I read several of his books but was especially moved by a poem/prayer that he wrote while doing archeological work in China. He found himself without bread and wine, unable to celebrate Mass, so he composed a beautiful piece called Mass on the World. Over my nearly 49 years as a priest I have often re-visited this prayer. As I thought of the many people who are unable to participate in the Eucharist because of the corona virus it came to mind once again. Since it is rather lengthy I offer at the end of this reflection the beginning portion of this work. Perhaps especially those who cannot go to Mass at this time can reflect on this.
Although I am blessed by living in a community that can have Mass together in spite of bans gatherings with the public in Churches, Mass on the World invites me to lift up in prayer the victims of Covid-19, their friends and loved ones, and all who will suffer financial hardship from this dread disease. During Lent I will bring my own meditations on Teilhard's great work to my celebration of the Eucharist. It also calls me to remind everyone that this is a time to stand together, to avoid sniping at one another bu using a political lense on this pandemic which is affecting the entire human race.
Lent is indeed different this year. Giving up things doesn't seem to cut it for me at this time. If it works for others that is fine, but I would like to suggest that experiencing this time, perhaps in quarantine or self imposed separation, certainly be social distancing and doing so in faith, is the call of Lent this year. By doing so in faith I mean praying for the patience to endure long times alone by not grumbling about the inconveniences I endure, and above all doing what I can to help others.
Mass on the World (the beginning)
“Since once again, Lord — though this time not in the forests of the Aisne but in the steppes of Asia — I have neither bread, nor wine, nor altar, I will raise myself beyond these symbols, up to the pure majesty of the real itself; I, your priest, will make the whole earth my altar and on it will offer you all the labors and sufferings of the world.
Over there, on the horizon, the sun has just touched with light the outermost fringe of the eastern sky. Once again, beneath this moving sheet of fire, the living surface of the earth wakes and trembles, and once again begins its fearful travail. I will place on my paten, O God, the harvest to be won by this renewal of labour. Into my chalice I shall pour all the sap which is to be pressed out this day from the earth’s fruits.
My paten and my chalice are the depths of a soul laid widely open to all the forces which in a moment will rise up from every corner of the earth and converge upon the Spirit. Grant me the remembrance and the mystic presence of all those whom the light is now awakening to the new day.
One by one, Lord, I see and I love all those whom you have given me to sustain and charm my life. One by one also I number all those who make up that other beloved family which has gradually surrounded me, its unity fashioned out of the most disparate elements, with affinities of the heart, of scientific research and of thought. And again one by one — more vaguely it is true, yet all-inclusively — I call before me the whole vast anonymous army of living humanity; those who surround me and support me though I do not know them; those who come, and those who go; above all, those who in office, laboratory and factory, through their vision of truth or despite their error, truly believe in the progress of earthly reality and who today will take up again their impassioned pursuit of the light.
This restless multitude, confused or orderly, the immensity of which terrifies us; this ocean of humanity whose slow, monotonous wave-flows trouble the hearts even of those whose faith is most firm: it is to this deep that I thus desire all the fibres of my being should respond. All the things in the world to which this day will bring increase; all those that will diminish; all those too that will die: all of them, Lord, I try to gather into my arms, so as to hold them out to you in offering. This is the material of my sacrifice; the only material you desire.
Once upon a time men took into your temple the first fruits of their harvests, the flower of their flocks. But the offering you really want, the offering you mysteriously need every day to appease your hunger, to slake your thirst is nothing less than the growth of the world borne ever onwards in the stream of universal becoming.
Receive, O Lord, this all-embracing host which your whole creation, moved by your magnetism, offers you at this dawn of a new day.
This bread, our toil, is of itself, I know, but an immense fragmentation; this wine, our pain, is no more, I know, than a draught that dissolves. Yet in the very depths of this formless mass you have implanted — and this I am sure of, for I sense it — a desire, irresistible, hallowing, which makes us cry out, believer and unbeliever alike:
‘Lord, make us one.’”
— Teilhard de Chardin, “Mass on the World”
[Editor’s Note: The above is from the beginning of “Mass on the World”, one of Teilhard de Chardin’s most mystical and poetic writings. You can find background on his writing “Mass on the World”, its relation to the Transfiguration and a link to the complete text of “Mass on the World” here.]
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