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:
