François’s vibrant tribute to the French Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin

At the end of Sunday’s Mass at the Sports Palace of Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, where the Pope will visit until tomorrow, Francis paid an unprecedented tribute to a French Jesuit, a geologist, geologist, paleontologist and ardent conservationist. Evolutionary theorist and theologian, Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, was born in Puy-de-Dôme in 1881 and died in New York in 1955. The Pope specifically referred to his famous speech “Mass on the World”.

At the end of this celebration Francis made a surprise.Chinese Catholicsasking them”Good Christians and good citizens“. He then brought to him the current bishop of Hong Kong, Ms Stephen Chow, a Jesuit who will be made a cardinal in Rome on September 30, and his predecessor, Cardinal John Dong-han. Placing them on either side and holding their hands tightly, he began his appeal to Chinese Catholics. Then in the room The Chinese worshipers present shouted “”Hail, Hail, Long live the Pope“.

A meditative text, important and controversial

Earlier, the Pope thanked the faithful, religious and public authorities for the welcome he received in Mongolia, “”Mass“,”Eucharist», meaning «An act of kindness“Let me explain later:”Celebrating it on this earth reminded me of Jesuit Father Pierre Teilhard de Chard’s prayer to God exactly 100 years ago in the Ortos desert far from here.»

In fact, in 1923, a French Jesuit with a doctorate in natural sciences undertook a mission in Inner Mongolia, that is, the Mongolian province of China in the north of this country, at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. He traveled to the Artos Desert in particular for fossil deposits, where he discovered important fossils from the Paleolithic period. It was during this experience that the scientist and theologian completed his famous “Mass of the World,” a seminal and controversial text of meditation celebrating nature and creation. A document he began writing while working as a stretcher bearer in the trenches of World War I.

Controversies

On Sunday, Francis quoted his fellow Jesuit openly: “He says:’Lord, I bow before your presence in the universe intensifies, and, under the aspects of all that I encounter, in all that will happen to me, in all that I can achieve this day, I wish I wait for you.‘“.

And to illustrate:Father Teilhart was engaged in geological research. He longed to celebrate Mass, but he had neither bread nor wine. That’s when he composed music “Mass in the World”, thus expressing his offering: “Lord, this whole host, inspired by your attraction, offers you a new dawn.“A similar prayer was already born in him when he was at the front during the First World War, when he worked as a stretcher bearer. »

Returning to the controversy this speech had raised at the time, the Pope justified it: “This priest, often misunderstood, had that intuition “The Eucharist is always celebrated on the altar of the world” That she is “The core of the universe, the hearth overflowing with inexhaustible love and life” (Enc. Latado C’, no. 236), Even in times of our tensions and wars.»

Then the Pope concluded:So let’s pray today with the words of Father Teilhard : “Shining Word, Fiery Power, Thou who kneadest many things to breathe Thy life, I humble, Thy mighty hands, Thy attentive hands, Thy omnipresent arms””.

True language

After Benedict XVI, who had already praised the genius of these theologians, despite being twice condemned by the Holy Office for some of his writings on “original sin”, Francis had already quoted Teilhard de Chardin in his encyclical “Latado Si”. Ecology in 2015. Two years later, the Pontifical Council for Culture, the Vatican’s ministry of culture, voted down a proposal sent to Francis to modify the Holy Office’s “Monitum” warning issued in 1955. After his death, and in 1962, against Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit order had previously asked him to suspend his theological teachings in order to devote himself solely to his scientific research.

Before celebrating Mass in Ulaanbaatar, the pope, who is expected in Rome on Monday evening, took part in a homily attended by twelve representatives of other religions or Christian denominations. including Kamba Nomun Khan, the abbot of the Buddhist monastery of Kandan, the Buddhist representative of the Tibetan order. In his speech he did not gloss over the “oppression” of Buddhists when the country was under the Russian Communist yoke and monks were massacred by the thousands. Buddhists now represent 52% of the country’s population of 3.4 million.

The Buddhist leader also noted the significance of the discovery by the Dalai Lama in 2016 in Mongolia of the “10th reincarnation of Bogdin”, who is considered the third most important figure in Buddhist spirituality after the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. . The young Mongolian boy, who now lives with the Dalai Lama, could play a decisive role in his succession against China’s advice, although the disappearance of another 88-year-old boy has another candidate. After him the Dalai Lama.