The long dark night of a beautiful soul
Wikipedia wrote:
Mother Teresa wrote numerous letters to her confessors and superiors over a 66-year period. She had asked that her letters be destroyed, concerned that “people will think more of me -- less of Jesus.”[59] However, despite this request, the correspondences have been compiled in “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light” (Doubleday).[45] In one publicly released letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, she wrote, “Jesus has a very special love for you. [But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have [a] free hand.” Many news outlets have referred to Mother Teresa’s writings as an indication of a “crisis of faith.” [60] However, others have drawn comparisons to the 16th century mystic St. John of the Cross who coined the term the “dark night” of the soul to describe a particular stage in the growth of some spiritual masters.
A Time/CNN article came out with this concerning Mother Teresa: (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1655415-3,00.html)
Come Be My Light (Doubleday), consisting primarily of correspondence between Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a period of 66 years, provides the spiritual counterpoint to a life known mostly through its works. The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever — or, as the book’s compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, “neither in her heart or in the eucharist.”
That absence seems to have started at almost precisely the time she began tending the poor and dying in Calcutta, and — except for a five-week break in 1959 — never abated. Although perpetually cheery in public, the Teresa of the letters lived in a state of deep and abiding spiritual pain. In more than 40 communications, many of which have never before been published, she bemoans the “dryness,” “darkness,” “loneliness” and “torture” she is undergoing. She compares the experience to hell and at one point says it has driven her to doubt the existence of heaven and even of God. She is acutely aware of the discrepancy between her inner state and her public demeanor. “The smile,” she writes, is “a mask” or “a cloak that covers everything.” Similarly, she wonders whether she is engaged in verbal deception. “I spoke as if my very heart was in love with God — tender, personal love,” she remarks to an adviser. “If you were [there], you would have said, ‘What hypocrisy.’”
Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love — and now become as the most hated one — the one — You have thrown away as unwanted — unloved. I call, I cling, I want — and there is no One to answer — no One on Whom I can cling — no, No One. — Alone ... Where is my Faith — even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness — My God — how painful is this unknown pain — I have no Faith — I dare not utter the words thoughts that crowd in my heart — & make me suffer untold agony.
So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them — because of the blasphemy — If there be God — please forgive me — When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven — there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. — I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness & coldness emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?
— addressed to Jesus, at the suggestion of a confessor, undated
Every time I read this, it saddens me more. I sorrow, not because there was no remedy for this dear servant of God, but because there was a remedy and a ready, very available remedy. And I love to dream of what it could have done for this poor benighted one.
That remedy is the Holy Bible. A book that “the church” does not hold supreme, a book ultimately denied by the church. “The Church” files it away in their vast library, full of ancient apocryphal and voluminous church encyclicals. Lost in the crowd, and by nature more pointed against sin than the watered down, man-made versions of moral teachings, the Bible is subtly denigrated, given last instead of first place. Even equal status is an abomination. But, in fulfillment of its own self-prediction, the first is last and the last first. The Bible is due Christianity’s, and so much more “the church’s”, true primacy.
The Bible is a book that provides promises—huge promises—promises of a never-ending love, a love that a soul like Mother Teresa’s yearns for. It’s a book which contains commandments—authoritative, yes, but a Law that only an infinitely loving and fiercely protective Father would require. It’s a book of a God of wisdom, whose prophecies have been fulfilled and are being fulfilled. It’s a book we can trust. From a God we can trust.
And when the fulfillment of the Book’s promises and obedience to it’s commandments don’t seem forthcoming, then those who have been drawn to it’s trustworthiness have only one option: Go straight to the Author. The Book teaches us to do this through the examples of many regular, real people from the past inscribed in its pages. It teaches us about faith and elicits the same from us. It takes those lacking confidence and makes them bold to take God at His word.
No other book drives us to God like the Holy Bible. No other book gives us faith in Him like the Scriptures. No other book brokers an iron sinew of trust in Jesus. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee.” (Is. 26:3).
