Postscripts From The Catholic Spitfire Grill

Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light remains on my mind. Mother Teresa’s heroic faithfulness leaves me breathless with the desire to imitate her in some small way. And in my small way, I’ve some to the realization that all worhtwhile spiritual virtues develop in their own “Dark Night.” The strongest faith is that which remains in the absence of consolation. Our Lord said it this way In Matthew 5:43-48

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on (your) right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.  “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.

It’s all a “dark night” folks. On a lesser scale for us lesser souls but aren’t we called to be faithful, even if we have no consolation? Isn’t that when our faith is strongest? Because it’s being tested? We are supposed to love when we are getting hit back. To hope when it’s “obviously” hopeless. To stand and pray in the face of ridicule. Not because Our Lord is sadistic but because it’s good for us and makes us strong.

 ”Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I go back again. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD!” Job 1:23 

I just wish I wasn’t a weenie.

I started this post earlier this week in hopes I would get it up the day after the 10th anniversary of her death. Then Amazon delivered 

Now I could tell you that I decided to wait on posting in order to have a more complete blog post. That would be a lie. Frankly, I was so riveted by the contents of the book itself that I didn’t want to stop reading long enough to blog. Then my internet connection went out which forced me to spend still more time meditating on the life of this extraordinary woman. When I recommend books to my friends I generally exhibit several levels of enthusiasm from ‘this particular book isn’t that great but I think that you’ll find what you need in it’ to ‘no, that belongs in your CART, not your wishlist.’ I tell you without a trace of humor in my voice, I told a friend of mine yesterday to buy this book right that minute and pay for 1-day shipping. (With Amazon Prime 1-day shipping is $3.99)

And so I post this in honor of the 51st anniversary of Our Lord’s “call within a call” to Mother Teresa to reach out to the poorest of the poor on September 10, 1946.

I’ve resisted developing an attachment to Mother Teresa…there I said it…..think of me what you will, but I am shallow and vain enough to not want to do what everyone else is doing because everyone else is doing it. Thankyouverymuch. But I am fighting a losing battle as the Holy Spirit continues to use Mother Teresa’s words and example to speak to me. So as the Catholic blogosphere pauses to remember Mother Teresa let me add my grateful thanks to our Lord for her life, her unspeakable courage, and her continued efforts (whether she is aware of them or not) to reduce even me to humility and to encourage even me to embrace suffering. If all Mother Teresa did was selflessly devote herself to acts of charity and love in India and found the Missionaries of Charity, she would still be worthy of sainthood. But the more I learn about her, the more I realize she ranks with one of the great Catholic mystics of all-time. Mother Teresa wrote with acts of her life more about the Gospel of our Lord and the meaning of the words “Take up your cross and follow me” than all of the Doctors of the Church combined.  

I’ve meditated on why it is that Mother Teresa’s life and writings should speak to me in a way that St. Thérèse of Lisieux, or St. Teresa of Avila, of St. John of the Cross do not. I wonder if it is not that Mother Teresa is more like me than they were. No I don’t mean that I am in her league with respect to virtue or wisdom or charity or any other good Christian attribute that you’d like to name. What I mean is that like me, she was a mother. Not in the same way that I am, but a mother of all of her Missionaries of Charity Sisters nonetheless.  She also had to straddle the difficult balance of the giving of oneself in practical temporal ways and the need and desire to shut oneself up in prayer. Even though she was a vowed religious woman, I think that my life as a wife and mother and temporal duties of that life and my desires as a Christian have some tiny parallel to her life.

And although I am sure that this posthumous examination of her faith by those who would tear it down has just begun (and in some cases gotten fresh wind in the sails) I am intensely weary of it. Here is a woman who (with the approval of her confessor) made a private vow to deny Jesus nothing that He asked of her and then spent the rest of her life listening intensely to the smallest leading of His so that she might instantly do His will. Some, who did not know her and have judged her based on a few quotes of hers taken out of the context of all of her life and words are saying that she was not even Christian; yet her life was the embodiment of the advice she gave to so many. In her words ” “Today I made a new prayer –Jesus I accept whatever you give—and I give whatever you take.” On Holy Cards that portrayed Ecce Homo with the words from Psalm 68 “I looked for one that would comfort me and I found none,” she would write, “Be the one.” One of her sisters (Sister Fatima Sebastian) describes her as a woman “totally, passionately, madly in love with Jesus.” I wonder how many of those who would question the Christianity of Mother Teresa would themselves be described in those words. I wonder how many of us, could say “I want with my whole will only Jesus” and then have our lives stand as the sole evidence of the Truth of that statement?

