May our Lord, perceived as the only element, as the only necessary and sufficient bounty for success in life, grow in your heart. (…) God is everything. By turning to Him more fully and faithfully and by striving towards Him with all our strength, we exhaust all the useful powers of our being; we draw closer unfailingly and without danger of losing those we love; we gain the ability to do good around us, to radiate peace and goodness… With a single act, a single attitude, we realize the entire complexity of our desires and duties. Is it not true that it is good to safely and irreversibly surrender to the blessed unity with God, in which all things and all people are encompassed?
(Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ /1881–1955/, letter from the front, to his cousin, December 24, 1915;
quoted from the book Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Birth of Thought. Letters 1914–1919, Malvern 2021)
