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233 of 249 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Dark Night of the Soul, September 13, 2007
Consisting primarily of correspondence between Mother Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a period of 66 years, the book offers insight into the inner life of a believer known mostly through her external works of mercy. The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by the Catholic Church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she experienced the absence of the presence of God. As the book's compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, she experienced Christ's presence "neither in her heart or in the Eucharist."
From a psychological perspective, research into the nature of faith, such as that done by James Fowler in "Stages of Faith" suggest that Mother Teresa, in continuing to serve Christ by serving others while experiencing the absence of the presence of God, was revealing the highest level of faith. Hers was not the trust of a child, nor the blind faith of those at lower levels of belief, but the highest, deepest, and most dependent reliance.
From a historical perspective, Mother Teresa's experience has been so common for so long that it has its own name: "the dark night of the soul." Great believers of the past, of all shapes and sizes, types and denominations, have experienced lengthy bouts of agonizing doubts.
Amongst Catholics, to name a few, Saint John of the Cross, Saint Teresa of Avila, and Saint Teresa of Lisieux (from whom Mother Teresa took her religious name) all endured the absence of God's presence. Of many representative Protestant believers, Martin Luther is a primary case study. So intangible was Luther's Christ, that Luther developed an entire "theology of the Cross" to explain the paradox of a God who is most present in His very absence. Historical biblical characters (think Abraham, Moses, Solomon, Thomas--the Patron Saint of Doubters--among many others) all lived lives of faith even while doubting.
So what diagnosis would or should a physician of the soul offer concerning Mother Teresa? First, it is important to recall that she did have soul physicians--her confessors and spiritual directors to whom she wrote this now debated letters. Kolodiejchuk produced the book as proof of the faith-filled perseverance that he sees as her most spiritually heroic act." One need not be a Catholic, nor a Catholic apologist, nor even a Mother Teresa backer to acknowledge the psychological, historical, and spiritual realities behind the inner spiritual life of the former Agnes Bojaxhiu (Mother Teresa's birth name).
Personally, rather than taunt her for her torment, I applaud her. More than that, I identify with her. Her candor combined with her tenacious clinging to Christ gives me hope that my doubts are a severe mercy of God designed to harpoon me to His Spirit while the irrepressible tsunami of God's absence batters my soul.
Her clinging faith reminds me once again of the clinging faith of enslaved African American Christians. Nellie, a former slave from Savannah, Georgia sounds like a modern-day Mother Teresa with her startling candor.
"It has been a terrible mystery, to know why the good Lord should so long afflict my people, and keep them in bondage--to be abused, and trampled down, without any rights of their own--with no ray of light in the future. Some of my folks said there wasn't any God, for if there was He wouldn't let white folks do as they have done for so many years".
When her mistress questions her about her faith, a slave known to us only as Polly explains her hope. "We poor creatures have need to believe in God, for if God Almighty will not be good to us some day, why were we born? When I heard of his delivering his people from bondage I know it means the poor Africans."
Mother Teresa's faith was not a case study in self-contradiction. Instead, she placed her faith in Christ rather than placing her faith in her faith. Entrusting her soul to an invisible Savior, the world saw Christ in her even when she could not see Christ in the world.
Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction , Soul Physicians, and Spiritual Friends.
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134 of 148 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An inspiring book you don't want to miss. An open book to her heart., September 3, 2007
Mother Theresa began her missionary work in the late 40s and has become one of the most beloved figures of the twentieth century. Her compassion for the poor and her devotion to the cause has brought her great admiration from believers and non-believers alike.
For the first time we are able to get a glimpse of the inner workings of her brain and heart. "I am told God lives in me -- and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul," she writes in one of her letters that help shed light into her plight to feel the presence of God. Mother Theresa suffered for her faith. "There is nothing but emptiness and darkness," she declared. They say suffering is needed for Sainthood. She definitely passed that test. Some may find it disappointing that a person as holy as Mother Theresa struggled with her faith. I personally found it rather consoling. It helps me relate during those moments of doubt and questioning.
She might have questioned her faith; she might have felt the emptiness of God's presence, from time to time, but she never questioned her mission to serve and to do God's will. These types of dichotomies abound the entire book. Here is a perfect example: "But when I was eighteen, I decided to leave my home and become a nun, and since then, this forty years, I've never doubted even for a second that I've done the right thing; it was the will of God. It was his Choice."
