"Sede Vacante"-Yet Christ Is Still Present/Teilhard's Prayers

During this historic time in Church history, when Pope Benedict has retired and is in residence at Castel Gondolfo and there is no reigning pope, ("sede vacante"- the seat being vacant) each Catholic is dealing with this unusual situation in their own way. One poor priest who must be overly stressed and depressed, is reported to have set fire to a photo of Pope Benedict during Sunday Mass. (He felt abandoned.)Obviously, this is a rare and strange incident, since Catholics throughout the world are praying for the ailing Pope and for the College of Cardinals, during this transition period.  I think it's best to keep focused on Jesus, since Jesus is the Divine head of the Church. In preparation for a workshop today, I was reading Teilhard de Chardin's book, "Hymn of the Universe." Teilhard who was a controversial priest/scientist in his own time, has been vindicated by the last two Popes and his writings about the sacredness of matter and the Cosmic Christ resonate in the modern world. There are some beautiful prayers in "Hymn of the Universe" and the one below struck me today and helped me to center myself on Jesus, who is the same yesterday, today, tomorrow and into the future. This prayer is a reminder that God is in charge and "all will be well." Staying close to Jesus is the only way to live and stay focused and centered through tumultuous times.
NJA

Lord Jesus Christ, you truly contain within your gentleness, within your humanity, all the unyielding immensity and grandeur of the world. And it is because of this, it is because there exists in you this ineffable synthesis of what our human thought and experience would never have dared join together in order to adore them-element and totality, the one and the many, mind and matter, the infinite and the personal; it is because of the indefinable contours which this complexity gives to your appearance and to your activity, that my heart, enamoured of cosmic reality, gives itself passionately to you. I love you, Lord Jesus, because of the multitude who shelter within you and whom, if one clings closely to you, one can hear with all the other beings murmuring, praying, weeping........."  (Teilhard- "The Presence of God in the world")

I live at the heart of a single, unique Element, the Centre of the Universe and present in each part of it: personal love and cosmic Power.  ("Christ in the world of matter")