I have not yet thanked you for your letter dated December 22. Yes, may our Lord increasingly be the light of your life, a light that strengthens and one that we appreciate more and more as the years go by, when the dreamt "outcomes" of our youth close one by one and disillusionment with ourselves and others multiplies. - You are absolutely right when you strive for love for the poor to prevail in the Institute: this is the most Christian, the most social, the most educational attitude that your students can take away from you. To encourage them to bow down with genuine compassion to the unfortunate means providing them with, in a single habit, the quintessence of all human and Catholic education. In this regard, you can never overdo it.
(Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ /1881–1955/, letter from the front, to his cousin, January 8, 1916;
quoted from the book Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Birth of Thought. Letters 1914–1919, Malvern 2021)
