Thich Naht Hanh and Teilhard de Chardin on the Cosmic Mass

Often in our Cosmic Masses we invoke passages from Buddhist monk Thich Naht Hanh, who seems to grasp the archetypal nature of the Christian Eucharist.  To do so puts participants, whether Christian or not, at ease.

The idea of a “sacred meal” is very much an ancient archetype found around the world.  Thich Naht Hahn addresses the subject of the Eucharist within a context of Cosmic Christ theology when he says:

Not many people want to become priests in our day, but everyone is hungry.  So many people are hungry for spiritual food, there are so many hungry souls.

And he speaks of Jesus’ words at the Last Supper reenacted in Catholic worship:

‘Take, my friends, this is my flesh, this is my blood’–Can there be any more drastic language in order to wake you up?  What could Jesus have said that is better than that?

….This piece of bread is the body of the whole cosmos.  If Christ is the body of God, which he is, then the bread he offers is also the body of the cosmos.  Look deeply and you notice the sunshine in the bread, the blue sky in the bread, the cloud and the great earth in the bread.  Can you tell me what is not in a piece of bread?  The whole cosmos has come together in order to bring to you this piece of bread.  You eat it in such a way that you come alive, truly alive.[1] 

Thich Naht Hanh is pointing out that a Cosmic Christ understanding applies very much to our worship practices and reverence follows when one recognizes the holiness of all bread, all that goes into bread, all being.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest, scientist and mystic, composed his “Mass on the World” in 1923 on the Feast of the Transfiguration (one of the most explicit feasts featuring the Cosmic Christ in the church’s calendar and among all the Cosmic Christ stories in the Gospels) when he was on a scientific expedition in China and away from the usual accoutrements for saying Mass such as wine, bread, chalice, etc.   He says:

When Christ comes to one of his faithful it is not simply in order to commune with him as an individual…The effect of the priestly act extends beyond the consecrated host to the cosmos itself…; the entire realm of matter is slowly but irresistibly affected by this great consecration.

Teilhard goes further, relating the act of the Eucharist to the “divinizing of the entire universe.”   Following are Teilhard’s words:

When Christ, extending the process of his incarnation, descends into the bread in order to replace it, his action is not limited to the material morsel which his presence will, for a brief moment, volatilize: this transubstantiation is aureoled with a real though attenuated divinizing of the entire universe.  From the particular cosmic element into which he has entered the activity of the Word goes forth to subdue and to draw into himself all the rest.[2] 

[1] Thich Nhat Hanh, Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers, p. 107.

[2] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., Hymn of the Universe, pp. 13f.

Adapted from Matthew Fox and Marc Andrus, Stations of the Cosmic Christ, p. 173. 

See also, Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, pp.211-227.

Banner Image: The Helix Nebula, a/k/a the “Eye of God,” in the constellation of Aquarius, lies about 650 light-years away and about 2.5 light years in width. It is the closest object of its type (planetary nebula) to the earth. Photo by John Myers on Flickr.

What does it mean to you that a Buddhist monk offers so profound an understanding of Christian worship as Thich Naht Hanh does in this passage cited above?  What does that tell us of deep ecumenism or interfaith at work now and in the future?

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