Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. was a French Jesuit, Catholic priest, scientist, paleontologist, philosopher, mystic, and teacher. His evolutionary theology proposed that the universe is moving toward an ultimate point of unity in Christ, often called the “Omega Point.” Teilhard understood Christ as the center and goal of cosmic evolution.
Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI, takes Teilhard’s theological point and emphasizes salvation as an unfolding, universal process rather than a one-time event. Scriptural theology (especially Pauline cosmology), patristic insights about divinization, and sacramental spirituality all affirm that God works through the material and historical rather than apart from it.
The Incarnation of God, enfleshed in Jesus, the Christ, inaugurates a process in which all creation is being gradually transformed. This ongoing process is described as the “Christification” of the world, whereby grace is at work in history, culture, and even suffering, slowly drawing all things toward their fulfillment in God.
In practical terms, this means that ordinary human life—relationships, work, struggle, and even failure—becomes the arena of grace, since nothing lies outside the scope of God’s redemptive presence. Ultimately, the world is not something to escape but something being transformed, as the entire cosmos is drawn, slowly but surely, into communion with God through Christ.