object:1.01 - The Offering
book class:Hymn of the Universe
author class:Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
subject class:Christianity
class:chapter
The Offering
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 maj-
esty of the real itself; I, your priest, will make the
whole earth my altar and on it will offer you all the
labors and sufferings of the world.
Over there, on the horizon, the sun has Just
touched with light the outermost fringe of the east-
ern sky. Once again, beneath this moving sheet of
fire, the living surf ace of the earth wakes and trem-
bles, and once again begins its fearful travail I will
place on my paten, O God, the harvest to be won
by this renewal of labor. Into my chalice I shall
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 mo-
ment will rise up from every corner of the earth
and converge upon the Spirit. Grant me the remem-
brance and the mystic presence of all those whom
the light is now awakening to the new day.
My paten and my chalice are the depths of a soul
laid widely open to all the forces which in a mo-
ment will rise up from every corner of the earth
and converge upon the Spirit Grant me the remem-
12 Hymn of the Universe
brance and the mystic presence of all those whom
the light is now awakening to the new day.
One by one, Lord, I see and I love all those
whom you have .given me to sijstain 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 thougji 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
This restless multitude, confused or orderly, the
immensity of which terrifies us; this ocean of hu-
manity whose slow, monotonous wave-flows trouble
the hearts even of those whose faith is most firm: it
is to this deep that I thus desire all the fibers of my
being should respond. All the things in the world to
which this day will bring increase; all those that
will diminish; all those too that will die: all of
them, Lord, I try to gather into my arms, so as to
hold them out to you in offering. This is the mate-
rial of my sacrifice; the only material you desire.
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 offer-
TKe Mass on the World 13
ing you mysteriously need evety day to appease
your 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.
This bread, our toil, is of itself, I know, but an
immense fragmentation; this wine, our pain, is no
more, I know, than a draught that dissolves. Yet in
the very depths of this formless mass you have im-
planted — and this I am sure of, for I sense it — a de-
sire, irresistible, hallowing, which makes us cry out,
believer and unbeliever alike: "Lord, make us one."
Because, my God, though I lack the soul-zeal and
the sublime integrity of your saints, I yet have re-
ceived from you an, overwhelming sympathy for all
that stirs within the dark mass of matter; because I
know myself to be irremediably less a child of
heaven than a son of earth; therefore I will this
morning climb up in spirit to the high places, bear-
ing with me the hopes and the miseries of my
mother; and there — empowered by that priesthood
which you alone (as I firmly believe) have be-
stowed on me — upon all that in the world of
human flesh is now about to be born or to die be-
neath the rising sun I will call down the Fire.
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