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Maybe you've seen some of the reports about this week's publication of the letters that the late Mother Teresa wrote to her
confessors. Her writings show that for nearly fifty years she felt no presence of God whatsoever. Except for a brief, five-week
period of spiritual refreshment in 1959, she lived in an enduring state of deep and abiding spiritual pain. Listen to her
words:
Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love – and now become as the most hated one...
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 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? (Time, 9/3/07, Her Agony, quoting from Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light.)
Hold those words in your mind as you recall her infectious smile, the boundless energy, the ageless compassion that was the
light of her being; a light so compelling that it was arresting even through a television screen. Hold those words in mind
as you hear these other words of hers:
I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world... Spread love everywhere you
go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier... Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift
to that person, a beautiful thing... Good works are links that form a chain of love... Love is a fruit in season at all
times, and within reach of every hand... Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.
We all experience the storms of our emotions – feeling frustrated or lost or tired or abandoned. Yet we are more than
our feelings, and we can live beyond emotion's tyranny. Teresa once wrote, "I accept not in my feelings – but with
my will, the Will of God – I accept His will."
And we all experience doubts and intellectual uncertainties. Is there really a God? Does any of this matter anyway? What
is true? All but a few of us have felt abandoned by God. All but a few of us have had doubts about God's existence. I would
imagine that most of us who worship in churches on Sundays, experience themselves, to some degree or another, emotionally
abandoned and intellectually doubtful.
Hiding behind muscular certainties has rarely been a healthy spiritual response. I forget where I copied the quote, but I
like these words: Certainty is the belief that we are smarter today than we will be tomorrow. Doubt or the ability to
question our beliefs is an essential ability if we are to learn and grow in our understanding of God. The day we are certain
about God, is the day we have become as big as God, and know nothing of God. Certainty leads to arrogance, while an openness
and willing to doubt leads to humility. The opposite of faith is not doubt; the opposite of faith is certainty. We live
in a time not unlike the 16th century when militant religions, certain of their monopoly on truth, threaten to bathe our planet
in blood.
Mother Teresa is a patron saint for the rest of us. For all of us who experience the darkness of mind or emotion. For those
of us who are courageous enough to be open and honest enough to doubt. Though she did not feel Christ's love and did not
know the existence of God, Teresa rose every morning at 4:30 to say to Jesus, "Your happiness is all I want." Then she went
to serve the poorest of the poor as though each person were Jesus. That's real love. If she could do so much with so little
spiritual consolation, what might the rest of us do with just a little more willingness and humility.
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