Teilhard de Chardin

You whose loving wisdom fashions my being out of all the forces and all the hazards of earth, teach me to adopt here and now, however clumsily, an attitude the full efficacy of which will be plain to me when I am face to face with the powers of diminishment and death: grant that having desired I may believe, and believe ardently, believe above all things, in your active presence.

Thanks to you, this faith and this expectancy are already full of effective power. But how am I to show you, and prove to myself, through some visible endeavor, that I am not of those who, with their lips only, cry to you "Lord, Lord"? I shall cooperate with that divine power through which you act upon me and anticipate my initiatives; and I shall do so in two ways.

First, to that profound inspiration whereby you impel me to seek the fullness of being I shall respond by striving never to stifle or distort or squander my powers of loving and making. And then, to your all-embracing providence which at each moment shows me, through the events of the day, the next step I must take, the next rung I must climb, I shall respond by striving never to miss an opportunity of rising up towards the realm of spirit