Teilhard de Chardin - The Divine Milieu Explained: A Spirituality for the 21st Century: Louis M Savary
: 9780809144846: Amazon.com: Books
Jarlath Hume
5.0 out of 5 starsClarifying Teilhard's BrillianceNovember 8, 2014
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
The brilliant insights of Teilhard de Chardin as to the purpose of our lives can be tough for even serious readers to decipher. It did not help that since Teilhard was not allowed by the Catholic Church to publish during his lifetime he never had the benefit of working with a good editor. Louis Savary has done a valuable service by clarifying Teilhard’s theories.
Teilhard’s ideas articulated in Savary’s book that I found particularly powerful included:
Spiritual growth is not about dodging personal sin and saving one’s individual soul. We are on earth to advance human progress. An important way we can accomplish this is increasing meaningful connections between people.
These human connections can run from building international organizations to establishing personal ties to others. All positive connections contribute to the evolution of life on earth which is dependent on what we do.
Any meaningful religious belief has to include enthusiastic acceptance of what is being learned through science. Science is the driving force enabling the enormous growth taking place in human connections and in knowledge.
Advancing human progress is done in the material world. “To love God requires loving the world.”
“Man discovers that he is nothing else than evolution become conscious of itself.”
“In whatever field you happen to be engaged in, the way you lose yourself in God is by developing your area of expertise to the fullest …” “Not developing your capabilities to the fullest is a spiritual failure.”
“For Teilhard all activities become holy and unifying efforts if they are done in ways that promote complexity, consciousness and human bonding.”
“Teilhard wants to remind us that every single particle of matter and thought in the universe is intertwined with every other single particle and thought. Everything is interacting with everything else in one big system of which we are each interacting parts.”
“Praying in faith does not replace human effort. God is not going to give us, simply because we pray, all the new knowledge and skill needed for the future. God counts on us using all the capabilities and resources available to advance science, art and all human activities.”
“Just as each cell in the human body must do its part well, each entity in the world must integrate its activities with billions of others. People who are not members of Christian religions may be contributing in ways that no Christian can.”
“Christ’s work is to transform the world, not to leave it behind.”
At time the emphasis in “The Divine Milieu Explained” is on why Teilhard’s theories are in accord with official Catholic teaching. For many this will be of great interest, but for some it may not be a high priority. What is important to all of us is Savary’s clarifying Teilhard’s theories so they are more readily understandable.
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsA wonderful companion to The Divine MilieuFebruary 20, 2018
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
Jarlath Hume
5.0 out of 5 starsClarifying Teilhard's BrillianceNovember 8, 2014
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
The brilliant insights of Teilhard de Chardin as to the purpose of our lives can be tough for even serious readers to decipher. It did not help that since Teilhard was not allowed by the Catholic Church to publish during his lifetime he never had the benefit of working with a good editor. Louis Savary has done a valuable service by clarifying Teilhard’s theories.
Teilhard’s ideas articulated in Savary’s book that I found particularly powerful included:
Spiritual growth is not about dodging personal sin and saving one’s individual soul. We are on earth to advance human progress. An important way we can accomplish this is increasing meaningful connections between people.
These human connections can run from building international organizations to establishing personal ties to others. All positive connections contribute to the evolution of life on earth which is dependent on what we do.
Any meaningful religious belief has to include enthusiastic acceptance of what is being learned through science. Science is the driving force enabling the enormous growth taking place in human connections and in knowledge.
Advancing human progress is done in the material world. “To love God requires loving the world.”
“Man discovers that he is nothing else than evolution become conscious of itself.”
“In whatever field you happen to be engaged in, the way you lose yourself in God is by developing your area of expertise to the fullest …” “Not developing your capabilities to the fullest is a spiritual failure.”
“For Teilhard all activities become holy and unifying efforts if they are done in ways that promote complexity, consciousness and human bonding.”
“Teilhard wants to remind us that every single particle of matter and thought in the universe is intertwined with every other single particle and thought. Everything is interacting with everything else in one big system of which we are each interacting parts.”
