January 2007 Christian Spirituality By George A Lane SJ

. Spirituality for our time Continue from ...... The chief instrument through which Christ energizes, amorizes and unifies the faithful within Himself is the Eucharist. Jesuit Father Teilhard de Chardin's notion of the Eucharist is not simply that it is formed and communicated to persons, but that it pervades and permeates those who receive it and through them it comes into contact with the whole material world. This is the expansion of the Host which penetrates the whole of creation. But then from this extension, from this permeation of the hearts of people and of the world, Christ draws all to Himself. "...Christ Jesus, who through the magnetism of his love and the effective power of his Eucharist, gradually gathers into himself all the unitive energy scattered through his creation." With St Paul, Teilhard would say to the Christians, "All things are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's." What will the consummation of this process be? What will the second coming of Christ be all about? Teilhard poses the question whether the world has two summits of fulfillment, or only one. In other words, does the world have a natural end and a supernatural end too? His answer is no; "the world can no more have two summits of fulfillment than a circumference can have two centres." To build the earth is to prepare for and to hasten the second coming of Christ. This then verifies Teilhard's notion that what Christ has done by his Incarnation is to enter this whole dynamic of the human world and to lead the whole process to His heavenly Father where God will be all in all. All the processes within the world will be assumed by Christ and led to the Father. Teilhard writes, "in a universe which was disclosing itself to me as structurally convergent, you, Lord Jesus, by right of your resurrection had assumed the dominating position of all-inclusive Centre in which everything is gathered together." So Teilhard sees the evolving universe centered, focussed into a single redeeming and elevating process. All things will be united to Christ and find their fulfillment in Him. There will be a new heaven and a new earth when Christ re-establishes all things in Himself and finally returns all to His Father. This has been a sketch of Teilhard's faith-vision of God, people, and the world. It is the basis for his Ignation spirituality of finding God in all things.

- To Be Continued - © Copyright Shalom 2007. All rights reserved.