Although Mother Theresa had asked that these letters, that spanned decades, be destroyed upon her death, they have been published in this book that will inspire millions to live her example of faith; to live her example of sacrifice and to get closer to God. She didn't want her writings to divert attention from Jesus, that's why she wanted them destroyed. The result, however, is quite the opposite.
Many people have made the struggle of her faith the cornerstone of this book. I feel, however, that they have missed so much of the inspiration; the beautiful writing; her poems; her dedication and her beautiful heart.
As an aside note, I really enjoyed the way Mother Theresa ended her letters. Here is one, addressed to Father Michael, which spoke on her desire to be an instrument of Jesus: "I pray for you that you let Jesus use you without consulting you. Do the same for me."
This is a very inspirational book that I will read again, for sure. Enjoy!
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31 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Walking Prayer Among the Poor, September 10, 2007
Brilliant, brilliant editing by Father Kolodiejchuk who painstakingly sifts through bushels and bushels of personal letters written by Mother Teresa to the great clerics of India since 1946. No author to date has better distilled Mother Teresa's essence and interior life than Kolodiejchuk, the current Director of the Mother Teresa Center and the Postulator for her canonization. This book is nothing less than breathtaking and well worth Kolodiejchuk's journey through this Saint's holy, passionate, miraculous, yet excruciatingly painful walk with Jesus. Kolodiejchuk insightfully shapes the life of Mother Teresa as if she were a crucible of gold being fired and shaped by the love of Jesus. First ecstasy, then unrelenting torment, and then her final transformation into this flame of love that the world could not get enough of! Alas, Mother Teresa, you will continue "to light the light of those in darkness on earth."
Today, September 10, is the anniversary of Christ's miraculous call to Mother Teresa in 1946, pleading, "Come, come, carry Me into the holes of the poor. Come, be My light." "Will thou refuse?" How could Mother Teresa refuse? For in 1942, she had made a personal, secret vow to Jesus, "Ask Jesus not to allow me to refuse Him anything, however small, I [would] rather die -- a "folly of love," according to Kolodiejchuk, that ultimately came to haunt Mother Teresa throughout her painful, yet joyous life.
To unlock the mystery of this book, the reader must first view the relationship of Jesus and Mother Teresa within the framework of Matthew's Gospel 25:45, as alluded to by Kolodiejchuk, where Jesus admonishes, "Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me." The least being the hungry, the thirsty, the strangers, the naked, the ill, the prisoners -- Mother Teresa's Calvary, a prayer of love walking among the poor. Secondly, the reader must analyze Mother Teresa's love of Jesus, as expressed through the last Words of Jesus on the Cross of Calvary: "[W]hy have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46) and "I thirst" (John 19:28), as well as Psalm 22, the Prayer of an Innocent Person -- the life and blood of Mother Teresa's letters to the bishops and priests of India.
When Mother Teresa made her private vow to Jesus, she ennunciated, "I wanted to give God something very beautiful" and "without reserve," "to drink the chalice to the last drop." Unfortunately, the last drop was Christ's abandonment of Mother Teresa (through His silence) during His mission with her on earth, incarnating within Mother Theresa His words from the cross, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me." (Matt. 27:46) In her early years, at the time Mother Teresa made her vow to drink the chalice to the last drop, she did not fully appreciate the significance of what she had asked from Jesus; however, later in life, she recognized that God had granted her this suffering as a gift, and that is why she kept the faith and continued onward with the poor, despite feeling totally abandoned by God. Mother Teresa truly walked the plight of Calvary, completely obedient, as she ministered to the lepers of Calcutta. Ironically, it is this feeling of total abandonment by God that enabled Mother Teresa to empathize with the poorest of the poor, and that is why God chose her to be his light. Had Mother Teresa not requested to be abandoned by her lover, God, she would have never comprehended the absolute suffering of the poor.
After finishing the book "Come Be My Light," I recognized that Christ was actually living inside Mother Teresa. Her very steps were those of Christ. I do not believe Mother Teresa suspected that she had been consumed by the love of Jesus. In essence, she was oblivous to her personification of God's thirst. The testament to this miracle occurs when a priest in Rome, having never met Mother Teresa, heard a strange voice coming from a crucifix, commanding him to relay the following message to Mother Teresa: "Tell Mother Teresa: I thirst." Upon her receiving a letter from this priest about his uncanny experience, Mother Teresa grapsed the significance of these words (the last words of Jesus on the cross in the Gospel of John). These Words were the secret Words that had tormented Mother Teresa for over 40 years, coming from a messenger to confirm the miracle of her purpose: to quench God's inifinite thirst to love and be loved.
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