Prayer by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 

Lord, by every innate impulse and through all the hazards of my life,

I have been driven ceaselessly to search for you

and to set you in the heart of the universe of matter. 

Thus, I shall have the joy, when death comes, 

of closing my eyes amidst the splendor

of a universal transparency aglow with fire.

Under your influence and your alone,

the sheath of organic isolation and of willful egoism  

which separates us into tiny individuals  

is rend asunder and dissolves, 

and the multitude of lives rush on towards that union 

which is necessary for the maturity of the world. 

Only love can bring individual beings to their perfect completion,

as individuals, by uniting them one with another, 

because only loves take possession of them and unites them 

by what lie deepest within them.

Lord once again I ask: which is the more precious of these two beatitudes, 

That all things are means through which I can touch you, 

or that you yourself are so ‘universal’ that I can experience you 

and lay hold on you in every creature?

Let us then establish ourselves in the divine milieu. 

There we shall be within the inmost depths of our being 

and the greatest consistency of matter. 

There where all forms of beauty come together 

we shall discover the ultra-vital, ultraperceptible,

ultra-active point of the universe 

and we shall also experience in the depths of our own being 

the fullness of our powers of action and of adoration – 

for this world is indeed full of You O God.

Let us leave the surface, and, without leaving the world, 

plunge into God.

There and from there, in God and through God, 

we shall hold all things and find again the essence and the splendor 

of all the flowers, the lights, we have had to surrender 

here and now in order to be faithful to life.