Pogliaghi's Sacred Heart, Milan

I spent a few days in ( a very hot) Milan recently and managed to find some time to do a little tourism.  Fortunately,  I was based at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart - founded in 1921.  And so, I was able to attend mass on the first Friday of July in the Cappella del Sacro Cuore in the university. It is very beautiful, and I would encourage anyone who can to pay a visit.  High above the altar  is a remarkable painting by - I later discovered on my return to the UK - Lodovico Pogliaghi (1857-1950)  (Read about him here) . It is rather like a 3D image, and  I could not decide if it is a painting or a statue! But I think it is a painting. Underneath on the wall there is a famous line from St. Thomas Aquinas's great hymn:   ADORO TE DEVOTE LATENS DEITAS” (“I adore you devoutly, hidden God”)

Teilhard and Gemelli's images of the Sacred Heart

The painting was commissioned by the founder of the university, the Franciscan, Padre Agostino Gemelli (1878-1959- read about him  here) .  It was originally located in the the building in Via Sant' Agnese and was installed in the present chapel on its completion in 1932.  Copies of the image may be found in rooms in the university.  As an image it was - like Teilhard's Pinta picture - used for holy cards.


It appears to have been painting executed around the same kind of period - early 1920s - as the Pinta image (Here) that Teilhard loved so much. Walking around churches close to the chapel the sense of it being a radical break from the traditional image becomes apparent. Next door, for example, in the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio, there is a chapel to the Sacred Heart, with a traditional image, and a little further away in Santa Maria delle Grazie  there is also a pretty standard representation.  So the image in the painting in the Cappella del Sacro Cuore  is quite a departure from the norm.  As in Pinta's image the focus on on the glowing love of God. As the light catches the 'golden glow' the image is quite stunning and the eye is drawn into a contemplation of the God who is hidden in the eucharist.  This is the Sacred Heart we adore, hence the words on the wall beneath: ' ADORO TE DEVOTE LATENS DEITAS'.  No doubt this is to prompt the students and faculty to remember their Aquinas! The next lines are, of course: 'Quæ sub his figuris vere latitas; Tib se cor meum totum subjicit, Quia te contemplans totum deficit'  As we contemplate and adore the hidden God revealed in the heart of Jesus, we place our hearts before Him: 'Tib se cor meum totum subjicit'.

The artist was  ( in all probability) working to a brief from Fr. Gemelli, and I think what we have here is a very Franciscan - if not intensely Franciscan -  and very modern image of the Sacred Heart.   It recalls (perhaps) Francis's Letter to all the friars: 

Let the whole of mankind tremble, the whole world shake and the heavens exult,  when Christ, the Son of the living God, is present on the altar in the hands of a priest.  O admirable heights and sublime lowliness! O sublime humility! O humble sublimity!  That the Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles Himself  that for our salvation He hides Himself under the forms of bread! Look, brothers, at the humility of God and pour out your hearts before Him!  Humble yourselves, as well, that you may be exalted by Him.  Therefore, hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves  so that He Who gives Himself totally to you may receive you totally.  ( Here.) 


The painting in the chapel is also is strongly suggestive (to me) of St. Bonaventure ( a great friend of St Thomas Aquinas) whose prayers and writings show the deep Franciscan love for the Heart of Jesus. As Bonaventure prayed:

'From the burning heart of Jesus flows his blood, hot with love.  Jesus showed us from the cross his faithful heart, glowing with love....' (cited in T. O'Donnell, Heart of the Redeemer, Ignatius Press, 1989 p 101)  


The Franciscans have contributed immensely to our understanding of the Sacred Heart ( I always think of Francis and Bonaventure when I look at the seraphim in the icon!) - and it is not a coincidence that St Margaret Mary recounts that St. Francis was her guide. He is depicted in the mural at Paray le Monial.  Teilhard too had a special regard for St. Francis.

