Catholicism, holiness and spirituality

Struggles and perseverance

This letter from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to his cousin Mageurite really made me pause and reflect. Here are the parts of the letter that struck a chord in me:

[Hersin-Coupigny] 7th October 1915

... I made a tour of the trenches on the eve of the attack to people I knew and to give communion to  some (all to whom I offered it, accepted; I was limited by the smallness of my pyx). You can't imagine what emotions I then experienced, nor what one feels is conveyed in the clasp of a man who shakes one's hand, at a bend in a communications trench, after one has given him God – while the shells are going across, almost like a solid vault overhead, with a continual hum, on their way to demolish the trenches 200 metres further on, the trenches we'll have to move into as soon as the bombardment stops. There's no doubt about it: The only man who knows [who experiences] right in the innermost depths of his being the weight and grandeur of war, is the man who goes over the top with bayonet and grenade. In that moment training, of course, and a sort of intoxication play a large part; but even so it is still true that the infantryman leaving his trench for the attack is a man apart, a man who has lived a minute of life of which other men have simply no conception at all.

I am ashamed, as you may imagine, to think that I stayed in the communication trenches while my friends went out to their death. So many of them never came back – first among them, my best friend in the regiment, and the finest soldier I've yet known, poor Commandant Lefebvre ...

What is going to emerge from this ghastly struggle? It's more and more the crisis, the desperately slow evolution of a rebirth of Europe. Yet could things move any more quickly? ... We must offer our existence to God, who neither wastes nor spoils, but rather makes use, better than we could ever anticipate, of the struggles in which we are enveloped. If I said I didn't feel any weariness, I wouldn't be speaking the truth. As soon as the trenches lose the attraction of novelty, you easily become heartily sick of them – particularly, perhaps, when, like me, the work you've given yourself to involves witnessing all the miseries, one after another, without sharing in the battle or victory. Pray to God the he may give me the strength to hold out as long as he should wish me to. When the regiment, for the third time, fills up with new faces, it's hard work to start making friends again, to form relationships, in the hopes of being able to give someone words of advice or absolution when the next attack comes. God grant that we may remain his workers to the end. ...

This letter is set in the trenches of World War I, but couldn't it just as well apply to the wars of today? We can never really know what it's like to be a soldier on the front line, or on a patrol somewhere in a hostile, foreign land. As we sit back here in relative safety, people die in war. And what will emerge from this struggle? We are understandably impatient and weary; and perhaps we're hesitant to get too intimate with what's really going on.

It seems to me that Teilhard's experience here also applies to the 'wars' of poverty, HIV/AIDS and other diseases that decimate some countries, persecuted refugees, inner-city struggles, rural poverty and so on. Can we imagine the emotions we might feel from a close, spiritual connection with someone we know is facing persecution, chronic disease, hunger, street violence, or death? Would we feel shame for being close to them yet removed from that same danger? And what will emerge from these struggles around the world and in our own back yards? Maybe we get weary from constantly giving, or being called to give, of ourselves and our resources to causes that don't seem to get resolved. It can be hard to keep going in the midst of what seems to be constant struggle, constant misery.

As I read this letter from Teilhard, I was also reminded that there are plenty of Jesuits today who could probably relate to his experiences in the trenches of World War I. The front lines may be different, but the 'ghastly' struggles are just as real.

Action and Sanctification

As I was reading through 'The Making of a Mind' I came across a letter from Teilhard written while he was on a break from the front-lines, at a place named Zuydcoote in Northern France, on July 4, 1915. The first part of it was familiar, containing the prayer titled 'Patient Trust' that I first read in the little prayer book 'Hearts on Fire'. The second part of the letter contains another gem - Teilhard's description of true religion, one which spurs action that leads to sanctification:

One of the surest marks of the truth of religion, in itself and in an individual soul, is to note to what extent it brings into action, that is, causes to rise up from sources deep within each one of us, a certain maximum of energy and effort. Action and sanctification go hand in hand, each supporting the other. You want to feel yourself more balanced in the hurly-burly of a free life: strive to increase your own personal impetus, your thrust towards the good to be achieved in your own circle. When your moral 'vital force' has thus been increased, the contrary winds that might make you waver or hesitate if you were at rest will hardly divert you from your course, for you will be under way.

I like that - it makes sense to me, and I've found it to be true. When I am more or less standing still in my spiritual life, in my social-justice activities, or just feeling all-around insular, it is much easier for me to waver and hesitate to do the right thing, to live a holier life. But when I'm moving along, spiritually and in using my blessings to help others, I am much more centered and resolute. Action and sanctification do seem to go hand in hand, for me at least.

