object:1.03 - Fire in the Earth
book class:Hymn of the Universe
author class:Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
subject class:Christianity
class:chapter
Fire in the Earth
It is done.
Once again the Fire has penetrated the earth.
Not with sudden crash of thunderbolt, riving the
mountain-tops: does the Master break down doors
to enter his own home? Without earthquake, or
thunderclap: the flame has lit up the whole world
from within. All things individually and collectively
are penetrated and flooded by it, from the inmost
core of the tiniest atom to the mighty sweep of the
most universal laws of being: so naturally has it
flooded every element, every energy, every con-
necting link in the unity of our cosmos; that one
* As was pointed out in the Introduction, there is no confu-
sion here between transubstantiation in the strict sense and
the universal presence of the Word: as the author states ex-
plicitly in Le Pritre, "The central mystery of transubstantia-
tion is aureoled by a divinization, real though attenuated, of
all the universe." From the cosmic element into which he has
entered through his incarnation and in which he dwells eu-
charistically, "the Word acts upon everything else to subdue
and assimilate it to himself/' (Ed. note.)
might suppose the cosmos to have burst sponta-
neously into flame.
In the new humanity which is begotten today the
Word prolongs the unending act of his own birth;
arid by virtue of his immersion in the world's womb
the great waters of the kingdom of matter have,
The Mass on the World 17
without even a ripple, been endued with life. No
visible tremor marks this inexpressible transforma-
tion; and yet, mysteriously and in very truth, at the
touch of the supersubstantial Word the immense
host which is the universe is made flesh. Through
your own incarnation, my God, all matter is hence-
forth incarnate.
Through our thoughts and our human experi-
ences, we long ago became aware of the strange
properties which make the universe so like our
flesh:
like the flesh it attracts us by the charm which
lies in the mystery of its curves and folds and in the
depths of its eyes;
like the flesh it disintegrates and eludes us when
submitted to our analyses or to our fallings off and
in the process of its own perdurance;
as with the flesh, it can only be embraced in the
endless reaching out to attain what lies beyond the
confines of what has been given to us.
All of us, Lord, from the moment we are born
feel within us this disturbing mixture of remoteness
and nearness; and in our heritage of sorrow and
hope, passed down to us through the ages, there is
no yearning more desolate than that which makes
us weep with vexation and desire as we stand in
the midst of the Presence which hovers about us
nameless and impalpable and is dwelling in all
things. Si forte attrectent eum*
Now, Lord, through the consecration of the
* "That they [all mankind] should seek God, if happily they
may feel after him or find him. . • •" (Acts 17.27.)
18 Hymn of the Universe
world the luminosity and fragrance which suffuse
the universe take on for me the lineaments of a
body and a f ace-r-in you. What my mind glimpsed
through its hesitant explorations,- vNhat my heart
cxraved with so little expectation of fulfillment, you
now magnificently unfold for me: the fact that your
creatures are not merely so linked together in soli-
darity that none can exist unless all the rest sur-
round it, but that all are so dependent on a single
central reality that a true life, borne in common by
them all, gives them ultimately their consistence
and their unity.
Shatter, my God, through the daring of your rev-
elation the childishly timid outlook that can con-
ceive of nothing greater or more vital in the world
than the pitiable perfection of our human organ-
ism. On the road to a bolder comprehension of the
universe the children of this world day by day out-
distance the masters of Israel; but do you, Lord
Jesus, "in whom all things subsist," show yourself to
those who love you as the higher Soul and the
physical center of your creation. Are you not well
aware that for us this is a question of life or death?
As for me, if I could not believe that your real Pres-
ence animates and makes tractable and enkindles
even the very least of the energies which invade me
or brush past me, would I not die of cold?
I thank you, my God, for having in a thousand
different ways led my eyes to discover the immense
simplicity of things. Little by little, through the ir-
resistible development of those yearnings you im-
planted in me ,as a child, through the influence of
The Mass on the World 19
gifted friends who entered my life at certain
moments to bring light and strength to my mind,
and through the awakenings of spirit I owe to the
successive initiations, gentle and terrible, which
you caused me- to undergo: through all these I have
been brought to the point where I can no longer
see anything, nor any longer breathe, outside that
milieu in which all is made one.
