Prayer of Teilhard de Chardin

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the Way to

something unknown, something new;

And yet it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through

some stages of instability...

And that may take a very long time.


And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually...

Let them grow, let them shape themselves,

without much undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on as though you could be

today what time (that is to say, grace and

circumstances acting on your own good will)

will make you tomorrow.


Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.

Give our God the benefit of believing

that the divine hand is leading you,

And accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.