There is another aspect of the image which is interesting: it is the image which shows the aesthetic preference of a another priest -scientist.  Fr. Gemelli was a physician and scientist who, like Teilhard sought to reconcile Christian faith with modern science.  Gemelli actually proposed Teilhard (and Henri Breuil) for membership of the  Pontifical Academy of Sciences, but this was opposed due to Teilhard's supposed 'Darwinist' tendencies.  It is interesting that both priest-scientists should have seen the Sacred Heart in the same way: the Pinta image and Pogliaghi's image are remarkably similar! For both men, whose lives were dedicated to reconciling science and their Christianity, the Heart of Jesus was the great symbol which inspired their religious and scientific lives.

As I read and talk about Laudato Si, it seems to me that the work of Gemelli and Teilhard to reconcile faith and reason in the modern world was not in vain!

One final thought which later occurred to me (!!?) was the entrance to the chapel.  As you enter you see an important quote over the door: Nitium sapientiae timor Domini. “The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom”. (Psalm 111, 10, Sirach, 1, 1)

All too often when we think about science and knowledge we default to Bacon - 'knowledge is power'.  Here at the Catholic University in Milan they remind students and faculty that wisdom begins when we fear the Lord. Wisdom begins when we realise in all humility the limits of human understanding, and the infinite knowledge and wisdom of God. Knowledge may be power  BUT wisdom is about humility. As we remember this, we also recall that in the  Litany of the Sacred Heart,  in which the humble and gentle heart of Jesus is described as the the treasury of all wisdom and knowledge.

Cor Iesu, in quo sunt omnes thesauri sapientiae et scientiae, miserere nobis.


As you reflect on the symbol of the Sacred Heart in this beautiful chapel, it is well to remember that the love of God is indeed the alpha and omega of all wisdom.

Laudato si - one giant leap for our common home

Well, what a day!  Watched the live broadcast of the launch of Laudato si - and no longer had to struggle with my terrible Italian and downloaded the English version. Was so pleased to see the reference to Teilhard in the final text * , and having read the whole thing  through a few times I think that it is a document that is truly a landmark in Catholic social teaching. It  also conveys the spirit of what Teilhard was trying to say about the need for a more cosmic sense of Christ and of the need for Christianity to have a 'sense of the earth'.  This will give rise to a great debate and hopefully action to 'care for our common home'.

My initial thoughts are about the press launch.  I was moved by Metropolitan John Zizioulas's contribution - especially his emphasis on how the ideas contained in the encyclical will serve the cause of Christianity unity.  This was, of course, Teilhard's great belief - that a more cosmic sense of Christ, and a sense of the earth would promote unity!  One point in particular stuck out- his observations about the ecological implications which relate:

...to the very heart of the Church, which is the Holy Eucharist. In the celebration of the Eucharist, the Church offers to God the material world in the form of the bread and the wine. In this Sacrament space, time and matter are sanctified; they are lifted up to the Creator with thankfulness as His gifts to us; creation is solemnly declared as God’s gift, and human beings instead of proprietors of creation act as its priests, who lift it up to the holiness of the divine life. This brings to mind the moving words of St. Francis of Assisi with which the Encyclical opens: “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth.” As St. Gregory Palamas and other Greek Fathers would put it, the whole of creation is permeated by God’s presence through His divine energies; everything declares God’s glory, as the Psalmist says, and the human being leads this cosmic chorus of glorification to the Creator as the priest of creation. This way of understanding the place and mission of humanity in creation is common to both Eastern and Western Christian tradition, and is of particular importance for the cultivation of an ecological ethos.

This was so very evocative of  Teilhard's great Mass on the World. (Although on reflection, Teilhard was always very sympathetic to the Greek fathers!So, no surprise really.)

The other thing that struck me -which  again brought Teilhard to mind - was the presence of a scientist on the panel, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber.  He began by talking about the important relationship between faith and reason, science and religion.  It is a sign of how far we have come since Teilhard that we are now able to have a dialogue of this kind - and to see the way one can inform the other.

So much to say about this great encyclical!