At this moment when your life has just poured
with superabundant vigor into the sacrament of the
world, I shall savor with heightened consciousness
the intense yet tranquil rapture of a vision whose
coherence and harmonies I can never exhaust
What I experience as I stand in face of — and in
the very depths of — this world which your flesh has
assimilated, this world which has become your
flesh, my God, is not the absorption of the monist
who yearns to be dissolved into the unity of things,
nor the emotion felt by the pagan as he lies pros-
trate before a tangible divinity, nor yet the passive
self-abandonment of the quietist tossed hither and
thither at the mercy of mystical impulsions. Prom
each of these modes of thought I take something of
their motive force while avoiding their pitfalls: the
approach determined for me by your omnipresence
is a wonderful synthesis wherein three of the most
formidable passions that can unlock the human
heart rectify each other as they mingle: like the
monist I plunge into the all-inclusive One; but the
One is so perfect that as it receives me and I lose
myself in it I can find in it the ultimate perfection
of my own individuality;
20 Hymn of the Universe
like the pagan '1 worship a God who can be
touched; arid I do indeed touch him— this God —
over the whole surface and in- the depths of that
world of matter which confines irie: Trot to take
hold of him as I would wish (simply in order not to
stop touching him), I must go always on and on
through and beyond each undertaking/ unable to
rest in anything, borne onwards at each moment by
creatures and at each moment going beyond them,
in a continuing welcoming of them and a continu-
ing detachment from them;
like the quietist I allow myself with delight to be
cradled in the divine fantasy: but at the same time
I know that the divine will, will only be revealed to
meat each moment if I exert myself to the utmost?
I shall only touch God in the world of matter,
when, like Jacob, I have been vanquished by him.
Thus, because the ultimate objective, the totality
to which my nature is attuned has been made man-
ifest to me, the powers of my being begin sponta-
neously to vibrate in accord with a single note of
incredible richness wherein I can distinguish the
most discordant tendencies effortlessly resolved:
the excitement of action and the delight of pass-
ivity: the joy of possessing and the thrill of reach-
ing out beyond what one possesses; the pride
in growing and the happiness of being lost in what
is greater than oneself.
Rich with the sap of the world, I rise up towards
the Spirit whose vesture is the magnificence of the
material universe but who smiles at me from far
beyond all victories; and, lost in the mystery of the
The Mass on the World 21
flesh of God, I cannot tell which is the more radiant
bliss: to have found the Word and so be able to
achieve the #ia$tery of matter, or to have mastered
matter and so be able to attain and submit to the
light of God. '."■■;"[,;.,
Grant, Lord, that your descent into the universal
Species may not be for me just something loved
and cherished, like the fruit of some philosophical
speculation, but may become for me truly a real
Presence. Whether we like it or not by power and
by right you are incarnate in the world, and we are
all of us dependent upon you. But in fact you are
far, and how far, from being equally close to us all.
We are all of us together carried in the one world-
womb; yet each of us is our own little microcosm in
which the Incarnation is wrought independently
with degrees of intensity, and shades that are in-
communicable. And that is why, in our prayer at
the altar, we ask that the consecration may be
brought about for us: Ut nobis Corpus el San-
guis fiat . . .* If I firmly believe that everything
around me is the body and blood of the Word,**
then for me (and in one sense for me alone) is
brought about that marvelous "diaphany" which
causes the luminous warmth of a single life to be
objectively discernible in and to shine forth from
* "That it may become for us the Body and Blood of your
dearly loved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ."
** Through the "physical and overmastering" contact of him
whose appanage it is to be able omnia sibi subicere [''to sub-
due all things unto himself." Phil. 3.21]. {Le Milieu Divin,
Eng. trans, p. 114.)
22 Hymn of the Universe
the depths of every event, every element: whereas
if, unhappily, my faith should flag, at once the light
is quenched and everything becomes darkened, ev-
erything disintegrates.
You have come down, Lord, into this day which
is now beginning. But alas, how infinitely different
in degree is your presence for one and another of
us in the events which are now preparing and
which all of us together will experience! In the very
same circumstances which are soon to surround me
and my fellowmen you may be present in small
measure, in great measure, more and more or not
atali.
Therefore, Lord, that no poison may harm me
this day, no death destroy me, no wine befuddle
me, that in every creature I may discover and sense
you, I beg you: give me faith.
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