Unfortunately, Mother Teresa, being part of an organization which does not hold the Bible supreme, did not have the tool she needed to have her dark soul lightened. All she ever received was a human thank you and human encouragement to keep trudging along in her long cave. She never received divine encouragement nor could she ever appropriate for herself the divine word from heaven, “This is My beloved child, in whom I am well pleased.” (Matt. 4:17). Or, “Thou art greatly beloved.” (Dan. 9:23). Or, “I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art My [child]; this day have I begotten thee.” (Ps. 2:7). This godly woman never read promises that would have sent her soul to the highest heaven on eagle’s wings and evoked praise to her Redeemer with deepest gratitude and holy, sacred joy. Her organization is culpable for this travesty and for billions of others who have gone to the grave without the Bible or its God. And her religion is not the only one culpable for the billions that are in darkness.
If only Teresa had had the Bible. If only she had had Jesus who “ever liveth to make intercession for” us. (Heb. 7:25)
Mother Teresa wrote numerous letters to her confessors and superiors over a 66-year period. She had asked that her letters be destroyed, concerned that “people will think more of me -- less of Jesus.”[59] However, despite this request, the correspondences have been compiled in “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light” (Doubleday).[45] In one publicly released letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, she wrote, “Jesus has a very special love for you. [But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have [a] free hand.” Many news outlets have referred to Mother Teresa’s writings as an indication of a “crisis of faith.” [60] However, others have drawn comparisons to the 16th century mystic St. John of the Cross who coined the term the “dark night” of the soul to describe a particular stage in the growth of some spiritual masters.
A Time/CNN article came out with this concerning Mother Teresa: (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1655415-3,00.html)
Come Be My Light (Doubleday), consisting primarily of correspondence between Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a period of 66 years, provides the spiritual counterpoint to a life known mostly through its works. The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever — or, as the book’s compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, “neither in her heart or in the eucharist.”
That absence seems to have started at almost precisely the time she began tending the poor and dying in Calcutta, and — except for a five-week break in 1959 — never abated. Although perpetually cheery in public, the Teresa of the letters lived in a state of deep and abiding spiritual pain. In more than 40 communications, many of which have never before been published, she bemoans the “dryness,” “darkness,” “loneliness” and “torture” she is undergoing. She compares the experience to hell and at one point says it has driven her to doubt the existence of heaven and even of God. She is acutely aware of the discrepancy between her inner state and her public demeanor. “The smile,” she writes, is “a mask” or “a cloak that covers everything.” Similarly, she wonders whether she is engaged in verbal deception. “I spoke as if my very heart was in love with God — tender, personal love,” she remarks to an adviser. “If you were [there], you would have said, ‘What hypocrisy.’”
Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love — and now become as the most hated one — the one — You have thrown away as unwanted — unloved. I call, I cling, I want — and there is no One to answer — no One on Whom I can cling — no, No One. — Alone ... Where is my Faith — even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness — My God — how painful is this unknown pain — I have no Faith — I dare not utter the words thoughts that crowd in my heart — & make me suffer untold agony.
So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them — because of the blasphemy — If there be God — please forgive me — When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven — there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. — I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness & coldness emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?
— addressed to Jesus, at the suggestion of a confessor, undated
Every time I read this, it saddens me more. I sorrow, not because there was no remedy for this dear servant of God, but because there was a remedy and a ready, very available remedy. And I love to dream of what it could have done for this poor benighted one.
That remedy is the Holy Bible. A book that “the church” does not hold supreme, a book ultimately denied by the church. “The Church” files it away in their vast library, full of ancient apocryphal and voluminous church encyclicals. Lost in the crowd, and by nature more pointed against sin than the watered down, man-made versions of moral teachings, the Bible is subtly denigrated, given last instead of first place. Even equal status is an abomination. But, in fulfillment of its own self-prediction, the first is last and the last first. The Bible is due Christianity’s, and so much more “the church’s”, true primacy.
