We all live and move and have our being in the divine milieu.

The fifth Principle of Teilhard de Chardin is simple: "We all live and move and have our being in the divine milieu."

God is present to everything; God keeps everything in being. For Teilhard, God does this by creating a divine milieu in which everything that exists lives and moves and has its being.

I believe this. Do you? The problem is that I am often unaware of this mystery that allows us to retain our individuality, yet we are all part of the organically integrated whole created and nourished by the divine milieu. God is everywhere. Let us take time to be with Him today!

Finding God in all things leads us to greater gratitude and that gives us joy. Try listing all the things you are grateful for today and make sure you become conscious of God's Presence in every thing!!

Thoughts on "Spirit" according to Chardin

To continue with some thoughts from The New Spiritual Exercises. The fourth Telhardian Principle is "Evolution is based primarity on spirit, not on matter."
Now, we need to try to explain what Teilhard meant by the word "spirit".
Here are some of the things he said that may help:
Spirit is the origin and term of evolution.

Spirit is the power of unity scattered throughout the fragmenst of the universe. Spirit, working in matter through the Law of Attraction-Connection-Complexity-Consciousness, is the unifying force in creation, bringing all the elements to ever-higher levels of unity or oneness.

Spirit is the force driving everything toward synthesis and sublimation, that is toward higher levels of existence. Spirit explasins why everything in the physical world is evolving.

Spirit is continually leading the universe toward some more spiritual state. Savary says that for Teilhard, Jesus is inviting us to join with him in performing his greatest miracle of all, that of transforming the world once again, this time with the evolutionary power of love.

And finally, Spirit is personal, not some abstract or impersonal force such as gravity or electromagnetism. For Teilhard, the Holy Spirit is a divine person and, as such, wants to inspire us, individually and collectively, to create a world reborn in God-consciousness.

I have really copied this half page, page 21, from the book as I want you to be able to reflect yourself on how Savary is explaining what Chardin thought when he speaks of spirit.

I struggle to grasp his thought sometimes, but I think it is worth trying to understand. Words have so much meaning and so many meanings that one needs to enter into the mind of Teilhard to appreciate him and understand his vocabulary that adds new depth of meaning to some words.

More on the New Spiritual Exercises

I am sitting at a computer in the University Library and want to write something about the New Spiritual Exercises as I find the seventeen basic Teihardian Principles fascinating and want to share some with you this week. The first Principle is: "The discoveries of modern science must form an important foundation to any contemporary spirituality if it is to be true, relevant, and inspiring."

The second Principle is "Evolution is happening continually on every level of being--and has a direction."

The third Principle is :"The Law of Attraction-Connection-Complexity-Consciousness is the law that is giving evolution its direction."

Here we stop to look at the way Savary defines "Consciousness" in The New Spiritual Exercises. He says that there are two essential components: awareness and appropriate response. To be truly conscious, you need to respond appropriately to what you are experiencing. It requires a response to the stimulus--at least some thought or reflection. Also, in response you may choose to act or choose not to act.
The point is that we will be changed if we are truly conscious. I guess that is enough to reflect on today.

I seem to keep thinking about Jesus walking with us...

The Gospel account of the two disciples who left Jerusalem on the first Easter Sunday is so full of details and so consoling that I am drawn back to it often in prayer at this time of the year. Jesus does come to us, especially when we seem to be sad and discouraged. The problem is that we do not recognize Him when he joins us. He asks us what we are talking about, what are our concerns. When we tell Him, then He can show us how this is part of our life and as we listen we will find our hearts burning within us. Jesus loves us and this is shown in thousands of ways in our daily life. Let us turn then to Him and tell Him our concerns and then listen to Him and, above all, invite Him to stay with us.

Mother's Day

I spent a good deal of time in my journal yesterday recalling the unconditional love of my mother and how she was always at home for us. I think it must have been boring sometimes for her; actually she did tell us stories sometimes of the first year after she married my father. He would come home so tired that after dinner he would often fall asleep in the living room while my mother was doing the dishes. She said she would then put on one of his coats and hat and go out the back and around to ring the front doorbell. Dad would wake up and go to the door to welcome the visitor only to find that it was my mother who said that he got the message and would then pay more attention to her.
I find it easy to believe that Jesus and Mary love me unconditionally because my mother's love was unconditional, constant, and always surrounding us. She live for my Dad and her four children and seemed to love us all equally. I think my Dad loved my mother more than he loved us, or at least she came first, but I never felt that with my mother. I am sure we all go back often in prayer to thank for the gift of our mothers.
My Saturday post was scheduled but something happened and I just found that it was not published until I did it today. Anyway, today you have two posts and I will not post early this week, at least on some mornings, as I am going to try to go back to water exercise.

More on "The New Spiritual Exercises"

In the Introduction to "The New Spiritual Exercises" we are told that "it is a revisoning of the original Exercises as Teilhard might envision and re-create them if he were alive today. The Exercises focus upon the graces and blessings God gives us "for consciously creating a positive difference in our world." We are all involved in a cosmic project that God envisioned almost fourteen billion years ago at the first moment of creation. This great creation project is still going forward and we are invited to "become a co-creator with god of the divine vision formulated by Jesus, 'That all may be one as you, Father, are in me and I am in you." (John 17:21)

For Teilhard de Chardin, to love god requires loving the world. "Our challeng in spirituality is to realize how totally integrated we humans are with all creation and how best to work toward creation's divinely desired evolutionary fulfillment."

Remember this passage attributed to St. Teresa of Avila?