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The context of the Teilhard reference is:

"83. The ultimate destiny of the universe is in the fullness of God, which has already been attained by the risen Christ, the measure of the maturity of all things.[53] ...The ultimate purpose of other creatures is not to be found in us. Rather, all creatures are moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illumines all things. Human beings, endowed with intelligence and love, and drawn by the fullness of Christ, are called to lead all creatures back to their Creator."

( Isn't this what is depicted in the icon inspired by Teilhard?) 

Teilhard cited in Laudato si /Be praised: on the care of our common home!

I am sure that if Teilhard were alive today he would be smiling at the prospect of a Jesuit Pope, trained as a chemist, with the name Francis publishing an encyclical on the global environmental crisis.  Teilhard had a great love of St. Francis.  Speaking to Blessed Gabriel Allegra  he remarked that ' St Francis is so dear and so close to me! I believe he assists me in my difficulties and blesses my work'. ( My Conversations with Teilhard de Chardin on the Primacy of Christ, p55)  I have just read the leaked draft of Laudato si (here) and was absolutely delighted to see that Teilhard gets a reference. ( fnote 53:  'In questa prospettiva si pone il contributo del P.Teilhard de Chardin;' * How fitting!!  Teilhard, after all these years, is mentioned in the official teaching of the church!! This surely must mean that Teilhard is finally acknowledged for his immense contribution to the Church's thinking on  the relationship between  Christ, humanity and the Cosmos. Just hope that the reference makes the final version - Teilhard still has plenty of enemies and there are no shortage of anti-Francis people who will no doubt pounce on him for daring to mention Teilhard and for the argument of Laudato si as a whole.  If ever there was a time to pray for Pope Francis, now is a very good time!

In advance of the publication the Pope had this to say:

 Pope Francis asked the faithful and all persons of good will to receive his new Encyclical letter on the care of creation with open hearts. Speaking to pilgrims and tourists gathered for his weekly General Audience on the eve of the much-anticipated document’s official release, Pope Francis said, “Tomorrow, as you know, the Encyclical on the care of the ‘common house’ that is creation will be published.” Pope Francis went on to say, “Our ‘house’ is being ruined, and that hurts everyone, especially the poorest among us.” The Holy Father concluded, saying, “My appeal is, therefore, to responsibility, based on the task that God has given to man in creation: ‘to till and tend’ the ‘garden’ in which humanity has been placed (cf. Gen 2:15). I invite everyone to accept with open hearts this document, which places itself in the line of the Church's social doctrine.” 


  St Francis of Assisi, pray for for the Pope.  Sacred Heart of Jesus, we place all our trust in you - the  great sign of ' l’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle'.   May the Holy Spirit open our hearts to the message of Laudato si . 

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In respect of this statement:' Il traguardo del cammino dell’universo è nella pienezza di Dio, che è stata già raggiunta da Cristo risorto, fulcro della maturazione universale.' ( The ultimate destiny of the universe is in the fulness of God, which has already been attained by the risen Christ, the measure of the maturity of all things  .'

Feast of the Sacred Heart, 2015

Yesterday was the feast of the Sacred Heart. It marked a milestone for me personally as it was five years to the day when I realised that I was being called to dedicate my life to the Sacred Heart. All I can say is that it has been a period of transformation : I was blind, but now I see.  I have no doubt but that I can thank the icon for helping me develop a constant sense of God as love.  Pope Francis did not speak on the Sacred Heart, but he had earlier reminded people about the feast on on  Corpus Christi. (here).  When we encounter Christ in the eucharist we are, of course, receiving the word of God made flesh.  The readings at mass said it all really. The first reading from Hosea shows us what the heart of God is like: it shows us that God loves us in a very intimate way.

When Israel was a child I loved him,
and I called my son out of Egypt.
I myself taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them in my arms;
yet they have not understood that I was the one looking after them.
I led them with reins of kindness,
with leading-strings of love.
I was like someone who lifts an infant close against his cheek;
stooping down to him I gave him his food.

The Psalm from  Isaiah reminds us of the pierced heart of Jesus from which flowed the living waters.

