TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

TEILHARD DE CHARDIN: THE MAN 
by PIERRE LEROY, s.j. 


The combination of priest and scientist is nothing new; 
but in his case what was really astonishing was his closeness 
to the earth and his deep feeling for the value of matter. 
People who were shocked by him never realised how deep 
lay the roots of this simultaneous love of God and of the 
world. c Throughout my whole life,' he wrote, c during 
every moment I have lived, the world has gradually been 
taking on light and fire for me, until it has come to envelop 
me in one mass of luminosity, glowing from within. . . The 
purple flush of matter fading imperceptibly into the gold 
of spirit, to be lost finally in the incandescence of a personal 
universe. . . . 

This is what I have learnt from my contact with the 
earth — the diaphany of the divine at the heart of a glowing 
universe, the divine radiating from the depths of matter 
a-flame.'