Recovering the Sacred: Teilhard, Newell & the Celtic Tradition 

I ended my DM yesterday with the all-important practical question: What other ways are there for recovering a sense of the sacred?  Meaning, besides Lakota teacher Buck Ghosthorse’s practice of going without water to recover the sacredness of water. 

And Thomas Berry’s teaching that bringing back the experience of awe and wonder that the “numinous” universe gives us.  (And, let me add, what Webb telescope makes available daily to us.)

I am reminded of Teilhard de Chardin’s observation on the death knell of religion in the West.  Because it is not sufficiently moved by a truly human compassion, because it is not exalted by a sufficiently passionate admiration of the universe, our religion is becoming enfeebled.    

These words were translated into English in the year 1968, the spring I sat in class with Père Chenu and he named the creation spirituality tradition for me the first time.  Chenu had great respect for Teilhard.

Teilhard elaborates in another place.  I give the name of cosmic sense to the more or less confused affinity that binds us psychologically to the All which envelops us.  In order that the sense of humanity might emerge, it was necessary for civilization to begin to encircle the Earth. 

The experience of awe and wonder at our home, the universe and the cosmic sense, Thomas Berry equates with our moving from a human-centered and narcissistic relationship to nature to a sense of the sacred. Teilhard again: The cosmic sense must have been born as soon as humanity found itself facing the frost, the sea and the stars.  And since then we find evidence of it in all our experience of the great and unbounded: in art, in poetry, and in religion.

We find this awareness of the sacred well named by Celtic scholar Philip Newell in our time.  “The Celtic tradition has been saying all along,” he reminds us, “that we cannot contain the sacred.  Rather, we are to look for it everywhere, and we are to observe it and be liberators of it in one another and in the earth.”

And he reminds us that there is work ahead.  “The labor pains of a new birthing will be mighty.  There is no going back to the small God.”  Anthropocentrism and human narcissism is in no way the future—of religion or politics or a viable path for humanity.

What I call “deep ecumenism” in my book on the Cosmic Christ is born of this renewed sense of the whole.  As Newell puts it: We now know too much about the interrelatedness of all life to pretend that well-being can be sought for one part alone and not for the whole, for only one religion, one nation, one species. 

There is no returning to the limited notion of sacredness as if it were somehow the preserver of one particular people over another, of one race, gender, or sexual orientation.  Sacredness is the birthright of all that is.  It is the grace that comes with existence.*

*John Philip Newell, Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul: Celtic Wisdom For Reawakening to What Our Souls Know and Healing the World, pp.  20-22.

See Matthew Fox, Christian Mystics: 365 Readings and Meditations, pp. 218, 224, 359-361, 365.

And Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance

And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality

And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.

Banner image: A holy well in Gleninaught, Ireland. Photo by Jon Sullivan. Wikimedia Commons.

Queries for Contemplation

Do you have experiences of “the great and unbounded in art, poetry and religion”? And elsewhere too? Are you developing your “muscles” of the cosmic sense and the All? How do you do that? Do you agree with Newell and the Celtic tradition that we “cannot contain the sacred” or return to a small God? What follows from that?

Recommended Reading

Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations

As Matthew Fox notes, when an aging Albert Einstein was asked if he had any regrets, he replied, “I wish I had read more of the mystics earlier in my life.” The 365 writings in Christian Mystics represent a wide-ranging sampling of these readings for modern-day seekers of all faiths — or no faith. The visionaries quoted range from Julian of Norwich to Martin Luther King, Jr., from Thomas Merton to Dorothee Soelle and Thomas Berry.
“Our world is in crisis, and we need road maps that can ground us in wisdom, inspire us to action, and help us gather our talents in service of compassion and justice. This revolutionary book does just that. Matthew Fox takes some of the most profound spiritual teachings of the West and translates them into practical daily mediations. Study and practice these teachings. Take what’s in this book and teach it to the youth because the new generation cannot afford to suffer the spirit and ethical illiteracy of the past.” — Adam Bucko, spiritual activist and co-founder of the Reciprocity Foundation for Homeless Youth.

The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance

In what may be considered the most comprehensive outline of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the manner in which the spirit of Christ resurrects in terms of the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the young, the rebirth of effective forms of worship—all of these mirroring the ongoing blessings of Mother Earth and the recovery of Eros, the feminine aspect of the Divine.
“The eighth wonder of the world…convincing proof that our Western religious tradition does indeed have the depth of imagination to reinvent its faith.” — Brian Swimme, author of The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
 “This book is a classic.” Thomas Berry, author of The Great Work and The Dream of the Earth.

Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality

Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story

Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth

Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox.  He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.