Quote from Teilhard de Chardin on Eucharist

I quoted this in the homily yesterday and received a lot of inquiries about it. This passage is from Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu, page 88.

Grant, O God, that when I draw near to the altar to communicate, I may discern from now on the infinite perspectives hidden beneath the smallness and the nearness of the Host in which you are concealed. I have already accustomed myself to seeing, beneath the stillness of that piece of bread, a devouring power which, in the words of your greatest Doctors, far from being consumed by me, consumes me. Give me the strength to rise above the remaining illusions which tend to make me think of your touch as circumscribed and momentary.

I am beginning to understand: under the sacramental species it is primarily through the accidents

of matter that you touch me, but, as a consequence, it is also through the whole universe to the extent that it ebbsand flows over me under your primary influence. In a true sense the arms and the heart you open to me are nothing less than all the united powers of the world which, penetrated and permeated to their deptsh by your will, your tastes and your temperament, converge upon my being to form it, nourish it and bear it along towards the center of your fire. In the Host it is my life that you are offering me, O Jesus.