“Praying in faith does not replace human effort. God is not going to give us, simply because we pray, all the new knowledge and skill needed for the future. God counts on us using all the capabilities and resources available to advance science, art and all human activities.”
“Just as each cell in the human body must do its part well, each entity in the world must integrate its activities with billions of others. People who are not members of Christian religions may be contributing in ways that no Christian can.”
“Christ’s work is to transform the world, not to leave it behind.”
At time the emphasis in “The Divine Milieu Explained” is on why Teilhard’s theories are in accord with official Catholic teaching. For many this will be of great interest, but for some it may not be a high priority. What is important to all of us is Savary’s clarifying Teilhard’s theories so they are more readily understandable.
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsA wonderful companion to The Divine MilieuFebruary 20, 2018
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
Louis Savary manages to clearly and concisely convey Teillhard's main ideas and theology as presented in The Divine Milieu. I particularly appreciated the spiritual reflections presented in the book as well as his explanations of some of Fr. Teillhard's more obscure terms. Take the author's advice and read Teillhard's work along with this book.
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David G. Halloran
5.0 out of 5 starsTeilhard de Chardin--The Divine MilieuJuly 28, 2010
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Dr. Savary captures the essence of the Teilhard de Chardin who combined science and spiritualism to analyze and explain the evolution of the Universe. Fr. Pierre was ostracized by his own church because of his beliefs in the continuing evolution of the Universe at a time when the church was avoiding any discussion of any kind of evolution. The modern reader can relate readily to Teilhard's convictions based on the findings of the Hubble Telescope which show absolutely that the Universe is a dynamic, expanding, changing phenomena which, to the religious, is convincing that God is still creating, and to the non-religious is a confirmation of the theories of the Big Bang developed in the 1920's. Dr. Savary takes complex ideas and synthesizes those with parallel situations to allow the reader and student to understand, relate and, to this reviewer, even live the ideas of one of the great scientists, philosophers,spiritualists,Christians, and mystics of the 20th century.
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Roger Barker
5.0 out of 5 starsThe Gift of InterpretationJanuary 12, 2013
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
If like me you have long believed that Teilhard de Chardin is someone you ought to read but have never yet succeeded in penetrating his dense prose (at least in an English translation), this book is definitely for you! It put me in mind of the spiritual gift usually called by St Paul "the gift of interpretation of tongues". Louis Savary has the gift of a deep understanding of Teilhard's spirituality and understanding, coupled with an extraordinary ability to explain what Teilhard means in clear English, but without committing the cardinal sin of "dumbing down". I had feared that I might end up knowing what Savary version of Teilhard's spirituality is, but as fas as I can see the author has done a magnificent job in staying true to Teilhard's teaching throughout.
Readers need to be clear that this book does not include the actual text, so it is necessary to have a copy of The Divine Milieu in one hand and Savary's book (or, as in my case, a Kindle) in the other. If you are purchasing a copy of "The Divine Milieu" for this purpose it probably makes sense to try to find the edition Savary uses (Torchlight); but I managed with an old Fontana edition. Having now completed this exercise I feel able to reverse roles and read Teilhard's book with Savary in the background.
The sheer breadth and originality of Teilhard's vision and spirituality have now been brought out by Savary, and will, I am confident, excite, delight and inform a whole new range of readers. Here are just two tasters: 1. The body on the cross was not just that of Jesus of Nazareth; it was also the Body of Christ in all its totality; so that the whole cosmos was crucified in him 2. Just as the Son plunged into all living materiality (represented by Mary) at his birth, thereby infusing it with the divine spirit, so at his baptism he plunged into all non-living materilaity (represented by the water of the Jordan), thereby infusing that part of Creation with that spirit. There is enough there to ponder for the rest of my life - and they are just two examples of many extraordinary insights from this amazing mystic, prophet and paleontologist.
Savary has done us all a great service with his interpretation of this small but vital part of Teilhard's work. My prayer is that he won't stop there. I for one will be first in the queue for Savary's explanation of The Phenomenon of Man, The Future of Man, and so on. I strongly recommend this book.
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