The following homily was delivered by Fr. Aristotle Dy, SJ for the Missioning Mass of the Xavier School Nuvali and Xavier School San Juan faculty and staff last June 4 and June 8, 2018 respectively.
Who among you here watched the wedding of Harry and Megan a few weeks ago?
Right after the wedding, the name of the French Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin trended worldwide. The Reverend Michael Curry is not only the first African-American head of the American Episcopal Church. He was also invited to preach at the wedding, and he quoted a Jesuit in his homily! This surprised many people, that Anglicans or Episcopalians would refer to a Catholic priest at their own high profile event.
I am not sure if you are all familiar with Teilhard de Chardin, so let me tell you a bit about him. He was born in 1881 and grew up with a strong interest in geology and the sciences. After joining the Jesuits, he wanted to give up this interest, but was advised by a wise spiritual director to pursue his interests, because God could be found in nature. And so Teilhard did, and earned a Doctorate in Geology from the Sorbonne in Paris. He also served in the frontlines of World War I, an experience that deepened his understanding of the human condition.
He started writing about evolution and this did not sit well with the church authorities of his time. He was not allowed to publish his theological work and was told to confine himself to science. In 1923, he went to China, where he did palaeontology work and was later part of the team that discovered Peking Man. He was in and out of China doing scientific work for the next twenty years. He continued to write and to distribute his work privately, but his books were published only after his death in 1955.
Teilhard de Chardin is best known for his cosmic vision of humanity. He believed in the evolution of the human community towards a fullness that could only find fulfillment in Christ. We may find it unusual for a scientist to write so much about love, but this is exactly what Teilhard did. He described love as a force that continually grows broader and deeper, starting with sentimental or romantic love, but transcending this and moving towards the self-giving love that is characteristic of God.
One of his most famous quotes, in fact, the one we heard at the royal wedding, compares the power of love to that of fire. If the discovery of fire revolutionized biological life, so love will revolutionize the spiritual life. It is a bold claim. Fire made cooking and preserving food possible. Fire and heat helped people control the spread of disease. Fire enabled people to keep warm and survive in different climates. The Bronze, Iron, and Industrial Ages were all fueled by fire. The technology that is so much a part of our life today is built on the harnessing of fire.
Teilhard de Chardin likens the energy of love to fire. Just as fire directed so much of the evolution of human life and civilization, so love has the capacity to transform us in ways that we have not imagined. We overuse the word and it has lost its sting. We associate love too often with feelings and sentimentality, but love is energy. Love is powerful and can make you do things you didn’t think you were capable of.
I chose this theme today because I think our work as educators can only be built on that mysterious power of love. To recall another Jesuit, Pedro Arrupe, talking about falling in love—he says that what we are in love with gets us up in the morning and decides what we do with our evenings and weekends. What we are in love with seizes our imagination, and amazes us with joy and gratitude. Don’t all these things apply to our work as educators? We get up early before everybody else. We bring home our work. We stay in school even on weekends and break days, because we love what we do for the young people in our care.
The Lord wants to refresh our love today. It is like discovering fire. Today and in the coming days, we shall pray to have a share in the kind of love that comes from God. The Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Holy Spirit will inspire us, and we shall draw strength from the love that God has planted in our hearts.
Let me end with a more complete quotation from Teilhard de Chardin, where he speaks of the evolution of love:
What paralyzes life is lack of faith and lack of courage. The difficulty lies not in solving problems but in expressing them correctly; and we can now see that it is biologically undeniable that unless we harness passion to the service of spirit, there can be no progress. Sooner or later, then, and in spite of all our incredulity, the world will take this step because the greater truth always prevails and the greater good emerges in the end. The day will come when, after mastering the ether, the winds, the tides, gravity, we shall master the energies of love, for God. And then, for the second time in the history of the world, we will have discovered fire.
(From The Evolution of Chastity, Teilhard de Chardin, translated by Rene Hague)
St Ignatius invites us to love and serve in all things. This school year, may love be the force that inspires us to magis, to always strive for excellence in what we do, to care for creation and for all the people around us, to nurture the light in our students and in each other. Amen.