Paradox Woman

Everybody seems to be blogging about Mother Teresa these days. I'm loathe to add my paltry shredded cabbage to the stew. Anything any of us might conclude about her inner struggles is nothing but speculation, bec. even if we read all her letters contained in that new book, we are still construing our understanding from the outside. Still, the article about her decades-long darkness made me wonder.

Now, I know that some people claim she was a victim of depression, plain and simple (tho what I find significant is that this "darkness" of hers only set in once she began her work with the dying). Perhaps. But then it would take someone totally devoid of any feelings or compassion to face a life of doing the work she did and still remain emotionally and spiritually unscathed.

Some Catholics interpreted her ordeal as a matter of going thru a tougher "purification" bec. of her "stronger" personality (which to me reveals more about Catholicism's bizarrity than about Mother T.), while psychiatrist Gottlieb's equally bizarre hunch is that she was "punishing" herself for her "success." More drastically, in his by now famous cynical fashion, Hitchens accuses her of realizing the vapidity of "religion."

Having several years ago undergone a radical change of tone in my own faith (not regarding the DNA of the gospel---that has always remained unshaken---but rather, in the overall tenor of what I believe about God's working here on earth, and His answering of prayer) that felt for years like my faith was a raspy strip of sandpaper, I find this whole topic engaging me not merely as a distant, academic armchair issue.

Here are some of my own---respectfully proffered---questions:

1. Mother T., were you saturated with His Word? Or was your reading limited to excerpts from Catholic saints (Theresa of Avila/"St." John of the Cross {rolling eyes}) or Vatican proclamations? Not that even people like David (who was most certainly steeped in God's Word) don't have times of similar darkness. But the Word is an objective anchor, God's Manna which we can use to override whatever doubts and dark danglings we might find trying to drag our soul down. (You find the Psalmist often using His truth that way, viz. "I am feeling utterly dejected now, but I recall Your workings, and I know that I shall again praise You.")

2. Why was it so urgent for you to "share in His Passion"? His own Passion was sufficient for all time for all our sins; we don't need to somehow regurgitate a mini-version of it in our own lives (tho God tells us that we will undergo suffering, as it is a part of the Christian walk----but it is HE who will allow it into our lives, not WE who seek it out in some sort of masochistic fashion).

3. Were you equating feelings with faith? It seems to me that this is one of the strongest temptations in our walk with God. Take for example the word "joy" in the list of the fruit of the Spirit: I don't believe that is talking so much about exuberant or happy feelings, but rather it is a synonym for hope (bec. notice that hope is conspicuously absent in that list). God's living seed in our soul (as John refers to it in his letter), coupled with His Word, causes a constant resurgence of hope (= confident anticipation, not Pollyanna wishfulness) that will eventually always push thru even the most obdurate rocky layer of circumstances. That hope is as immortal as Jesus was.