Blessed be you

Blessed be you, harsh matter, barren soil, stubborn rock:

you who yield only to force, you who cause us to work

if we would eat.

Blessed be you, perilous matter, violent sea, untamable passion:

you who, unless we fetter you, will devour us.

Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution,

reality ever new-born: you who, by constantly shattering

our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further

in our pursuit of the truth.

Blessed be you, universal matter, immeasurable time,

boundless ether, triple abyss of stars and atoms and generations:

you who by overflowing and dissolving our narrow standards

or measurements reveal to us the dimensions of God.

Blessed be you, impenetrable matter: you who, interposed

between our minds and the world of essences, cause us to languish

with the desire to pierce through the seamless veil of phenomena.

Blessed be you, mortal matter: you who one day will undergo

the process of dissolution within us and will thereby take us

forcibly into the very heart of that which exists.

You who batter us and then dress our wounds,

you who resist and yield to us,

you who wreck and build

you who shackle and liberate,

the sap of our souls,

the hand of God,

the flesh of Christ:

it is you, matter, that I bless.

~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin