A universe drawn towards Christ in the Eucharist

 Earlier this week, I have written about the essay-poem of Teilhard de Chardin (TDC), The Mass on the World (MOW).  Although largely sidelined and to some extent silenced, Fr Teilhard de Chardin remained a priest in good standing until his death in 1955. His writings and thinking have had a profound effect within and beyond the Catholic world.  One person, in particular, deeply influenced by TDC is the US Franciscan priest, Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM. In many ways, he has helped popularise many of TDC’s ideas. In The Influence of Teilhard de Chardin, Rohr has written:

Teilhard gives a beautiful coherence to the universe and unites the disparate strands of knowledge into one unified whole, which is exactly what our deepest soul invariably insists must be true. Whether you agree with his precise interpretation or not, you cannot help but breathe fresh air when you absorb even a bit of his optimism, faith, and intelligence—in what, for him, was a certain and positive future, which he called the Omega Point, the Cosmic Christ.

Rohr closes his short article with the following:

Teilhard de Chardin believed, as many Fathers of the Church had asserted in the early centuries, that God’s choice for Incarnation was taking on not just one human body in Jesus but, in fact, God’s total embrace of the physical universe and human nature in its entirety- from the Alpha Blueprint taught by Duns Scotus to the Omega Victory revealed by Teilhard. To put it directly and succinctly, everything you can see with your eyes, and the eyes by which you see them, are all the Body of God, and are all headed toward Resurrection.

The Cosmic Christ is a recurring theme in the writings of Fr Rohr. Christ is not only the redeemer of humanity but the centre and unifying principle of the entire cosmos drawing all creation towards its fulfilment.  He emphasises the distinction between the historical Jesus and the wider reality of the Cosmic or Universal Christ, present throughout creation and drawing all things into divine communion.  He cites Teilhard as someone who helped Christians move beyond static understandings of the world toward a dynamic vision of God's action in history.  I think that one of TDC’s most profound insights is an intuition that all creation can become a place of encounter with God.

Rohr looks at the Eucharist not as an exception to God's presence in the world but the supreme revelation of a pattern that has always existed: God communicates divine life through material reality. In this sense, the Eucharist becomes the sacrament that unveils the sacramentality of all creation.  In the Eucharist we are changed to become the Body of Christ for the world. Rohr and TDC have not ignored the fullness of Catholic  sacramentality. Rather they have presented in a wider context of a universe that is evolving and moving towards that unity willed by Christ.

It is not difficult to see how TDC landed himself in trouble in the decades before Vatican II.  Neither is it difficult to understand how Fr Rohr, himself, is the target of some within the ranks of the Catholic Church who would prefer less open, sometimes opaque and usually ‘subject-to-interpretation’ statements.  Personally speaking, I would rather give the benefit of any doubt to TDC and others who have gone with many of his ideas provided they stay within the confines of orthodox faith as I believe they do. Yes, we need clarity in this confused world; but we also need imagination, courage, humility and hope.