"As the Catholic Church declares in the strongest terms the simplicity, spirituality, and immortality of the soul, so with constancy she ever asserts its freedom also." Pope Leo XIII, 'Libertas Praestantissimum', June 20, 1888
The Book of Catholic Quotations - John Chapin, Editor
|
|
 |
| SPIRIT OF THE WORLD |
| MANY VOICES / ONE TRUTH |
| Gathered and organized and introduced by
JoAnn Kite
|
|
| Take a few minutes to click through and explore this revealing masterpiece of visionary spiritual synopsis |
|
THE DIVINE MILIEU
Pierre Teilhard deChardin
|
|
| 1 |
"No object can influence us by its essence without our being touched by the radiance of the focus of the universe…..In the divine milieu all the elements of the universe touch each other by that which is most inward and ultimate in them."
|
|
| 2 |
"The world undergoes a sort of vast 'ontogenesis' (a vast becoming what it is) in which the development of each soul, assisted by the perceptible realities on which it depends, is but a diminished harmonic. Beneath our efforts to put spiritual form into our own lives, the world slowly accumulates, starting with the whole of matter, that which will make of it the Heavenly Jerusalem or the New Earth."
|
|
| 3 |
"The substantial ONE and the created MANY fuse without confusion in a WHOLE."
|
|
| 4 |
"Give me the strength to rise above the remaining illusions which tend to make me think of Your touch as circumscribed and momentary."
|
|
| 5 |
"Your essential duty and desire is to be united with God. But in order to be united, you must first of all Be – be yourself as completely as possible."
|
|
| 6 |
"In each one of us, through matter, the whole history of the world is in part reflected. And however autonomous our soul, it in indebted to an inheritance worked upon from all sides – before ever it came into being – by the totality of the energies of the earth."
|
|
| 7 |
"All created things, every one of them, cannot be looked at, in their nature and action, without the same reality being found in their innermost being – like sunlight in the fragments of a broken mirror – one beneath its multiplicity."
|
|
| 8 |
"Humanity was sleeping – it is still sleeping – imprisoned in the narrow joys of its little closed loves. A tremendous spiritual power is slumbering in the depths of our multitude, which will manifest itself when we have learnt to break down the barriers of our egoisms and, by a fundamental recasting of our outlook, raise ourselves up to the habitual and practical vision of universal realities."
|
|
| 9 |
"Look upon the world as maturing – not only in each individual or in each nation, but in the whole human race – a specific power of knowing and loving whose transfigured term is charity, but whose roots and elemental sap lie in the discovery and the love of everything that is true and beautiful in creation."
|
|
| 10 |
"The more I examine myself, the more I discover this psychological truth: that no one lifts his little finger to do the smallest task unless moved, however obscurely, by the conviction that he is contributing infinitesimally (at least indirectly) to the building of something definite – that is to say, to your work, my God."
|
|
| 11 |
"In the whole process which from first to last activates and directs the elements of the universe, everything forms a single whole. And we begin to see more distinctly the great sun of Christ the King, of Christ amictus mundo, of the universal Christ, rising over our interior world."
|
|
| 12 |
"The world with all its riches, life with its astounding achievements, man with the constant prodigy of his inventive powers, all are organically integrated in one single growth and one historical process, and all share the same upward progress towards an era of fulfilment." Pierre Leroy, S.J., foreword
|
|
| 13 |
"Everything can be taken up again and recast in God, even one's faults."
|
|
| 14 |
"The action by which God maintains us in the field of his presence is a unitive transformation."
|
|
| 15 |
"What is most divine in God is that, in an absolute sense, we are nothing apart from him."
|
|
| 16 |
"God whom we try to apprehend by the groping of our lives – that self-same God is as pervasive and perceptible as the atmosphere in which we are bathed. He encompasses us on all sides, like the world itself….God truly waits for us in things, unless indeed He advances to meet us."
|
|
| 17 |
"The day is not far distant when humanity will realise that biologically it is faced with a choice between suicide and adoration."
|
|
| 18 |
"Will not the work itself of our minds, of our hearts, and of our hands – that is to say, our achievements, what we bring into being, our opus – will not this in some sense be 'eternalised' and saved? Indeed, Lord, it will be – by virtue of a claim which you yourself have implanted at the very centre of my will! I desire and need that it should be."
|
|
| 19 |
"Yes, the human layer of the earth is wholly and continuously under the organising influx of the incarnate Christ."
|
|
| 20 |
"This is what I have learnt from my contact with the earth – the diaphany of the divine at the heart of a glowing universe, the divine radiating from the depths of matter a-flame."
|
|
| 21 |
"However vast the divine milieu may be, it is in reality a centre. It therefore has the properties of a centre, and above all the absolute and final power to unite (and consequently to complete) all beings within its breast."
|
|
| 22 |
"We must try to penetrate our most secret self, and examine our being from all sides. Let us try, patiently, to perceive the ocean of forces to which we are subjected and in which our growth is, as it were, steeped. This is a salutary exercise."
|
|
| 23 |
"By virtue of the Creation, and still more, of the Incarnation, NOTHING here below is profane for those who know how to see."
|
|
| 24 |
"We always find ourselves at the exact point where the whole sum of the forces of the universe meet together to work in us the effect which God desires."
|
|
| 25 |
"Like a huge fire that is fed by what should normally extinguish it, or like a mighty torrent which is swelled by the very obstacles placed to stem it, so the tension engendered by the encounter between man and God dissolves, bears along and volatilises created things and makes them all, equally, serve the cause of union."
|
|
|
|
Randomize this reference |
New random category
Add a comment
Reference and bibliography |
All quotes, by category
We are gathering together the primary insights of spirituality and bringing them together into one place.
This archive contains 11,754 quotes, taken from 635 references,
organized in terms of 39 primary categories. Quotes are randomized and appear in a different way at every click.
Explore the navigation options to review these insights.
We include
- All major spiritual and religious traditions, from all cultures, and all historical epochs
- Major psychologists, philosophers, writers, scholars and leading religious personalities
- Sources in classical religion as well as voices from new consciousness, esotericism and mysticism
- Choices are guided by the spirit of oneness, love, kindness, inclusion and community
|
|
|
2,012,821
|
|
