We First

The world was not created ex nihilo, out of nothing, the world was created ex amore, out of the infinite love of God… God’s heart full of love exploded in the Big Bang and slowly dawned in matter with the rise of consciousness…

Every being stretches toward its own self-expression, its longing to love as it is loved, reaching out toward more life… Lover and beloved are constantly in search of one another…

The Creation and Incarnation are two dimensions of God’s self-emptying love (kenosis).

Thus, being is first a “we” before it can become an “I”. There is no being who can stand up and say: I did it alone. Cosmic life is intrinsically communal. The universe is empowered by the energy of love, because love is the heart of the universe...  

“All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together.”

Teilhard de Chardin held to the idea that mind and matter are two forms of the same stuff. This twofold notion of matter led him to speak of inter-related energies at work in cosmic life: tangential energy (or the energy of attraction which makes each element interdependent with all elements of the same order) and radial energy (which draws the element in the direction of more complex and centered state, an energy of transcendence)... As things are drawn together and unite, new relationships form and consciousness arises.

According to Teilhard, while tangential energy follows the second law of thermodynamics (which means unitive entities break down over time), radial energy defies this second law and increases with complexity… Hence, evolution proceeds toward higher spirit and more consciousness...

— Ilio Delio (Franciscan sister), The Primacy of Love