I received your long letter from the 9th – you are right: when it comes to inner peace, as well as the desire for God, etc., we are dependent on God's grace. I liken it to the state of an object illuminated by a spotlight: it cannot force the beam to come or remain. We, we can call, and as you say, be sure that the light will not abandon us…
(Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ /1881–1955/, letter from the front, to his cousin, June 17, 1917;
quoted from the book Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Birth of Thought. Letters 1914–1919, Malvern 2021)
