The divine milieu: an essay on the interior life /
Pierre Teilhard De Chardin
- [1st ed.]
- New York: Harper, [1960].
- 159 pages, 22 cm.
Index.
The divinisation of our activities -- The christian problem of the sanctification of action -- An incomplete solution: Human action has no value other than the intention which directs it -- The final solution: all endeavour cooperates to complete the word in Christo JEsu -- At the heart of our universe, each soul exists for God in Our Lord -- 'In our universe', we went on to say, 'in which each soul exists for God, in Our Lord, all that is sensible, in its turn, exists for the soul'. -- We can now bring together the major and minor of our sylogism so as to grasp the link between them and the conclusion -- Communion through action -- The christian perfection of human endeavour -- The sanctification of human endeavour -- The humanisation of christian endeavour -- Detachment through action -- The divinisation of our passivities -- The extent, depth and diverse forms of human passivities -- The passivities of growth and the two hands of God -- The passivities of diminishment -- our struggle with God against evil -- Our apparent failure and its transfiguration -- Communion through diminishment -- True resignation -- Conclusions to the two first parts -- Some General Remarks on Christian Asceticism -- Attachment and detachment -- First, develop yourself, Christianity says to the Christian -- At if you possess something, Christ says in the Gospel, leave it and follow me -- Thus, in the general rhythm of Christian life, development and renunciation, attachment and detachment are not mutually exclusive -- The meaning of the cross -- The spiritual power of matter -- The Divine Milieu -- The attributes of the divine milieu -- The nature of the divine milieu. The universal Christ and the great communion -- The growth of the divine milieu -- The growth of the divine milieu. The taste for being and the diaphany of God -- Individual progress in the divine milieu: purity, faith and fidelity–the operatives -- The collective progress in the divine milieu. The communion of saints and charity -- epilogue -- In expectation of the parousia
As The Phemomenon of Man considered man in his natural context, its author here considers him in his supernatural context. Though, as he maintained in the earlier volume, man is a phenomenon like countless others in the evolutionary series, he is not only that: he it also unique in it in that he can reflect upon it and thereby not only to an extent control it but recognise it to be part of a larger, non-material process. By transcending the purely experimental, he was able to arrive at the concept of cause and direction–in other words of a purposeful creator, of God. It is in this relationship, within the milieu divin, that Tielhard de Chardin, priest as well as scientist, places him in the present volume, as a voluntary participant in the ultimate, spiritual design for the universe, merging the historical into the a-historical, the temporal into the eternal as revealed by the Incarnation and the promise of the Second Coming. Le Milieu Divin is thus a complement and completion to The Phenomenon of Man, as necessary as its predecessor for an understanding of Teilhard de Chardin's mind and thought. 'A meditation wich will certainly take its place among the rare spiritual classics of the twentieth century'. 'Fully as impressive (as The Phemomenon of Man), not in the least difficult, and quite unforgettable. It is an outpouring of devotion to God, written in impressively beautiful language. This is a unique book in its own sphere. It could easily become a devotional classic.' 'Beautifully translated. A rich work, with many levels of attraction'. --Glasgow Herald. Jacket design by Kenneth Farnhill.