Patient Trust by 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.

As mentioned, the overall theme for this semester is Faith & Reason. A major and more specific topic that often arises is Religion & Science. Here is short introduction to a man who immersed himself in the debate. Whether you agree with him or not, it is good to note that he kept to the faith even when his works were rejected.

Pierre Teilahrd de Chardin:
French philosopher and paleontologist known for his theory that man is evolving, mentally and socially, toward a final spiritual unity. Blending science and Christianity, declared that the human epic resembles “nothing so much as a way of the Cross.” Various of his theories brought reservations and objections from within the Roman Catholic Church and from the Jesuit order, of which he was a member. In 1962, the Holy Office issued a monitum, or simple warning, against uncritical acceptance of his ideas. His spiritual dedication, however, was not questioned. He stands among the very few leaders of thought in this century to integrate pure scientific research with a religious vocation. At an early point in his career this paleontologist and Jesuit priest made it his personal mission to reconstruct the most basic Christian doctrines from the perspectives of science and, at the same time, to reconstruct science from the perspectives of faith.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin
http://www.godweb.org/chardin.htm

Cardinal Casaroli, when he was the Vatican Secretary of State wrote the following:
"What our contemporaries will undoubtedly remember, beyond the difficulties of conception and deficiencies of expression in this audacious attempt to reach a synthesis, is the testimony of the coherent life of a man possessed by Christ in the depths of his soul. He was concerned with honoring both faith and reason, and anticipated the response to John Paul II's appeal: 'Be not afraid, open, open wide to Christ the doors of the immense domains of culture, civilization, and progress.'

http://www.traditioninaction.org/ProgressivistDoc/A_020_CasaroliTeilhard.htm


Donna Yeo,
Sessions Coordinator