Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ /1881–1955/ was a contemporary of several – very diverse – Carmelite saints: St. Titus /*1881/, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity /*1880/, St. George Precy /*1880/, Blessed Maria Sagrario /*1881/ or Blessed Maria Curcio /*1877/. In 1899 he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus, and just three years after his priestly ordination, he found himself in the trenches of World War I. As a priest, he could not fight, but he spent four entire war years on the front as a stretcher-bearer; his two brothers were killed in this war. Through the care of the Czech Society of Teilhard de Chardin, his letters from 1914–1919 were published, from which we offer the following excerpt:
“Well, this time we were sent to the right bank between Thiaumont and Fleury, and we stayed in these dreadful places for about ten days. (…)
In front of the hollows, still sparsely covered with dry forests, of whose trees only stumps remain, lies a grassy strip. Beyond that, there is practically no vegetation; instead, there are overturned stones and even more frequently soil, cracked and furrowed to a depth of three meters: a true lunar surface. This is an area where there are no trenches, where we hide in craters from shells that are vaguely interconnected; to get there, we often have to push aside the corpse of a Frenchman or a German. (…)
I don't know what the monument will look like that our country will one day erect on the coast of Froidterre to commemorate this great battle. Only one would be suitable: a great figure of Christ. Only the image of the Crucified can capture, express, and comfort all that horror, beauty, hope, and profound mystery in such a frenzy of battle and pain. I felt great emotion when looking at those places of cruel toil, thinking that I had the honor of being in one of the two or three locations where the entire life of the Universe is concentrated and flows at this moment. These are painful places, but I believe (more and more) that a great future is being formed there…”
(Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ /1881–1955/, letter from the front, to his cousin, August 23, 1916;
quoted according to the book Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Birth of Thought. Letters 1914–1919, Malvern 2021)