Truly, God is my salvation,
  I trust, I shall not fear.
For the Lord is my strength, my song,
  he became my saviour.
With joy you will draw water
  from the wells of salvation.

And of course, the great reading from St Paul's letter to the Ephesians ( which deeply informed Teilhard's 'attraction' to the Heart of Jesus) expresses the essence of the meaning of the devotion.

 This, then, is what I pray, kneeling before the Father, from whom every family, whether spiritual or natural, takes its name: Out of his infinite glory, may he give you the power through his Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, you will with all the saints have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; until, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, you are filled with the utter fullness of God.

And finally the Gospel from John:

When they came to Jesus, they found he was already dead, and so instead of breaking his legs one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance; and immediately there came out blood and water. This is the evidence of one who saw it – trustworthy evidence, and he knows he speaks the truth – and he gives it so that you may believe as well. Because all this happened to fulfil the words of scripture:

Not one bone of his will be broken;

and again, in another place scripture says:

They will look on the one whom they have pierced.

These readings tell us why the devotion to the Sacred Heart is as important to the future of the Church as it was at the time of St. Margaret Mary.  As our parish priest reminded us, the devotion sprung into a new life at a time when the Church was under attack and when people had turned their backs on the love of God.  Today we live in a sinful world in which God  - who is love - is dead you so many people. And we wonder why there is so much hate, greed and violence?  We wonder why the hearts of so many are cold and hard? 

Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on us 

Our Lady of Penrhys

There are many holy and  sacred places in Wales - some of which find their way into guide books ( such as Nick Mayhew Smith's excellent book Britain's Holiest Places,  see here) , but there are some that are not so well known. One such is the the more scarred than sacred Marian shrine in the Rhondda Valley at Penrhys.  ( Read here. )  We went there on a pilgrimage yesterday and asked that ' the prayer of Mary find an echo in the life and heart of each one of us today'.  There could be no better way to spend a Sunday afternoon: the weather was kind and just as we started to sing 'I'll sing a hymn to Mary'  the clouds parted and the light shone down on us!  As we sang of being' sojourners in this vale of tears' and asked the 'Lily of the Valley' to pray for us, it was difficult not to remember the beautiful but sad valley in which the medieval shrine to Mary had once stood.

 The Rhondda is such a inspiring place with its deep valleys and big open skies, but it is also a valley of tears.  I love it.  If you want to find the heart of Wales, come to 'Cwm Rhondda' . However, this is a wounded place: a place which was ripped apart by the search for black gold in the 19th and twentieth centuries.  It is a landscape which has been pierced and gutted by coal mining and is populated by communities in which we find some of the poorest and most disadvantaged people in Europe. But also some of the best and friendliest people in the world.

Before the service we took a short walk to the holy well ( Ffynon Fair or St. Mary's Well ) that overlooks the village of Llwynypia  and which once drew pilgrims from all over Britain to find it situated in a burnt and litter-strewn hill-side.  To me the water gushing out of the hill-side was kind of wound in the heart of this valley.   What was once a sacred place was now a scarred place littered with beer cans and much else besides.  It was not always so.  The shrine fell into decline during reformation: Thomas Cromwell himself ( that really nice man as (mis)represented in the openly anti-Catholic Wolf Hall!) ordered the burning of the wooden statue of the Virgin (1538) that was a focal point of the shrine established by the Cistertians. I admit that all I could think about was that this is a perfect place for a shrine to Mary, and just the right location for a holy well in 21st century Wales.  The statue of Mary holding Jesus looks out on a world which has been wounded and scarred by human beings who had (as Teilhard would put it) little 'sense of the earth' and was in the midst of a community that nowadays had little sense of God.  As we drove up to the shrine - which is over a thousand feet above sea level, we passed chapels and churches which had long been abandoned.  And yet, here we all were singing and praying and acknowledging the holiness of this once important shrine.   This gives us hope: for the valley of tears is recovering: but not fast enough.  The valley that was so grim and dark when I was a boy is now green again.  A place that once was without much hope is once again a beautiful place to be.  The scars are healing.  Just go there and see how beautiful it is!

