“By no means the least disturbing aspect of the problem of evil, is this powerlessness of the world to develop successfully, I won’t say the best, but at any rate a good part of itself. . . When you’re confronted with this mystery, it’s a good thing, as you so well said, to abandon yourself to the masterful current, as divine when it cancels out our efforts as when it carries us forward. After all, what really matters is surely to be united with God, and to fall in with the movements He imposes on us, whatever they may be. And is it not as beautifying to feel the influence of Him we love exert itself to make us less (as his wisdom plans) rather than greater?—to go back to Blondel’s words that you copied for me, ‘ the action of others on ourselves ‘ is more clearly seen in sorrow than in enjoyment, and the same is thus true of the resulting joy.”

— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Making of a Mind; Letters from a Soldier-Priest (p. 176)