You know well what my most heartfelt desire is, especially on this holiday: that God, through Our Lady, may grant us such a share in His Purity and such a passion for it, that we may truly contribute with our insignificant part to the renewal of the world.
(Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ /1881–1955/, letter to his cousin, December 8, 1918;
quoted from the book Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Birth of Thought. Letters 1914–1919, Malvern 2021)