Christ has no body now but yours,
no hands, no feet on Earth but yours.
Yours are the only eyes
with which his compassion
can still look out on a troubled world.
Yours are the only hands
with which he can bring his blessing to his people.
Christ has no body now on Earth but yours.

Savary quotes this in the Introduction. More about the book later.

New Spiritual Exercises!!

I am using Louis M. Savary's latest book for prayer and so far I am loving it and want to tell you a bit about the beginning. The title is "The New Spiritual Exercises In the Spirit of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin." Paulist Press, 2010. The author, a former Jesuit who loves the writings of Teilhard de Chardin, has decided that if Ignatius of Loyola kept adapting the Exercises during his lifetime, he would certainly want to include all the discoveries of science since then. I am finding that I need to mark passages as I read them which is a sign of a good book for me. I am sure I will have more to say on this book as the days go by.
This morning I spent some time with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus as this story is so full of meaning for me. I often want to walk away discouraged because of some of the news (yesterday I made a firm resolution to pray for bishops every day and that includes the Pope). Jesus knows how I feel and comes to join me and asks me to tell him what is bothering me. He is a great listener and, even when I do not hear his explanations, I find that my heart begins to burn within me. I want him to stay with me and tell him so. Then he comes into my heart and, when I recognize him with reverence and humility, he puts me into his heart.

The following is an excerpt from an article by Brian Cahill in the NCR explaining why he stays in the Church with so many bishops not being good examples for those following Jesus. He says:

"I stay because I need the Eucharist. I need to hear the word of God. I need to pray with the worshiping people of God. I stay because of the great works of charity, social service, health care and education that have always come from my church. I stay because of the great priests, brothers, nuns, bishops and other fellow Catholics that I have been blessed to know who are models of faithful witness and compassionate ministry.

I stay because of our new San Francisco auxiliary, Bishop Robert McElroy -- a nurturing pastor who has written eloquently of the unintended consequences of the denial of Communion: the perception of coerciveness, the identification of abortion as a sectarian Catholic effort, and the diminishment of the full range and impact of the church’s social teaching.

I stay because of retired Archbishop John R. Quinn, who continues his advocacy for the reform of the papacy and with humility and wisdom urges his fellow bishops to consider how their voices can be most credible. I stay because of Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, a priest of deep compassion who has led the U.S. bishops in their advocacy for the needs of immigrants. I stay because of San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer, whose first response to an issue is always pastoral."

I guess we need to focus on the positive but I am upset by the removal of the bishop in Australia by the Pope.

Miscellaneous

I have many thoughts in my head today and it is afternoon and time to wind up work and go to the pool. I still have things to do and cannot believe that I have not yet written my daily blog. Going back to morning prayer, I was really concerned with being aware and responding to God's presence in my life. I think that is the grace I am praying for and that God wants to give me. I get so caught up with what I am doing that I forget to realize that God is with me and is waiting for me to turn to Him to help me with whatever needs to be done. Instead, I let myself begin to feel hurried and less peaceful - a sure sign that I am depending on me instead of on God. Anyway, it has been a day where I seem not to have accomplished much and so I acknowledge again that I need help. I must stop procrastinating, too. I suspect it has much to do with having workmen in the house everyday and one of my community also is here. There is much noise and I am used to quiet so I realize how spoiled I am when I have had a quiet house to work in and concentrate without the TV.
Well, I am feeling the human condition today (that is a phrase that I learned over sixty years ago when in college and it meant then that we are weak and not capable of much good - the good news is that then we turn to God and can do all things in Him who strengthens us!
Let us begin...sorry to be so late today in writing this blog.

Longing for God

I am convinced that we all long for God, but that many do not know what this longing is and seek other things that never satisfy. They feel empty and so turn to drink or food or other things to try to satisfy that inner craving that they have not yet realized is really an intense desire for God. We are made for God and our hearts are restless until they rest in Him as St. Augustine told us. Even those of us who have found God long to be united with Him more and more. God is infinite and our capacity is finite, but God increases our capacity to receive Him, I think, by increasing our desire. This is something I often reflect upon and think that Jesus spends the time after Easter still going around and consoling his friends. Let us profit from these forty days to increase our longing to receive him! "As a deer longs for water, so my soul longs for you..."

Jesus waits for us

I love to think of Jesus waiting on the shore while the Apostles were out fishing and catching nothing until Jesus tells them to cast their nets again. The truth is that Jesus is always with us. We are the ones that are not conscious of his presence in us and with us always. I am asking the grace today to be more conscious of this loving presence in my life. I know that Jesus is with me, but act without being conscious of this.It is a grace to beg for and perhaps I have not asked with enough faith.

Faith - We believe without seeing!

Jesus says that we are blessed. The Sunday after Easter always has the Gospel where Jesus returns to appear in the midst of the Apostles on Sunday evening. This time Thomas is there. Jesus gives his ordinary greeting: "Peace be with you." And then he turns to Thomas. Thomas sees Jesus and that is enough for his great confession of faith: "My Lord and my God!" How many of us say that at the Consecration of the Mass? Yet do we realize that Jesus has blessed us because we believe without seeing. I have more thoughts but it is too hot to even think them as we are now eight days without any air-conditioning and it is affecting us all, I think.
We are getting it fixed so maybe by Tuesday night, hopefully, we may be back to normal. Still, this is better than after a hurricane when we do not even have power to turn on a fan. I am not complaining but just realizing that days of heat do affect us all. Thank God for the many ways we do have to cool off!