Letters from a soldier-priest

One of the books I've been reading, bit by bit, is by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ - one of my favorite Jesuits from history. He was in the first world war, serving France as an 'enlisted' soldier on the front line from Nieport to Rechesy. The book's full title is 'The Making of a Mind, Letters from a soldier-priest [1914-1919]', and it is now out of print.

There are two things about this book that attracted me to it. My brother-in-law is a chaplain in the Air Force, and currently on active duty somewhere in the Middle East (or, Southwest Asia as he likes to call it). Having a family member in active duty brings me closer to that world. I pay closer attention to the detail of the war-news, and his emails give me a more intimate picture of what's going on there. So, that led me to this work of Teilhard's; I knew from earlier works that he had spent time in the war, so this chaplaincy-connection from past to present sparked my curiosity.

The other aspect of this book that attracted me to it is that it is essentially a collection of letters Teilhard wrote from the front lines back to his cousin, Marguerite Teilhard. Who writes letters these days? We email, we blog, we send text messages. People can reach me most any time, any place, via my mobile phone, which I can also use for reading and sending email. But because it's so easy and quick to communicate those ways, perhaps we also lose some intimacy, some depth in the communication? My brother-in-law the chaplain sends us all an email now and then, to let us know how he's doing and some of the highlights he can share about his work. Because he is so far away and is restricted in his time and detail of what he can share, his emails seem to have more authenticity, more genuineness. They remind me of the letters Teilhard wrote to his cousin - little capsules of the important thoughts, feelings and happenings that need to be written down and communicated.

So for the first quote from the book, here's one that chaplains will appreciate, and which shows a glimpse, I think, of someone holding true to their calling:

[Marest, Oise] 9th February 1915

... I feel increasingly happy at having been posted to a regiment in which, as I told you, I am the only priest, and where there is a large number of men who, when the time comes, will turn to me for help. I hope really to have found my right place. ...

Goodbye. I pray for you, and I ask our Lord to associate our activities, however far from one another they may seem, so that they may 'render' more to his service.

Joy

I came across this while catching up on my backlog of America Magazine issues:

Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

This is from the April 2, 2007 issue, titled 'The Most Infallible Sign: Recovering joy, humor and laughter in the spiritual life', by James Martin, SJ (Teilhard & Martin, two of my favorite Jesuits). This is a great Catholic magazine - I highly recommend it.

Loving

Love God with all your being, and love your neighbor as yourself – Jesus

May it please the Beloved that we never fail to love each other, because if we do we are lost – St Teresa of Avila

Love shows itself better through deeds than by words – St Ignatius of Loyola

Love one another, or you perish – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

If there were love of neighbor there would be no terrorism, no repression, no selfishness, none of such cruel inequalities in society, no abductions, no crimes – Archbishop Oscar Romero

Love decides everything – Pedro Arrupe, SJ

So much is written about love… probably because it is so much easier to write about it than to actually do it. I’m not discounting the words that are written about love; but it’s a bit disheartening to see how prevalent the lack of love is in so many places these days.

Let’s build a wall to keep them out of our yard, our subdivision, our seaside resort, our country so that we don’t have to deal with their needs. Let’s spend billions on war while the most vulnerable in our neighborhood, our cities and in our rural areas go without basic healthcare because it’s too expensive for them to pay for it. Let’s divide the world into them and us so we don’t have to deal with them. Let’s ignore how much we contribute to polluting the world so that we can keep the cost of consumer goods low. Let’s spend billions on researching and producing vanity drugs instead of finding cures for simple ailments that affect millions of people each year, people who can’t afford to pay for their cure. Let’s get caught up in our work and entertainment so that we don’t have time to be good parents, devoted spouses, and compassionate friends.

Let’s get caught up in satisfying ourselves instead of loving God and loving those around us. It’s so much easier, and it feels good… for a while, anyway.

Patient Trust

From one of my favorite Jesuits, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
   to reach the end without delay.
We would like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
   unknown, something new.
And yet, it is the law of all progress
   that it is made by passing through
   some stages of instability -
   and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
   your ideas mature gradually - let them grow,
   let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don't try to force them on,
   as though you could be today what time,
   (that is to say, grace and circumstances
   acting on your own good will)
   will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
   gradually forming in you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
   that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
   in suspense and incomplete.

This is  from the wonderful little prayer book titled Hearts on Fire: Praying with the Jesuits. It's a great book - highly recommended.