Yes, she wrote about lacking the “feeling” of faith and some are using that to describe her as faithless or even, incredibly, as an atheist. But listen to what else she wrote:

No Father, I am not alone.–I have His darkness–I have His pain–I have a terrible longing for God–to love and not to be loved. I know I have Jesus–in that unbroken union–for my mind is fixed on Him and in Him alone, in my will.

Cough. Lots of atheists I know write like that. During the early years of her darkness, before she began to understand and to embrace it. Before she began to see some of the purpose for it, her spiritual director, Father Neuner, wrote about that transformation:

It was the redeeming experience of her life when she realized that the night of her heart was the special share she had in Jesus’ passion…Thus we see that the darkness was actually the mysterious link that united her to Jesus. It is the contact of intimate longing for God. Nothing else can fill her mind. Such longing is possible only through God’s hidden presence. We cannot long for something that is not intimately close to us. Thirst is more than the absence of water. It is not experienced by stones, but only by living beings that depend on water.

Mother Teresa radiated Christ to all who knew her. She was the living gospel of Christ and His dedicated servant. Someone said of her:

She seemed to delight in you. It was not something of charity that was burdensome, which destroys the dignity of the poor, but it was something that she delighted in….You had the sense that she considered it a privilege to do this. She comforted you when you were sad. She encouraged you when you were doubting whether you could do something.

Her work was a witness to the power and light and love of Christ within her. It was her complete and total surrender to His Will that enabled Him to work so powerfully through her. And I am humbled and am forced to ask, does my life reflect such a total surrender? It should. What could He do through each of us, if we allowed Him to use us without consulting us? (Another of Mother Teresa’s bits of wisdom.) If one totally surrendered woman could accomplish so much for the Kingdom, what could a billion such souls accomplish?

But what about her gifts to me? Well as I have previously mentioned, I have had some rough patches in my personal life in the last few years. Some months ago I took the time to go on a silent retreat in an attempt to make some sense of the pain in my life. The Lord threw me the lifeline I needed but He used the hands of Mother Teresa in a very significant way to toss it my way. Her letter to the Missionaries of Charity which outlines some of her understand of her “call within a call” was just what I needed to help me remember….probably more profoundly than I have ever realized it before….that I was truly loved by God. Perhaps God used her, because like her (but for different reasons) I have had a kind of “Dark Night” of my own. Here is some of that letter:

Be careful of all that can block that personal contact with the living Jesus. Devil may try to use the hurts of life, and sometimes our own mistakes, to make you feel it is impossible that Jesus really loves you, is really cleaving to you. This is danger for all of us. And so sad, because it is completely opposite of what Jesus is really wanting, waiting to tell you. Not only that He loves you, but even more–He longs for you. He misses you when you don’t come close. He thirsts for you. He loves you always, even when you don’t feel worthy. When not accepted by others, even by yourself sometimes — He is the one who always accepts you….

…Why does Jesus say “I thirst”? What does it mean? Something so hard to explain in words– if you remember anything from Mother’s letter, remember this–”I thirst” is something much deeper than Jesus just saying “I love you.” Until you know deep inside that Jesus thirsts for you –you can’t begin to know who He wants to be for you. Or who He wants you to be for Him.

I know that there are some who think that Mother Teresa’s wishes to have her correspondence burned should have been honored. She was afraid that her correspondence might turn some away from Jesus who she loved so passionately. I am glad that the Vatican disagrees with her. Her heroic surrender to the will of God and the wisdom that came from it will help many souls (mine very much included) come closer to God. As she approached death and her sisters would say “Mother, don’t leave us. We can’t live without you.” She would reply “Don’t worry. Mother can do so much more for you when I am in heaven.” I am sure that meant that she would joyfully pray for the Church on earth, she also said:

If I ever become a Saint –I will surely be one of “darkness.” I will continually be absent from Heaven–to light the light of those in darkness on hearth– 

I suspect that in her humility, she would never have understood that her letters would form an important part of the work she would do after her death. I do know that no matter how she felt about having her letters published, that she would have submitted totally to her vow of religious obedience and accepted the ruling of Church authorities that these letters would be helpful to the faithful and should be published.

Besides Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light I highly recommend the following:

Praying in the Presence of Our Lord with Mother Teresa by Susan Conroy. I like this book because it has a good blend of background information as well as those wonderful bits of wisdom of Mother Teresa’s.

