(See Louis M Savary, The Divine Milieu Explained, pp. 96-121)
Based on the work of Lou Savary with meditations © by Andre Auger, May, 2014
In The Divine Milieu, one of Teilhard de Chardin’s most powerful mystical writings, he presents his overview of “activities” and “passivities.” He maintains that that’s all there is in our lives: either we do something, or something is done to us. He then shows that both activities and passivities may be for growth or for diminishment. When we do something, or when something is done to us, it can contribute to maturity, growth, an increase in love and goodness, or to decline, hurt, a decrease in love and goodness.
In the course of his prayerful reflection on all this, he lays out a rough program for converting passivities of diminishment into passivities of growth. In other words, for transforming our increasing debilities as we age from situations that risk having us whither and and lose faith into situations in which we do everything we can to find a positive dimension to our suffering.
Louis M. Savary, in his book The Divine Milieu Explained explicating Teilhard’s little jewel, takes this material and attempts to provide some structure to help us work through phases of gradual diminishment. I have added a bit for clarity, and have contributed some verses that could serve as prayer for each phase.
These are steps Teilhard recommends people take in responding to sickness, death, evil and other forms of physical, mental and spiritual diminishments. How to live in submission to God in an active way, based on the Law of Attraction-Connection-Complexity-Consciousness.
NOTE: Never willfully inflict pain or harm on yourself. Life itself will provide all the diminishments of body, mind and spirit you must deal with.
BEFORE DIMINISHMENTS OCCUR
1. Resist sickness, evil and other diminishments with all your strength.
• Diminishments are by nature unwelcome and undesirable to the Body of Christ.
• Avoid any diminishment you see coming; get out of their way, if possible.
• As long as human resistance is possible, the total Body of Christ will be resisting it too.
I will with all my heart to be healthy again…
I summon all the agents of my body to engage in their healing work…
I imagine as clearly as I can the gradual restoration of the sick parts of my body…
I imagine warm and loving divine light showering my body…
I remember that God wills the blossoming of world…
I remember that God is within me, providing me with the energy I need…
But if a diminishment is happening:
• Believe that God wants to free you from this diminishment.
• Detest this diminishment and do everything in your power to get rid of it.
• God hates and rejects this diminishment as much as—or more than—you do.
• God wants your help in removing this diminishment from you.
• (And to help God remove diminishments from others)
I acknowledge that my health is not a battle I am winning…
I know that You, Loving Mystery, do not wish this to be happening…
I recognize that You respect the laws of nature and of evolution…
And that You grieve more than I do over this diminishment….
I realize that, in this diminishment, I join countless others who suffer…
I have difficulty accepting this loss of control…
And yet, I understand that this is a painful lesson I need to learn:
my life is not about me…
But about You in me…
About me in the Universe…
May I learn to situate this diminishment within the far broader picture
of life and death in evolution,
in which every component of this web of existence
lives, grows, diminishes and dies
so that newness can arise…
2. Even if you are defeated by the diminishment, still resist it inwardly.
• Resist it but without bitterness, resentment or revolt.
• At the same time hold on to “an anticipatory tendency” to finally accept it.
I believe that Your Divine Energy flowing through all things
wishes that all things blossom…
I believe that You wish me to blossom…
I accept reluctantly that illness, disease, old age, disability, is impairing this…
I am not giving up or giving in…
I am trying to accept the “new normal” for me…
May I have the courage and the trust to accept it…
May I continue to believe that You wish my health…
May I continue to believe that in the end, all shall be well
and all manner of things shall be well…
Through my pain, may I continue to experience Your loving Presence.
DURING THE STRUGGLE
3. While continuing to struggle against it, recognize that this hostile force can become foryou a loving principle of transformation. (In Prayer)
• The challenge is to acknowledge that your diminishments and unwelcome experiences are happening in the Divine Milieu.
• Acknowledge that as a created being you are still incomplete.
• Acknowledge that every other incomplete being is striving for its own completeness.
• Thus, there are bound to be conflicts, competition, loss and failure.
• Acknowledge that Earth itself and everything on it is still incomplete, still in a state of process.
• Notice that diminishments promote the Law of Attraction-Connection-Complexity-Consciousness.
I am aware of the hostile forces working against my growth and blossoming…
I recognize that, in some way, these hostile forces are also of You…
And that, in ways I don’t understand, this is also You working in me…
At least, may I see that whatever is happening to me is happening in Your Milieu…
That You are the Space in which my life of pain is unfolding…
May I come to see that I am not alone in my pain…
In my pain, I am in good company:
in the company of millions around the world who are ill and dying at this moment…
May I become aware that, even in my pain, I can be a blessing to others,
if only by the way I bear it…
May I come to accept that my pain marks some form of transition
to a different form of being for myself.
TRANSFIGURING THEM
4. Leave the time and manner of this transformation to one greater than you, namely, to the Total Christ.
• God is capable of making good come out of evil, e.g., lessons learned.
• Everything is capable of being transformed into good.
• Though the transformation may not be completed instantly.
I am trying to understand that my diminishments
are somehow part of the greater scheme.
That what I experience as pain and evil
may, in fact, lead to something greater, somewhere,
even here…
May I have the firm conviction that, out of every situation,
no matter how dire, You, the God of the Universe,
evolving as Universe,
can transform evil into good,
diminishment into blossoming,
even though it may not be what I had in mind…
5. When all your strength to resist the diminishment is spent, you are to unite yourself to the will of God, firmly believing that the total Body of Christ will ultimately find its fulfillment through your “offered” diminishments.
• Suffering requires a tremendous expenditure of energy.
• It is important how you “direct” that energy, e.g., in anger or in union with God.
• God transfigures our diminishments —even our physical deaths—by integrating them into a larger, better plan, provided we lovingly trust God.
I am not having a good time, Holy One…
This pain is sucking all my energy…
I am tempted to be angry, and rage against the pricks…
May I convert the energy of my rage into something which brings me closer to You..
May I realize that all this is You, in some way,
that all this takes place in You…
That all this is happening within a much grander scheme of things,
which I don’t purport to understand.
COMMUNION IN RESIGNATION
6. Join God in communion across (over and above) the evil at a level of union stronger than the diminishment.
• In this union we learn to let our diminishments be transfigured into a force that helps build the Body of Christ.
There is nothing more I can do…
There is nothing more the doctors can do…
There is nothing more that comfort and love can accomplish…
The end is nearing, I know…
I can barely stay conscious…
I turn myself entirely over to You…
In trust…
In wish to be in intimate communion with You,
in the Cosmic Christ.
I have no idea how any of this unfolds,
but I believe that this pain is transformative…
Transform me now, O Cosmic Love…
Into what I am to become…
7. Let your communion in resignation coincide with your deepest fidelity to the human task of promoting complexity and consciousness and revealing the Body of Christ.
• True resignation requires that we fight sincerely and with all our strength “in union with the creative force of the world” to drive evil away so that nothing in creation is diminished.
As far as I can tell, it is over…
I do not belong to myself any longer (if I ever did!)
I belong entirely to You…
You have taken over my transition…
As You withdraw Yourself from this human existence,
may I stand on your coat-tails…
May I leave behind what needs to be left behind
so that I am unencumbered to return to You…
I sever my ties with all that has brought me joy in this world…
I forgive all those who have hurt me…
I ask forgiveness for everything I have ever done that has brought pain…
I bless all the loved ones I leave behind…
May I bring to You what You had hoped I might…
May my compassion be deep enough
that I might serve Your compassionate purposes
in the next form of my existence…
May I continue to serve in union with all the other creative forces of the Universe…
May it be so.