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object:1.04 - Communion
book class:Hymn of the Universe
author class:Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
subject class:Christianity
class:chapter




Communion

If the Fire has come down into the heart of the
world it is, in the last resort, to lay hold on me and
to absorb me. Henceforth I cannot be content sim-
ply to contemplate it or, by my steadfast faith, to
intensify its ardency more and more in the world
around me. What I must do, when I have taken
part with all my energies in the consecration which
causes its flames to leap forth, is to consent to the
communion which will enable it to find in me the
food it has come in the last resort to seek.

So, my God, I prostrate myself before your pres-
ence in the universe which has now become living



The Mass on the World 23

flame: beneath the lineaments of all that I shall en-
counter this day, all that happens to me, all that!
achieve, it is you I desire, you I await

It is a terrifying thing to have been born: I mean,
to find oneself, without having willed it, swept ir-
revocably along on a torrent of fearful energy
which seems as though it wished to destroy every*
thing it carries with it

What I want, my God, is that by a reversal of
forces which you alone can bring about, my terror
in face of the nameless changes destined to renew
my being may be turned into an overflowing joy at
being transformed into you.

First of all I shall stretch out my hand unhesitat-
ingly towards the fiery bread which you set before
me. This bread, in which you have planted the seed
of all that is to develop in the future, I recognize as
containing the source and the secret of that destiny
you have chosen for me. To take it is, I know, to
surrender myself to forces which will tear me away
painfully from myself in order to drive me into
danger, into laborious undertakings, into a constant
renewal of ideas, into an austere detachment where
my affections are concerned. To eat it is to acqufee
a taste and an affinity for that which in everything
is above everything — a taste and an affinity which
will henceforward make impossible for me all the
joys by which my life has been warmed. Lord
Jesus, I am willing to be possessed by you, to be
bound to your body and led by its inexpressible
power towards those solitary heights which by
myself I should never dare to climb. Xnsttocfc*



24 Hymn of the Universe

ively, like all mankind, I would rather set up
my tent here bgjtaw on some hilltop of my own
choosing. I am afraid, too, like all my fellowmen,
of the future too heavy with mystery and too
wholly new, towards which time is driving
me. Then like these men I wonder anxiously
where life is leading me, . • • May this com-
munion of bread with the Christ clothed in the
powers which dilate the world free me from my
timidities and my heedlessness! In the whirlpool of
conflicts and energies out of which must develop
my power to apprehend and experience your holy
presence, I throw myself , my God, on your word.
The man who is filled with an impassioned love of
Jesus hidden in the forces which bring increase to
the earth, him the earth will lift up, like a mother,
in the immensity of her arms, and will enable him
to contemplate the face of God.

If your kingdom, my God, were of this world, I
could possess you simply by surrendering myself to
the forces which cause us, through suffering and
dying, to grow visibly in stature— us or that which
is dearer to us than ourselves. But because the term
towards which the earth is moving lies not merely
beyond each individual thing but beyond the total-
ity of things; because the world travails, not to
bring forth from within itself some supreme reality,
but to find its consummation through a union with
a preexistent Being; it follows that man can never
reach the blazing center of the universe simply by
living more and more for himself nor even by
spending his life in the service of some earthly
cause however great. The world can never be defin-



The Mass on the World 25

itively united with you, Lord, saveJby/a sort of re-
versal, a turning about, an e^der^tratvcm 9 which
must involve the temporary collapse not merely of
all individual achievements but even of everything
that looks like an advancement for humanity. If my
being is ever to be decisively attached to yours,
there must first die in me not merely the monad ego
but also the world: in other words I must first pass
through an agonizing phase of diminution for
which no tangible compensation will be given me.
That is why, pouring into my chalice the bitterness
of all separations, of all limitations, and of all ster-
ile fallings away, you then hold it out to me. "Drink
ye all of this."

How could I refuse this chalice, Lord, now that
through the bread you have given me there has
crept into the marrow of my being an inextinguish-
able longing to be united with you beyond life;
through death? The consecration of the world
would have remained incomplete, a moment ago,
had you not with special love vitalized for those
who believe, not only the life-bringing forces, but
also those which bring death. My communion
would be incomplete — would, quite simply, not be
Christian — if, together with the gains which this
new day brings me, I did not also accept, in my
own name and in the name of the world as the
most immediate sharing in your own being, those
processes, hidden or manifest, of enfeeblement, of
aging, of death, which unceasingly consume the
universe, to its salvation or its condemnation. My
God, I deliver myself up with utter abandon to
those fearful forces of dissolution which, I blindly



26 Hymn of the Universe

believe, will tins day cause my narrow ego to be re-
placed by your cjivine presence. The man who is
filled with an impassioned love for Jesus hidden in
the forces which bring death to the earth, him the
earth will clasp in the immensity of her arms as her
strength fails, and with her he will awaken in the
bosom of God,




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