Reviews, Interviews, News, Commentaries, Excerpts, My Top 5 Books, Wilson's Bookmarks, Book Awards'I Thirst'
As a deer pants for flowing streams,
So pants my soul for you, O God. (Psalm 42:1, ESV)
Mother Teresa recorded her longing to feel the presence of the Lord everywhere, not just in the letters published in Come Be My Light, an excellent book edited by Father Kolodiejchuk. It is emblazoned on the wall next to the crucifix in every one of the Missionaries of Charity chapels all over the world - I thirst. Mother believed Jesus' was thirsty for souls; She was thirsty for him.
Much of Mother Teresa's writing reads like an instruction manual on right ways to suffer redemptively. With Paul, she could have said, "For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things … that I may share his sufferings, becoming like him in death" (Philippians 3: 8,10).
It appears that some saints go through excruciating purgation, a kind of suffering that increasingly separates them from the desires of the world and makes them more able to accomplish the purposes for which Christ has called them.
Teresa of Avila, author of the classic work on prayer The Interior Castle, went through 18 years of dryness, saying prayers of the church with her mouth but not her heart. Thomas Aquinas at the end of his life had a single encounter with God that made him say that all he had written was as straw compared to the reality of God. This so grieved him that he never wrote another word and died four months later.
John of the Cross wrote, "They harbor in the midst of the dryness and emptiness of their faculties, a habitual care and solitude for God accompanied by grief or fear about not serving him. It is a sacrifice pleasing to God—that of a spirit in desperate solicitude for his love … it begins to kindle in the spirit divine love."
True to John of the Cross's description of the periods of emptiness, Mother often feared she was not serving Jesus well. According to Thirsting for God, she once asked Pope John Paul II to pray that she not spoil the work. He replied, "And you, Mother, pray I may not spoil the Church."
Only God's divine love could sustain the work the Missionaries of Charity do in the conditions in which they live and work. All of us, who really experienced working with her and the Missionaries, even for short periods of time, know in our hearts we could not have maintained it.
In one of Mother's letters, she writes,
I do not know how much deeper will this trial go—how much pain and suffering it will bring to me. This does not worry me any more. I leave this to him as I leave everything else. I want to become a saint according to the heart of Jesus—meek and humble. That is all that really matters to me now.
Mother understood that all Christians are called to be holy and that the path on which God takes us differs greatly. She believed that the Missionaries of Charity were called to be poor in order to better work with the poor, but that God called others to "live in castles." That is why she could minister equally to the poorest of the poor and to Princess Diana.
Kolodiejchuk says, "Instead of stifling her missionary impulse, the darkness seemed to invigorate it." Yet the revelation of her dark nights strikes terror in the hearts of those who want to continue to press into God for the high calling.
One of the promises of God we are not so quick to celebrate is the promise of suffering. A quick glance at a concordance under the words suffer, suffering, suffered informs us that it is part of Christian life. Contemplate these words of Peter in the context of Mother's life: Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good (1 Peter 4:19).
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Tony Jordan
Unfortunately, we can read all kinds of philosophical and mystical explanations for MT barren dryness for 50 years. I greatly admire her work, could this have been achieved without knowing Jesus Christ, as personal Saviour and Lord? That's not for me to judge. God's Word, the Scriptures are the only objective, historical document that makes it emphatically clear, that JESUS CHRIST, is the only mediator between man (on earth) and the Father in Heaven, with the Holy Spirit being the only access, (Eph. 2:18). Mother Teresa consecrated her life to the heart of Mary, utterly unbiblical. She was known to have held dying Hindu's and Muslim's in her arms, and said to them, '...believe in your god...' Obviously unable to lead them to Christ for Salvation, why not? Catholicism has 'apotheosized' Mary, how? "Thou art the Mother of God, and ALL-POWERFUL to save sinners, and with God thou needest no other recommendation for thou art the Mother of true like." 'The Glories of Mary, p. 155). Think!
Jack
Excellent commentary and observations. Thank you.
Concerned
Ted and Joan - Generally I would not respond a post like yours. But since I believe you believe that you are being helpful I decided to respond. No, I have not been hurt by the church, other Christians, et al. I wrote what I wrote because I believe the MT was a self-centered person more concerned with her own agenda then with the well being of those to whom she "ministered". If you do your home work, you will see that she told those with whom she worked not to use condoms, sending them to their death. She refused to aid those who did not agree with her or follow her mandates! This is not love. This is not what Christ called us to. If you want to bury your head in the sand, please be my guest. I will not criticize your for wanting to glorify MT. To blame AIDs on Hindus is to miss understand the problem. I find it curious that anyone could defend such indefensible behavior. Yes, fidelity in marriage is key, but MT's focus was only on women, not their habitually unfaithful husbands.