says in Science and Christ (London and New York, 1968) and
The Heart of Matter (London and New York, 1978). Many
readers find the easiest entry into Teilhard’s thought through
his vivid letters, especially Letters from a Traveller, edited by
Claude Arragonès (London, 1966), or through his early, very
lyrical work Writings in Time of War (London, 1968) and the
selected essays in Hymn of the Universe (London and New
York, 1965). This also contains his famous “The Mass on the
World,” originally written in 1923. Of particular appeal
among his other works are The Future of Man (London and
New York, 1964), Human Energy (London and New York,
1969), and Christianity and Evolution (London and New
York, 1971).A helpful reference work has been provided by Siôn Cowell, The
Teilhard Lexicon (Brighton, UK, and Portland, Ore., 2001),
the first English-language dictionary of Teilhard de Char-
din’s writings and vocabulary. Claude Cuénot’s biography,
Teilhard de Chardin (London and Baltimore, 1965), with its
rich documentation and detailed bibliography of Teilhard’s
publications, is an indispensable resource, but not as readable
as the shorter life by Mary Lukas and Ellen Lukas, Teilhard
(New York and London, 1977), or the illustrated biography
by Ursula King, Spirit of Fire: The Life and Vision of Teilhard
de Chardin (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1996). The vicissitudes of
Teilhard’s life, especially the censure of his writings, have
been amply documented by his Jesuit superior, René
d’Ouince, in Un prophète en procès; vol. 1, Teilhard de Char-
din dans l’église de son temps (Paris, 1970). Among numerous
commentators the Jesuit Henri de Lubac must rank as one
of the best; his early study The Religion of Teilhard de Char-
din (London, 1967) is especially helpful. Another Jesuit,
Thomas M. King, offers a searching analysis of Teilhard’s
mystical experience in Teilhard’s Mysticism of Knowing (New
York, 1981), undertaken from a different perspective by Ur-
sula King in Towards a New Mysticism: Teilhard de Chardin
and Eastern Religions (London and New York, 1980), which
examines Teilhard’s views on Eastern and Western religions
in a converging world, including his new mysticism of ac-
tion. R. C. Zaehner’s Evolution in Religion: A Study in Sri
Aurobindo and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (Oxford, 1971)
provides an insightful comparison between a Hindu and
Christian approach to the evolutionary reinterpretation of
two different religious traditions; see also Ursula King, “Teil-
hard de Chardin and the Comparative Study of Religions”
in Christopher Lamb and Dan Cohn-Sherbok, eds., The Fu-
ture of Religion: Postmodern Perspectives, Essays in Honour of
Ninian Smart (London, 1999), pp. 54–76. J. A. Lyons’s The
Cosmic Christ in Origen and Teilhard de Chardin (Oxford,
1982) analyzes Teilhard’s innovative passages on Christ’s
“three natures” and his traditional roots in Greek patristics.
An earlier overall theological synthesis was undertaken by
Christopher F. Mooney, Teilhard de Chardin and the Mystery
of Christ (New York, 1966).
Well worth studying are The Letters of Teilhard de Chardin and
Lucile Swan, edited by Thomas M. King and Mary Wood
Gilbert (Washington, D.C., 1993), especially for their de-
tailed coverage of his China years and his friendship with
Swan. Mathias Trennert-Hellwig, Die Urkraft des Kosmos:
Dimensionen der Liebe im Werk Pierre Teilhard de Chardins
(Freiburg, Germany, 1993) provides the most comprehens-
sive study of Teilhard’s dynamic vision of love. A comparison
with Pitirim Sorokin’s ideas on love is found in Ursula King,
“Love – A Higher Form of Human Energy in the Work of
Teilhard de Chardin and Sorokin,” Zygon 39, no. 1 (2004):
pp. 77–102.
The diffusion and critical reception of The Divine Milieu, espe-
cially in France, has been closely examined by Hai-Yan
Wang, Le phénomène Teilhard: L’aventure du livre Le Milieu
Divin (Paris, 1999). A wide-ranging discussion of Teilhard
de Chardin’s spirituality is found in Pierre Noir’s “Teilhard
de Chardin,” Dictionnaire de spiritualité: Ascétique et mys-
tique, doctrine et histoire, vol. 15, pp. 115–126 (Paris, 1991);
selected texts on spirituality have been thematically grouped
in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Writings, Selected, with an In-
troduction by Ursula King (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1999). The
background, semantic context, and importance of Teilhard
de Chardin’s noosphere concept in relation to contemporary
scientific discussions are extensively documented in The Bio-
sphere and Noosphere Reader: Global Environment, Society,
and Change, edited by Paul R. Samson and David Pitt (Lon-
don, 1999). The relevance of Teilhard de Chardin’s work,
especially in relation to contemporary cosmology and ecolo-
gy, is evident from the essays in Teilhard in the 21st Century:
The Emerging Spirit of Earth, edited by Arthur Fabel and
Donald St. John (Maryknoll, N.Y., 2003).
URSULA KING (2005)TEKAKWITHA, KATERI (c. 1656–1680), native
American convert to Christianity. Tekakwitha was born in
the Iroquoian town of Gandahouhague, near present-day
Fonda, New York. Her father was Mohawk, and her mother
Algonquin, a captive adopted into the Turtle clan after a
raid. When she was four years old Tekakwitha survived an
attack of smallpox that killed her immediate family. The dis-
ease weakened her eyesight, and she afterward exhibited a
general tendency to withdraw from social contact. By 1667,
when Tekakwitha first encountered Jesuit missionaries, she
was already inclined to a way of life that Christianity sanc-
tioned. Indian townspeople exerted strong pressure to make
her conform to native ways, but she persisted in her new in-
terest. This determination culminated on Easter Day, 1676,
when she was baptized by Jacques de Lamberville, S.J. The
following year, local opposition to her Catholicism mount-
ed, and she fled the region to take refuge with other Catholic
Indians living along the Saint Lawrence River in Upper
Canada.
Tekakwitha settled at Caughnawaga, or La Prairie de la
Madeleing, an intertribal village of Christian Indians bound
together more by religious allegiance than by tribal heritage.
There she quickly established a reputation for austere self-
denial and pious virtue. From her First Communion at
Christmas 1677, until her death less than three years later,
the maiden impressed all about her with her modest fervor
and ardent prayers. Beset with a frail constitution, she
worked as best she could in village gardens, fasted two days
per week, administered flagellations, and kept a private vow
of chastity. In 1678 she began a quasi-convent patternedTEKAKWITHA, KATERI 9035