My dear Marguerite,
given how long the mail would take to Sarcenat (especially around New Year's), I prefer to write to you in Paris. When you return, you will find this note there. My wishes for the year 1917 are thus a bit delayed in reaching you. However, you know very well that I expressed them in my mind and in prayer at the right time, and that this delay matters little. You know what I wish for you: that through joy and sorrow, work and idleness, successes and failures, unity and losses, our Lord may grow in you and take the first place in your actions and affections! …
(Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ /1881–1955/, letter from the front, to his cousin, December 28, 1916;
quoted from the book Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Birth of Thought. Letters 1914–1919, Malvern 2021)
