That is that we have to be able to listen to one another and learn. Listen critically, but learn. You know, what a loss that he was never able to share his thoughts really with anyone during his lifetime so that he could listen and refine his thoughts. And the world wasn't able to listen to him and dialog with him. We have to be willing to listen and learn. But beyond those lessons of warning, there are gifts from him.

To me, the first gift from Teilhard is the realization that I do not live in a two-room house or in a two-story universe. I don't live in a two-room house. I don't live in a house where in one room I have all I find out from science. Then there's a wall and a locked door and in the other room is everything I find out from faith. They welcome one another and enrich one another. I live in a one-room house. And I don't live in a two-story universe, where in one story we have the material and in the other we have the spirit. One we have the natural, the other we have the supernatural. One place God is and the other place, God ain't. We live in a Universe where God is truly present, The Word made flesh. We live in a world of spirit and flesh at the same time, all around us.

Teilhard also reminds us that we should value the work of our hands and the relationships of our hearts because they are not passing and perishable. They have a communal and cosmic future. Or another way of putting it, God takes our lives and who we are and what we do very seriously. It's going somewhere. And, finally, he reminds us that the poetry of another Jesuit (Remember that phrase, "The world is charged with the grandeur of God.")... He reminds us that that is not poetry. It's not a metaphor. It's not romantic thought. Rather, it is an accurate description of how near our God is, at work in our Universe, on our Earth, in our flesh and in our lives, bringing forth and building up the Kingdom of God at every moment.

Let us give thanks to the Lord Who is so good. Amen.