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
