by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
It is done.
Once again the Fire has penetrated the earth
Not with the sudden crash of thunderbolt,
riving the mountain tops:
does the Master break down doors to enter his own home?
Without earthquak.e, 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 connecting link in the unity of our cosmos,
that one might suppose the cosmos to have burst spontaneously into flame.
* * *
I have heard of Teilhard de Chardin, but I never read anything of his before this poem. I like it: it seems to convey the paradox between the extreme subtlety of Christ's coming -- silently in a manger where He might have come in the loudest thunder -- and the vast extent that the universe has been silently changed.
To all my fellow bloggers: "a very merry Christmas, and many may you see!"
(Internet cookie to whoever names that quote.)
4 comments:
Uh-oh...
I prophesy: it's only a matter of time before a Christendomite comes and denounces Tielhard...
There goes your reputation for prophecy, Mr. Santiago. Not much has been going on here lately. Life must be busy out there in the Real World. I wouldn't know.
Anyway, no one's had the time lately to get on here and denounce Tielhard de Chardin. My apologies. You're just going to have to go defend him proactively, I guess. Let me know if you do a post on him.
Alas! Teilhard isn't one of my favorites either, but a lot of people love to hate him, including some of my esteemed professors.
Real World, eh? I try to keep tethered to it, mostly by attending the drab suburban liturgies as an act of compassion with the masses...
"With the masses?" I hope that pun wasn't intentional.
I never did see anything as unlike the Real World as a weird Mass.
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