Patient Trust: Prayer of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

When I first walked up the steps to my office at the church, I had so many thoughts swirling through my head. This would be the place where so much of my pastoral work behind the scenes would be done (I say behind the scenes because the most important work a pastor does is in the community). I had an idea of what I would encounter as I opened the door: a couch the church had graciously purchased, a round table where meetings would take place, a few small bookshelves that were just enough for my library, and a standing desk.

I like gifts, and so I couldn’t help but smile when I saw various welcome cards, a few commentaries, and a print out of a prayer by the French priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Chardin was a Jesuit priest, scientist and theologian in the 1930’s and thats about all I know! The printout now hangs in my office where I can see it every day. It serves as a constant lens through which I view not only my calling and vocation, but my entire life. I hope that it will be that for you wherever you find yourself today and in the days to come.

Blessings friends.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability —
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually — let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.