Crisis of faith

"On Dec. 11, 1979, Mother Teresa, the "Saint of the Gutters," went to Oslo. Dressed in her signature blue-bordered sari and shod in sandals despite below-zero temperatures, the former Agnes Bojaxhiu received that ultimate worldly accolade, the Nobel Peace Prize. In her acceptance lecture, Teresa, whose Missionaries of Charity had grown from a one-woman folly in Calcutta in 1948 into a global beacon of self-abnegating care, delivered the kind of message the world had come to expect from her. "It is not enough for us to say, 'I love God, but I do not love my neighbor,'" she said, since in dying on the Cross, God had "[made] himself the hungry one — the naked one — the homeless one." Jesus' hunger, she said, is what "you and I must find" and alleviate. She condemned abortion and bemoaned youthful drug addiction in the West. Finally, she suggested that the upcoming Christmas holiday should remind the world "that radiating joy is real" because Christ is everywhere — "Christ in our hearts, Christ in the poor we meet, Christ in the smile we give and in the smile that we receive."
Yet less than three months earlier, in a letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, that is only now being made public, she wrote with weary familiarity of a different Christ, an absent one. "Jesus has a very special love for you," she assured Van der Peet. "[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."

Thus begins one of many stories that has come out this week in the secular media crowing about Mother Theresa's "Crisis of Faith". The undertone of all of these stories went something along the lines of "If a Saint like Mother Theresa couldn't 'feel' God then obviously he doesn't exist" or "Obviously Mother Theresa was a sham....professing her faith in public while in private saying God doesn't exist". The whole thing was either designed to be a slam on Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular or to highlight the media's complete ignorance of the kind of Christian faith that Mother Theresa had.

This is called the "Darkness of the Soul" in the Roman Catholic Church. I personally call it an example of real life! The Book of Job (in the Old Testament) tells the story of the trials that befell Job - a man who loved God dearly. In the midst of his trials (he lost his wife, his family, his home, his wealth, his health...everything that mankind considers to be important) Job never cursed God, but he kept his faith in God and his steadfast love. Every Christian that I know has gone through trials. My maternal grandmother (another devout Catholic in my life and the one who brought me to faith) was a real life example of this principle. As I watched her dying of emphysema she met it head on with a grace and courage that bespoke her faith that she was moving on to "something better". I knew then that I wanted what she had...the peace and grace to tackle anything head on because she had someone "stronger" walking her through it.

The Book of Job is one of those that is hard for a human to comprehend, why bad things happen to "godly" people. Psalms 107, on the other hand, reminds us of what Mother Theresa knew....even in the depths of hell (and heaven knows the gutters of Calcutta certainly had their "hellish" qualities about them) all God's people need to do is to call on Him and He will come to them. Mother Theresa knew that there was something greater to strive for and that she could and would endure. Yes it seemed overwhelming at times....I know I would have been had I been in her shoes, but she trusted in something greater.

People who don't "believe" in a higher authority love to take pot shots at those of us who do. We take stands on issues that may not be "popular" at the time while those without convictions are tossed to and fro in the turbulent seas of life. They see our steadfastness and the mock us for being "old fashioned". However, eventually the pendulum swings back and then....

I am just saddened beyond belief that someone would take the works of a truly Godly woman like Mother Theresa and trash them in this manner, but it does not surprise me at all. It is a slam that is all too common and all too expected from the "tolerant" elites in academia and the press. However, the whole world is a poorer place because of it. This great and gentle soul deserves much, much better than this from an ungrateful world. Then again, so does the "man" that she followed and loved her whole life.

NOTE - many thanks to Mary, Garth and all of my other Catholic friends for the insights into the Roman Catholic tradition - a tradition that I did not have any direct experience with growing up Presbyterian.