Ffynon Fair - Penrhys

If the Sacred, scarred and pierced Heart of Jesus has a landscape, it is here high in the wonderful hills of Penrhys.  Here we have an image of the humility of God and His love for all creation that one day will be united in Him.  But here we also have a scarred and wounded landscape from which a fountain of clear water flows.

As I stood there amidst the forget-me nots, brambles and blackened earth the words of the great hymn Cwm Rhondda came to me:
' Open thou the crystal fountain
Whence the healing stream shall flow' /'Agor y ffynhonnau melus
'N tarddu i maes o'r Graig y sydd.'

It was to that (remarkably still)  crystal sweet flowing water that we came  yesterday to bless ourselves as did Christians hundreds of years before.  Yes, I thought, if there was a shrine to the wounded heart of Jesus  from which living water flows in Wales, here it is at  Penrhys - Ffynon Fair, St Mary's Well. As always 'ad Jesum per Mariam' - To Jesus through Mary!

Looking out across the valley as we sang, in the distance I could see a large wind farm that was harnessing the winds that blew in our faces and carried our voices across the hills into Tylorstown .  Once this valley had been the source of the fires that had powered an industrial revolution.  Now it was being used to harness the winds.  The statue of the Blessed Virgin holding the infant Jesus now looks out upon these great turbines.  With that, the words of Teilhard came to my mind, and I smiled just as the sun broke through the clouds:

Quelque jour, après l’espace, les vents, les marées, la gravitation, nous capterons, pour Dieu, les énergies de l’amour.- Et alors, une deuxième fois dans l’histoire du Monde, l’Homme aura trouvé le Feu. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, L’Évolution de la Chasteté, ( Les Directions de L’Avenir, Éditions du Seul, Paris1973, p92)

The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, 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.

Once the Rhondda had harnessed the energy contained in coal for the world.  We can  only pray that 'quelque jour', one day, one beautiful day, the statue of Our Lady of Penrhys will look out on a world that is harnessing, for God,  the energy of love from the hearts of humanity.

Divine Mercy

Pope Francis gave an impressive homily reflecting on Divine Mercy. It repays careful reading as we enter a year of reflecting on the Mercy of God.  His homily adds to the growing richness of his teaching on the subject of the Sacred Heart.

Saint John, who was in the Upper Room with the other disciples on the evening of the first day after the Sabbath, tells us that Jesus came and stood among them, and said, “Peace be with you!” and he showed them his hands and his side (Jn 20:19-20); he showed them his wounds.  And in this way they realized that it was not an apparition: it was truly him, the Lord, and they were filled with joy. On the eighth day Jesus came once again into the Upper Room and showed his wounds to Thomas, so that he could touch them as he had wished to, in order to believe and thus become himself a witness to the Resurrection. To us also, on this Sunday which Saint John Paul II wished to dedicate to Divine Mercy, the Lord shows us, through the Gospel, his wounds.  They are wounds of mercy.  It is true: the wounds of Jesus are wounds of mercy. Jesus invites us to behold these wounds, to touch them as Thomas did, to heal our lack of belief. Above all, he invites us to enter into the mystery of these wounds, which is the mystery of his merciful love. Through these wounds, as in a light-filled opening, we can see the entire mystery of Christ and of God: his Passion, his earthly life – filled with compassion for the weak and the sick – his incarnation in the womb of Mary.  And we can retrace the whole history of salvation: the prophecies – especially about the Servant of the Lord, the Psalms, the Law and the Covenant; to the liberation from Egypt, to the first Passover and to the blood of the slaughtered lambs; and again from the Patriarchs to Abraham, and then all the way back to Abel, whose blood cried out from the earth.  All of this we can see in the wounds of Jesus, crucified and risen; with Mary, in her Magnificat, we can perceive that, “His mercy extends from generation to generation” (cf. Lk 1:50).