Works of Love are Works of Peace: Mother Teresa of Calcutta and the Missionaries of Charity by Michael Collopy. On the surface this book looks like just a coffee table book of pictures of Mother Teresa but tucked away in the back of the book is a copy of the Missionaries of Charity prayer book.

“Pray for me, that I not loosen my grip on the hand of Jesus”
Mother Teresa

ETA: I had more to say here.

My best friend just spit something at her computer over that title. With luck, she even called me a name. Now I know you don’t know her, or me for that matter, but take my word for it. This is fun. Let’s just lean back and enjoy it for a moment shall we?

Ok. Moving along. This last week the topic of conversation that drew my participation on that Protestant homeschooling forum I hang out on was Mother Teresa’s “Dark Night of the Soul.” Apparently the imminent publication of her letters to her spiritual directors has sparked all sorts of speculation on the state of her soul. I won’t attribute the following quote to anyone in particular because as I understand it, the sentiments expressed in it are pretty common of late.

I wonder what was going on with her? She had such a heart for the poor and downtrodden, yet she was apparently faithless and miserable for the past 50 years. What could she have done differently? What could those in whom she confided her struggles have done differently to have helped her through her agony?

So many questions have run through my mind, such as: Was she reading her Bible most days? I know that daily reading of the Scriptures strengthens my faith. Did she take some time each day to seek the Lord’s face in worship and prayer, or was she so overwhelmed with caring for the sick and dying that she never took time for this vital discipline.

What Mother Teresa experienced and is described in her writings wasn’t burnout or ordinary discouragement is called the “Dark Night of the Soul.” This is a phenomenon experienced by many of the strongest and greatest of saints in Christian history and in Mother Teresa’s case lasted approximately the last 50 years of her life. It is not a true crisis of faith but rather a spiritual state in which the feelings of consolation that many of us rely on….that God allows to remind us of His Presence and His Love….are withdrawn. It is in that state that great spiritual growth can occur because faith becomes a complete act of will and a total act of trust in the promises of God. It embodies the scripture “even though He slay me, yet will I serve Him.” It allows us to make the act of faith, the act of will in favor of God. When a soul has no feeling of hope but acts on the promise of it anyway. It allows the soul to completely empty of the self and make rooom for more Jesus. Mother Teresa had reached a place of spiritual growth where she could say and mean, “Even though I have no feeling of hope. I will serve You completely, totally, and utterly, because I trust in Your Promises and Your Love.”

As for Bible reading and prayer. What is not commonly know is that the order founded by Mother Teresa is a contemplative order and NOT a service order. That means that these nuns who DO so much consider their primary purpose and task to be prayer. Mother Teresa commonly spent 8-10 hours a day in prayer. She read her Bible daily….a lot. Just in case you are unaware of the amount of scripture considered to be the minimum daily requirement for all Catholic clergy and religious I will direct you to this blog post of mine and this one. Her order and the rule that governs it, reflect this priority in her life.

The reason my best friend is calling me names is because she has experienced a “Dark Night” in her own spiritual walk and would hasten to tell you all that this spiritual trial is not just for the “Great Saints.” I beg to differ. We are ALL called to be great saints. Our Lord may put some of us in the limelight as examples but the obligation to be a great saint is no less for any of us supposed lesser souls. The Dark Night of the Soul is a difficult trial and perhaps the full manifestation of this trial is best reserved for those souls of great strength, but just as I believe the stigmata is a spiritual sign that is useful even for us weak souls, I think the Dark Night is a sign for us all as well. For those who endure the trial of the Dark Night, faith becomes an act of will. There is no feeling of comfort and consolation. There is no hint of “Well done, thou good and faithful servant”, but only perseverance and trust in the promises of a loving God that seems far away. But what about some of the other virtues? could it be that some of us called to trials that may be less obvious that a dark night to help us to cultivate other virutes such as charity and hope? The soul enduring a dark night develops a powerful faith because trust in our Lord comes from a voluntary act of will; thus, rooting faith to the deepest and most important part of ourselves. Could we not apply the same principle to situations of hopelessness and lovelessness in our lives? It is when we chose to love or hope in a situation where there is no hope and no love returned, that we begin to truly move from the shadow of hope and love fueled by natural inclination and feeling to the light of real hope and real love that is rooted in the deepest parts of our soul.