The Bible is a book that provides promises—huge promises—promises of a never-ending love, a love that a soul like Mother Teresa’s yearns for. It’s a book which contains commandments—authoritative, yes, but a Law that only an infinitely loving and fiercely protective Father would require. It’s a book of a God of wisdom, whose prophecies have been fulfilled and are being fulfilled. It’s a book we can trust. From a God we can trust.
And when the fulfillment of the Book’s promises and obedience to it’s commandments don’t seem forthcoming, then those who have been drawn to it’s trustworthiness have only one option: Go straight to the Author. The Book teaches us to do this through the examples of many regular, real people from the past inscribed in its pages. It teaches us about faith and elicits the same from us. It takes those lacking confidence and makes them bold to take God at His word.
No other book drives us to God like the Holy Bible. No other book gives us faith in Him like the Scriptures. No other book brokers an iron sinew of trust in Jesus. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee.” (Is. 26:3).
Unfortunately, Mother Teresa, being part of an organization which does not hold the Bible supreme, did not have the tool she needed to have her dark soul lightened. All she ever received was a human thank you and human encouragement to keep trudging along in her long cave. She never received divine encouragement nor could she ever appropriate for herself the divine word from heaven, “This is My beloved child, in whom I am well pleased.” (Matt. 4:17). Or, “Thou art greatly beloved.” (Dan. 9:23). Or, “I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art My [child]; this day have I begotten thee.” (Ps. 2:7). This godly woman never read promises that would have sent her soul to the highest heaven on eagle’s wings and evoked praise to her Redeemer with deepest gratitude and holy, sacred joy. Her organization is culpable for this travesty and for billions of others who have gone to the grave without the Bible or its God. And her religion is not the only one culpable for the billions that are in darkness.
If only Teresa had had the Bible. If only she had had Jesus who “ever liveth to make intercession for” us. (Heb. 7:25)
posted by David | 4:12 AM
4 Comments:
Airplanes. There is this drill at the beginning we've all heard at least once (unless you've never been on a commercial airplane flight). If there is a change in cabin pressure, oxygen masks will automatically fall from the ceiling. If you are traveling with a small child, put your mask on first, then help the child.
You cannot effectively help a child if you are dying from a lack of oxygen. Salvation is a personal experience, offered to all who will come.
We must come to Jesus, no one else. There is no other that can save us. We can share God's love with others, but they must come to Jesus themselves.
So true, Roseuvsharon. And along with the mother and child in your analogy, we can't point someone to Jesus unless we go there first, daily.
Thanks for coming by.
1. "Dark Night of the Soul
by Mirabel Starr
Description:
Almost every believer feels forgotten by God sometimes. Even Christ cried out on the cross, "Oh God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Dark Night of the Soul, a 16th-century mystical text written by the Carmelite monk St. John of the Cross, ranks among Christianity’s most helpful answers to this enduring question. In St. John’s vision of spiritual life, the pain of separation from God is to be embraced, not avoided. "The dark night is about being fully present in the tender, wounded emptiness of our own souls," explains translator Mirabai Starr--although she grants that modern culture makes such acceptance hard to attain. "We tend to see difficult feelings as a form of illness, which we hope to conquer, cure, and expel. [St. John of the Cross] has a far greater imagination of human life: his goal is not health but union with the divine."
2. Are you really saying that Mr. Teresa didn't have a Bible?!
Hello Heather,
Its true, like you say, we all feel forgotten by God sometimes. But the trajedy with Mother Teresa was that she spent 50 years in that condition! Unsat!! Sad, sad commentary on the Christian life.
That she didn't have a Bible was my own conclusion. To have read and studied the Bible in the right light would have dispelled all her doubt of Jesus' concern for her particular case. She would have seen a love just for her, as a wonderful daughter whom He loved with an everlasting love, (Jer. 31:3)as she appropriated the promise to herself with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Heather, thanks for your comment
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