Faced with the tragic events of human history we can feel crushed at times, asking ourselves, “Why?”.  Humanity’s evil can appear in the world like an abyss, a great void: empty of love, empty of goodness, empty of life.  And so we ask: how can we fill this abyss?  For us it is impossible; only God can fill this emptiness that evil brings to our hearts and to human history.  It is Jesus, God made man, who died on the Cross and who fills the abyss of sin with the depth of his mercy.

Saint Bernard, in one of his commentaries on the Canticle of Canticles (Sermon 61, 3-5: Opera Omnia, 2, 150-151), reflects precisely on the mystery of the Lord’s wounds, using forceful and even bold expressions which we do well to repeat today.  He says that “through these sacred wounds we can see the secret of [Christ’s] heart, the great mystery of love, the sincerity of his mercy with which he visited us from on high”.

Brothers and sisters, behold the way which God has opened for us to finally go out from our slavery to sin and death, and thus enter into the land of life and peace.  Jesus, crucified and risen, is the way and his wounds are especially full of mercy.

The saints teach us that the world is changed beginning with the conversion of one’s own heart, and that this happens through the mercy of God.  And so, whether faced with my own sins or the great tragedies of the world, “my conscience would be distressed, but it would not be in turmoil, for I would recall the wounds of the Lord: ‘he was wounded for our iniquities’ (Is 53:5). What sin is there so deadly that it cannot be pardoned by the death of Christ?” (ibid.).

Keeping our gaze on the wounds of the Risen Jesus, we can sing with the Church: “His love endures forever” (Ps 117:2); eternal is his mercy.  And with these words impressed on our hearts, let us go forth along the paths of history, led by the hand of our Lord and Saviour, our life and our hope.

Read here.

On this day might also remember St John Paul's words in 2001:

 The Heart of Christ! His "Sacred Heart" has given men everything:  redemption, salvation, sanctification. St Faustina Kowalska saw coming from this Heart that was overflowing with generous love, two rays of light which illuminated the world. "The two rays", according to what Jesus himself told her, "represent the blood and the water" (Diary, p. 132). The blood recalls the sacrifice of Golgotha and the mystery of the Eucharist; the water, according to the rich symbolism of the Evangelist John, makes us think of Baptism and the Gift of the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 3: 5; 4: 14).
Through the mystery of this wounded heart, the restorative tide of God's merciful love continues to spread over the men and women of our time. Here alone can those who long for true and lasting happiness find its secret.

Read here.

Remembering Teilhard: the 60th anniversary of his death

At Easter time we remember that it was Teilhard's dearest wish to die during the Easter season: and his wish was granted, as sixty years ago today, on Easter Sunday 1955 , Teilhard died in New York.  At mass today I (like many I am sure) prayed for his soul. And sixty years on he remains a controversial figure: distrusted by some and held in great love and esteem by others.  And me? Well, I suppose that all I can say, like the man whose sight was restored: ' all I know is: I was blind and now I can see!' The blog began as an attempt to try and make sense of the Sacred Heart.  I did not get it, and I think largely because of Teilhard, now I do. And, in the process I have not found myself wandering off into some strange wacky new-age Christianity.  Quite the opposite: I would say that the more I have allowed Teillhard writings to guide me, the more do I appreciate and value the traditional or orthodox teachings on the heart of Jesus! And that, it seems to me, is significant.  Thus reading Teilhard on the heart of Jesus  - as Christ Omega and the heart and centre of the universe - has not led me to reject the traditional devotion which was so dear to Teilhard's mother.  Teilhard believed that the Sacred Heart was a living symbol of  Divine love which was vital to the future of the Church: he did not reject his mother's devotion, he wanted to expand and enlarge it.  We must never forget that Teilhard's whole system of thought was rooted in and centred on the Sacred Heart.  As we remember Teilhard today in our prayers  we should also pray that Catholics rediscover the Sacred Heart !


