TEILHARD: A TESTIMONIAL

1st May, 2019.
This post comes from from Dan Driscoll, of Nova Scotia-Canada.

A birth-anniversary for Teilhard! I wish to write a few paragraphs here which can be posted on website or archived for future reference, whichever is appropriate. My statement relates to an aspect of ‘the phenomenon of man’ which for the most part is either ignored or quite misunderstood by the general population. I refer to ‘miraculous healing’, which has been an integral part of ‘the faith tradition’; the ‘canonization process’ has for long had ‘miracle requirement’. By this time I’m sure that Pope Francis himself is aware of a worldwide movement to promote the elevation of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to status of Doctor of the Church, and I conjecture that this implies canonization of Teilhard as a Saint.
Such renowned Cosmologists as Ken Wilber (in confirmation of statements made by Teilhard himself) contend that the ‘self-healing’ attributes of human anatomy extend beyond the obvious domain of scratches, cuts and bruises. In legalistic canonical circles the investigation of miraculous cures has been rigorous (cf. the Lourdes file), but the Medical Establishment has largely ‘no time for them’.

I have had a rather intensive ‘personal experience’ over past weeks that could fall within this context. Several years back I was diagnosed as having a ‘Hiatus Hernia of the lower Esophagus’, and I have lived with very occasional ‘episodes’ up until quite recently. But over past few months difficulty in swallowing has worsened, to the point where my physician has ordered an emergency scan; the irony is that in this healthcare zone the waiting list for an emergency scan is about a month, so ‘my scan’ will take place on 21st May.
Lest I smother my reader with grim details, I’ll try to be brief. On Easter Sunday early morning I awoke and prepared my usual breakfast of egg, sausage and toast. Within minutes of the first bolus of food I was aware of the kind of discomfort associated with the lower esophagus problem. I am one of those ‘Teilhardians’ who does indeed regard him (already) as a kind of ‘patron saint’, so I breathed a prayer to Teilhard to ‘deliver me from this thorn in my flesh’. Over the next hour I continued to have great discomfort, but in addition I voided into the washbasin upwards of a liter of clear viscous liquid, of the consistency of raw egg-white. I then felt well enough to attend Easter Sunday Mass in my parish church.

On return from the church I had midday lunch, with somewhat the same consequences as at breakfast time. It was only after this second episode cleared that I was reminded of the fact that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s death was on Easter Sunday, early afternoon. I find now that there seems to be gradual but very noticeable improvement in my problem of swallowing food; we will see what the ‘emergency scan’ has to reveal.

But come what may, I would be willing to testify that through ‘intercession’ with Pere Teilhard I have been greatly relieved of ‘a sickness’. The older, conventional concept of ‘miracle’ partakes of the notion of a static universe with its ‘creator god’, but the post-Darwinian/Teilhardian qualification of that is more ‘credible’ and meaningful.

Daniel L. Driscoll