Love or perish

I'm getting to the end of my collection of Teilhard's writings, and in good Jesuit fashion it is wrapping up with the theme of love. This passage particularly spoke to me today:

“Love one another.” Those words were pronounced two thousand years ago. But today they sound again in our ears in a very different tone. For centuries charity and fraternity could only be presented in a code of moral perfection, or perhaps as a practical method of diminishing the pains or frictions of earthly life. Now … the voice which speaks takes on a more imperious tone. It no longer says “Love one another in order to be perfect,” but adds, “Love one another or you perish.” “Realistic” minds are welcome to smile at dreamers who speak of a humanity cemented and armored no longer with brutality but with love. They are welcome to deny that a maximum of physical power may coincide with a maximum of gentleness, and goodness. Their spiritual scepticism can not prevent the theory and experience of spiritual energy from combining to warn us that we have reached a decisive point in human evolution, at which the only way forward is in the direction of a common passion, a “conspiration.”

To go on putting our hopes in a social order obtained by external violence would simply mean to abandon all hope of carrying the spirit of the earth to its limits.

Pierre Tielhard de Chardin, from 'Human Energy'

I'm not sure when he wrote this - but it would be somewhere between 1920 and 1950, or so. It still rings true, in my opinion.

More on adoring God

This prayer from Teilard's Divine Milieu impressed me for it's honesty and hope:

Domine, adjuva incredulitatem meam (Lord, help my unbelief). Ah, you know it yourself, Lord, through having borne the anguish of it as man: on certain days the world seems a terrifying thing: huge, blind, and brutal. It buffets us about, drags us along, and kills us with complete indifference. Heroically, it may truly be said, the human being has contrived to create a more or less habitable zone of light and warmth in the midst of great, cold, black, waters – a zone where people have eyes to see, hands to help, and hearts to love. But how precarious that habitation is! At any moment, the vast and horrible thing may break in through the cracks – the thing which we try hard to forget is always there, separated from us by a flimsy partition: fire, pestilence, storms, earthquakes, or the unleashing of dark moral forces – these callously sweep away in one moment what we had laboriously built up and beautified with our intelligence and all our love.

Since my dignity as a man, O God, forbids me to close my eyes to this – like an animal or a child – that I may not succumb to the temptation to curse the universe and him who made it, teach me to adore it by seeing you concealed within it. O Lord, repeat to me the great liberating words, the words that at once reveal and operate: Hoc est corpus meam (This is my body).

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, from The Divine Milieu

Unsatisfied Theism

We are surrounded by a certain sort of pessimists who continually tell us that our world is foundering in atheism. But should we not rather say that what it is suffering from is unsatisfied theism? People, you say, no longer want God; but are you quite sure that what they are rejecting is not simply the image of a God who is too insignificant to nourish us in this concern to survive and super-live to which the need to worship may ultimately be reduced?

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, from The Zest for Living, part of Activation of Energy

I'm not sure when he wrote this - somewhere between 1920 and 1955 probably - but it is still true today, in my opinion. People have a natural pull towards the Divine, towards God. That pull, that tendency, can get off track and end up getting attracted to God-substitutes. Selfishness, narcissism, other religions, cults, and atheism (which always seemed to me like a religion itself) - maybe they are the results of unsatisfied theism? If we are not showing people by our actions, by the way we live our lives, just how awesome, loving and significant our God is, they will find one of those substitutes. It's human nature.

What image of God do people see in us? What image of God do they see reflected in our churches and its leaders?

How many times have we heard (or said, ourselves) how bad such-and-such church is because we knew 'one of them' once and they turned out to be really bad people, ignorant of their religion or of Christ? And so, we make the mental note that such-and-such church is to be avoided (or maybe worse - saved!) - we assume all the members are the same as that one we knew. If we think that of fellow Christians, surely others may evaluate us the same way.

A God to Adore

This is from one of Teilhard's prayers in Divine Milieu, written in 1927:

Sometimes people think they can increase your attractiveness in my eyes by stressing almost exclusively the charm and goodness of your human life in the past. But truly, O Lord, if I wanted to cherish only a man, then I would surely turn to those whom you have given me in the allurement of their present flowering. Are there not, with our mothers, brothers, friends, and sisters, enough irresistibly loveable people around us? Why should we turn to Judea two thousand years ago? No, what I cry out for, like every being, with my whole life and all my earthly passion, is something very different from an equal to cherish: it is a God to adore.

To adore... that means to lose oneself in the unfathomable, to plunge into the inexhaustible, to find peace in the incorruptible, to be absorbed in defined immensity, to offer oneself to the fire and the transparency, to annihilate onself in proportion as one becomes more deliberately conscious to oneself, and to give of one's deepest to that whose depth has no end.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu

To adore Christ, as Teilhard describes, sounds so good it's hard to imagine anyone not wanting to go there. It also sounds a bit scary - to offer our selves, to annihilate our selves. It's a total, selfless giving to the One who is infinitely greater than we are.