Looking back, I recall that the starting point for the blog was Teilhard's short story in the style of R.H. Benson (an author cited by Pope Francis a while ago!)  in which he describes an experience of praying with a picture of the Sacred Heart. Perhaps it was the one by Pinter (above) that he carried with him.  Robert Faircy S.J. recounts that Teilhard had told Jeanne Mortier that 'The picture' was an account of his own personal mystical experience - and I find that entirely plausible.  From this time on (1916)when he wrote 'The Picture' it is apparent that the Sacred Heart had indeed become the foundation of all his subsequent work. (Read Faircy here on this point.)  If we want to understand why the Sacred Heart was so absolutely central to Teilhard, we must always return to 'The Picture'. Read here - chapter 2.)


Today I have been reading and re-reading 'The Picture'  and reflecting on my own journey thus far. The piece was written , with two others, 'The Monstrance' and 'The Pyx' just before a battle at Nant-le-Grand the October of 1916. Reading the first story in the context of the other two I am reminded how it is really all here in these mystical stories.  All that comes after is in so many ways just an exploration of the thoughts and feelings contained in these brief stories.  Above all, we see how central  Sacred Heart and the Holy Eucharist is to his whole life and his life's work. 'Christ in the World of Matter' provides us with an insight into how, by this time,  the universe 'in all its power and multiplicity, came to assume [for him] the lineaments of the face of Christ'.   Teilhard makes it clear that his intellectual development as a priest -scientist was grounded in a mystical experience: the foundations of his geology were laid down in the metamorphosis of the Great War in which he came to a profound understanding of the meaning of the Sacred Heart and the mystery of the Eucharist.  In 'The Picture' he recounts an experience of seeing an image of the Sacred heart 'melt' : like a the process of forming an igneous rock.  And then, it begins to undergo a metamorphic process of transforming into a new form.

...as I allowed my gaze to wander over the figure’s outlines I suddenly became aware that these were melting away: they were dissolving, but in a special manner, hard to describe in words. When I tried to hold in my gaze the outline of the figure of Christ it seemed to me to be clearly defined but then, if I let this effort relax, at once these contours, and the folds of Christ’s garment, the lustre of his hair
and the bloom of his flesh, all seemed to merge as it were (though without vanishing away) into the rest of the picture. It was as though the planes which marked off the figure of Christ from the world surrounding it were melting into a single vibrant surface whereon all demarcations vanished.


The Sacred Heart was no longer just the familiar image: for Teilhard, it had become the centre of all creation. There was a heart at the centre of the universe: a heart which was filling all and uniting all things.

I perceived that the vibrant atmosphere which surrounded Christ like an aureole was no longer confined to a narrow space about him, but radiated outwards to infinity. Through this there passed from time to time what seemed like trails of phosphorescence, indicating a continuous gushing-forth to the outermost spheres of the realm of matter and delineating a sort of blood stream or nervous system running through the totality of life.

Then, in the stories  concerning adoration of the Blessed Sacrament , 'The Monstrance' , and the experience of carrying the Eucharist in battle, 'The Pyx' , Teilhard shows that the Sacred Heart is to be found  and adored in the Eucharist.  These themes are to be  echoed and explored and refined in the decades to come, but they are never so purely expressed as in his ' Christ in the World of Matter'.  When we once begin to look at an image of the Sacred Heart with the intensity of Teilhard, we soon begin to understand that the whole of Teilhard's writings are about the Sacred Heart!  His whole life was centered on the Sacred Heart.  His message today is simple: centre your life on the heart of Christ. Place all your trust in the love of Christ. 

As we reflect on his life and pray for his immortal soul we recall the great prayer in his 'Mass on the World', composed a few years later (1923) :

Tu autem, Domine mi, include me in imis visceribus Cordis tui. Atque ibi me detine, excoque, expurga, accende, ignifac, sublima, ad purissimum Cordis tui gustum atqueplacitum, ad puram annihilationem meam.

‘And thou, my Lord, enfold me in the depths of thy Heart. And there keep me,
refine, purge, kindle, set on fire, raise aloft, according to the most pure desire of thy
Heart, and for my Cleansing extinction.’