This has the potential to sound pretentious so let me just start by saying this is an IDEA that has helped me cope and not any kind of claim of spiritual gianthood for myself. I am a pushover when it comes to temptation. I am knocked flat on my behind before I even know I was standing in the path of an oncoming train. It seems simple enough to just jump off the train tracks but darn it all there are days when I WANT to get hit by that train and I need help…

I have an ongoing sorrow in my life. The details aren’t necessary but it involves a deep and serious estrangement from people who are important to me. This last week I got some information that brought the sorrow from the back burner to the front burner (again) and I was an emotional mess (again). As I was in bed sobbing, the events surrounding this situation played themselves in my head…again….and in spite of the fact that I know I must forgive as I wish to be forgiven, I was looking for a loophole. Diligently looking. It occurred to me that for minor offenses I am not actually required to receive sacramental confession, but that for mortal sins I had better hoof it to a confessional and formally apologize. Therefore, I thought (whilst looking to embrace this temptation fully) aren’t they then required to come and apologize to ME!? Hmmm…I thought, maybe I can throw myself into this temptation to become angry at them to welcome that anger because it will probably be a cold day in the chthonic regions before I get an apology? (Can you tell I was REALLY liking this train of thought?) Then…the Lord reminded me that perhaps that didn’t look like forgiving as I wished to be forgiven.

“But Lord….may I just interject here that I have learned through long, regular, and painful experience that if you are starting a sentence with “But Lord…” you are about to get slapped upside the head….let’s look at that scripture about forgiving 70 billion times or whatever ridiculous number of times it is that You require. There’s an “IF” clause there…LOOK! ‘And if he wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’ you should forgive him.’ (Luke 17:4) They haven’t said they were sorry so I get to be angry!!”

But that’s not the way I want to be forgiven. If I don’t understand how I have wronged someone enough to even be able to adequately apologize, do I want grace? For example, when I sin without even knowing it? Or when I have unintentionally injured someone or caused someone to sin or just caused offense without knowing it or the depth of those injuries I cause to others that I don’t even know about? Or how about when I have sinned against God or someone else, even seriously so, because I was in pain or sick or just having a bad day? Do I want grace? Yes. I not only want that kind of grace. I need that kind of grace because I walk around clueless as to the depth of my sin because if He showed it ALL to me at once I’d literally die of shame? And do I not have the strength given to me by the Sacraments so that He is justified in calling me to a higher standard?

“But Lord…”, I said (ducking at the same time) “I am bleeding out! I NEED these wounds cauterized! It’s killing me to have to remain open to the possibility of reconciliation. To pray for it. To beg for it. To humble myself for it.”

And He gave me a picture. I thought of Padre Pio who bled from his stigmata for over 50 years and Our Lord provided the strength he needed to withstand that. Very few of us are called to bear the wounds of Christ on our physical body. Most of us certainly don’t have the humility to withstand such a great gift….I know I certainly don’t. Nevertheless, we are all called to bear his wounds. To carry our cross with him. Perhaps at times when we are called to forgiveness and charity we’d rather not extend because it will leave us open to more wounds and more pain and more bleeding, we can think of it as receiving the gift of the stigmata in secret. Certainly, it was an idea that helped me jump off the train tracks and not surrender (that time anyway) to the temptation to embrace anger and unforgiveness.

SUFFERING

I wonder what the world would be like
If there were not innocent people
Making reparation for us all…?
Today the passion of Christ is being relived
In the lives of those who suffer.
To accept that suffering is a gift of God.
Suffering is not a punishment.
God does not punish.
Suffering is a gift- Tho,
Like all gifts,
It depends on how we receive it.
And that is why we need a pure heart-
To see the hand of God,
To feel the hand of God,
To recognize the gift of God
In our suffering.
Suffering is not a punishment.
Jesus does not punish.
Suffering is a sign-
A sign That we have come so close To Jesus on the cross,
That He can kiss us,
Show that He is in love with us,
By giving us an opportunity to share
In His passion.
In our Home for the Dying
It is so beautiful to see
People who are joyful,
People who are lovable,
People who are at peace,
In spite of terrible suffering.
Suffering is not a punishment,
Not a fruit of sin,
It is a gift of God.
He allows us to share in His suffering
And to make up for the sins of the world.

                       ~~ Mother Teresa

I was taught that suffering excavates a deep place in our souls which can then be filled with God’s peace and joy. Mother Teresa would remind us so beautifully that “even Almighty God cannnot fill what is already full.” So, let us allow this hollowing out in our souls. And know that, even if we are experiencing trials and feelings of emptiness at the moment, we are in prime condition for being filled up with God’s inestimable treasures of grace — not the least of which is His own divine presence in our soul.

Susan Conroy in Praying in the Presence of Our Lord with Mother Teresa