For those who have given it all, have allowed themselves to be used up until they literally have nothing left to give, it seems to me that such dark nights would be unavoidable. I think our human capacity to love can only take us so far, and when we have reached the point where our love for God exceeds our ability to actually feel and comprehend and identify “love” - that’s when these saints see desperate days. My guess is they have simply transcended where human love can take them, but haven’t the tools to fully know “divine” love, and so they’re trapped in something unidentifiable and unknown - a place where they simply have to go on faith. If we learn in 10 years that John Paul II went through exactly the same sort of emptiness and darkness, I will not be surprised at all. In fact, I expect to hear exactly that.
And as for Teresa’s “shocking” letters, I anticipate finding within them a great deal of comfort. And in her carrying on and carrying forth - even through her trials and excruciating sense of loss - I expect I’ll find evidence of the workings of grace and sanctity. As Fr. James Martin writes in the New York Times, “…to conclude that Mother Teresa was a crypto-atheist is to misread both the woman and the experience that she was forced to undergo.”
Indeed. “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me” is not the cry of the atheist; it is the cry of the psalmist and the Christ. It is the cry of the believer.
(You can read the rest here.)
Also, Deacon Greg Kandra's homily on Mother Teresa is beautiful.
... It’s astonishing to think that the most important work of Mother Teresa – her true legacy – may not have been to the poor in the slums, but to the poor in spirit. Those who every day walk through the slums of their own hearts, feeling deserted and unloved.
This book, I think, will speak to so many of us who are questioning, and searching. It will show just what it takes to be a saint.
It takes more than piety. It takes perseverance: continuing through all the barren deserts of life, and doing God’s will anyway – trusting, somewhere, somehow, that an oasis awaits you at the end.
The painful fact is that all of us at one time or another know that desert. We all have felt spiritually dry, isolated from God. We know the sense of desolation. Mother Teresa’s story speaks powerfully to all of us.
And so, I think, does God’s call to her. Because it is His call to each of us.
“Come, be my light.”
Light was the first thing that God brought forth at the beginning of time.
It was what He needed to continue His creation.
Mother Teresa fulfilled that need.
And we can, too.
“Come, be my light.”
Come, He says. Help me finish what I have begun. Be my hands. Be my voice. Be my light. Give love to the unloved, and hope to the hopeless.
And: don’t be afraid of the darkness.
Because darkness and doubt, even the kind Mother Teresa experienced, make faith matter. A faith that doesn’t question, or feel some uncertainty, is a shallow faith, a kind that will not deepen and grow. Faith should ask hard questions – who is God? What does He want of us? – because in asking those questions it means that we don’t have all the answers.
And that, too, is a mark of humility.
That little Albanian nun with the weathered face and the simple blue and white sari is a powerful example of that.
But there is an even greater example of humility among us right now. It is the Eucharist we are about to receive -- when God becomes bread, and bread becomes God. When the exalted is humbled and the humble exalted.
And we who are about to share that mystery, in receiving it, are also exalted -- and humbled. Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof. But he does. And we are transformed.
(The full homily is here.)
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