Reflection on Royal Wedding and Teilhard de Chardin SJ

'The future is greater than all the past' - Teilhard de Chardin SJ.

The TV channels, as I flipped through them, were unanimous in that Royal Windsor was at her best. We viewed laughter and smiles, others waving flags cheering and ice cream on faces. All focussed on Harry and Meghan who were soon to become husband and wife.

I was interested in the wedding service and in particular the sermon. I was not prepared for the stunning surprise that ensued. I must admit that I jumped and punched the air -like the ' YES ' at a football match when a goal is scored - at the mention, by Bishop Michael Curry of the name Teilhard de Chardin. As Teilhard's name echoed through the hallowed St George's Chapel, out over enraptured Windsor, across Merry England, and on into the wider world, I reflected how at last Teilhard De Chardin was getting the kind of recognition due to him.

Teilhard de Chardin is one of the great minds of modern times. Even now it is impossible to adequately evaluate his impact on our thought. Back in the fifties when some official in the Vatican urged Pope John XX111 (now saint) to condemn Teilhard, he was said to have replied sharply "I most certainly will not condemn Teilhard...I do not want another Galileo on my hands". The future canonised saint was seeing far into the future.

What makes Teilhard a hero of mine was his great humility. He was born into a family that had preserved its Roman Catholic faith through revolution and persecution. The influence of his parents was enormous. When his mother died he wrote: 'It is to her that I owe all that is best in me.' What a tribute to a mother. On the other hand his father wrote in a private diary at the age of 85 shortly before his death an indirect tribute to his son: 'My life has been made up of sorrows and disappointments; I have had confidence in God, and now I see that it has been rounded of with a success I never hoped for or even imagined.'

There were two other events as well as his family that formed Teilhard's vision and faith - war and exile. Working for the medical corps as a stretcher-bearer in the trenches of the First World War, Teilhard grew up. For Teilhard the glass was always half full. So in the hell of Verdun, Teilhard experienced a heroism that inspired him to have great confidence in human beings. When you fuse that with the passionate devotion that Teilhard had to the Sacred Heart or the Human Heart of the Incarnate Christ, as Teilhard often referred to it, then you have a very solid foundation for a developing spiritual life.

From 1923 to 1946 Teilhard was banished to China. The cover was that he was engaged in research work on primitive man. Which by the he loved and was good at. But he was seen as a dangerous thinker and had to be got away from Rome and Europe. Teilhard accepted it in obedience and with humility. But Christ was at work also and during those years the relationship between Christ and Teilhard grew, (The vine and the branch). What emerges above all is the 'Cosmic Christ'. The ' Christ of St Paul...that is ' All in All ' (Colossians... Ephesians.. Romans.) becomes also central to Teilhard's faith.

Which brings us back to the newly weds...Harry and Meghan. The words of Teilhard quoted by Bishop Curry were very apt for the Royal occasion ...

" The time will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. "

The Spirit ..of course is the Holy Spirit of Christ and The Father.

We wish Meghan and Harry that same Spirit that will make their love last to Eternity.

Pere Teilhard de Chardin SJ 1881-1955. Contemplative and Palaeontologist.