Posted on 08/31/2007 4:49:24 PM PDT by xzins
Letters revealing Mother Teresa’s half-century-long “crisis of faith” have many pondering what to make of the secret life of one of the most revered figures in modern history.
Yet as theologians and psychologists offer interpretations for her deep “darkness,” a preeminent American theologian used Mother Teresa’s struggle to remind believers to trust Christ and not their feelings.
Whether it be an average Christian or a saint, doubts on the existence of God and turmoil over the inability to feel His presence is something every Christian has wrestled with.
Yet more important than dwelling on human emotions is securing one’s faith in Christ, according to Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and is one of the largest seminaries in the world.
“Salvation comes to those who believe in Christ – it is by grace we are saved through faith,” wrote Mohler in an online column Thursday in “On Faith” – a project of The Washington Post and Newsweek magazine.
“But the faith that saves is not faith in faith, nor faith in our ability [to] maintain faith, but faith in Christ,” he emphasized. “Our confidence is in Christ, not in ourselves.”
Mohler was responding to this week’s TIME cover story which explores Mother Teresa’s inner struggles in light of a new book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, which was made public for the first time letters covering a period of 66 years in which she questioned her beliefs and God.
In correspondents to her spiritual confidants, Mother Teresa laments on the “dryness,” “darkness,” “loneliness,” and “torture” she suffers with her inability to feel God’s presence.
A letter to Archbishop Ferdinand Perier in 1953, according to TIME, read: "Please pray specially for me that I may not spoil His work and that Our Lord may show Himself — for there is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead. It has been like this more or less from the time I started 'the work.'"
Another letter in 1956 read: “Such deep longing for God – and…repulsed – empty – no faith – no love – no zeal. – [The saving of] Souls holds no attraction – Heaven means nothing – pray for me please that I keep smiling at Him in spite of everything.”
Mother Teresa also painfully shared her inability to pray saying she just “utter words” of Community prayers– a confession that came from a woman who once said the Christmas holiday should remind the world “that radiating joy is real” because Christ is everywhere.
Yet despite the “pain and darkness” in her soul, Mother Teresa served tirelessly among the outcasts, the dying and the most abject poor in India. She brought countless sick Indians to her center from slums and gutters to be treated and cared for under the banner of Christ’s love.
“The very essence of faith, you see, is believing even in the absence of evidence,” said Chuck Colson, founder and chairman of Prison Fellowship, in a column Wednesday in response to the TIME article. “And it is the only way we can know Christ.
Colson shared that he experienced his own darkness of soul when a few years back two of his three children were diagnosed with cancer.
“We can conclude rationally that God exists, that His Word is true, and that He has revealed Himself” Colson said. “But without that leap of faith, we will never know God personally or accept His will in Christ.”
It was in the late 1950s when Mother Teresa met a well-known theologian, the Rev. Joseph Neuner, who helped her accept the “darkness” she felt.
Neuner gave her three pieces of counsel – first, there was no human cure for what she had, so she shouldn’t feel personally guilty about it; second, feeling Jesus is not the only evidence of His presence, and the fact that she longed for God is a “sure sign” of his “hidden presence” in her life; and last, the feeling of absence was part of the “spiritual side” of her work for Jesus.
Mother Teresa responded to Neuner in 1961: “I can’t express in words – the gratitude I owe you for your kindness to me – for the first time in ….years – I have come to love the darkness – for I believe now that it is part of a very, very small part of Jesus’ darkness & pain on earth.”
She later wrote to Neuner, “I accept not in my feelings – but with my will, the Will of God – I accept his will,” according to TIME.
“So what do the letters of Mother Teresa reveal? For one, they reveal the true cost of discipleship,” commented Colson. “To follow Christ is to embrace suffering and the Cross. And, at times, to say with Jesus, ‘My God, my God, why did you abandon me?’”
Baptist seminary head Mohler said that although he would not “presume to read Mother Teresa’s heart or soul,” he concluded from her story that faith should not be placed on volatile emotions but rather solely in the unchanging God.
“There is a sweet and genuine emotional aspect to the Christian faith, and God made us emotional and feeling creations,” wrote Mohler. “But we cannot trust our feelings. Our faith is not anchored in our feelings, but in the facts of the Gospel.
“Our confidence is in Christ, not in ourselves. We are weak; He is strong. We fluctuate; He is constant. We cannot trust our feelings nor our emotional state. We trust in Christ. Those who come to Christ by faith are not kept unto Him by our faith, but by his faithfulness,” wrote Mohler.
The Catholic Church is considering whether or not to make Mother Teresa a saint and the letters were collected as supporting materials for the process.
Mother Teresa died in 1997, nearly two decades after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
I have a lot of other things to read before I get to Lewis. I barely have time to get my daily scripture reading in and my devotionals. Why would you say I need to grow up? And what does that have to do with Teresa. You still have not explained what you see funny in this. I really can’t think of a Godly reason why you should think this is funny. It really is not a humorous subject at all.
I just googled dwarves and it wasn’t C.S. Lewis, but Tolkein. You might want to note that the next time you quote it.
Thank you for posting this. Awesome insight.
Typically, Eucharist for Catholics means the bread and wine taken at communion. Catholics believe it really becomes the body and blood (physically, not symbolically) Jesus. Others don't believe that to be the case.
The statements in the Bible about that are the most unequivocal that Jesus made, yet Protestants deny it, saying he was speaking figuratively.
Yep, we believe when Jesus said "Do this in remembrance of me" that is what He meant. He didn't mean "You must physically eat my body and physically drink my blood to be saved."
Oh, but he did. You can't selectively separate the segments of the verses to fit your prejudices. Jesus said, "This IS my Body". No ifs, ands, or buts about it. And he said similar things throughout the Gospels. And it links directly back to the Old Testament Passover sacrifice. And the REAL Church has believed that from day one.
Protestants have forgotten that Jesus IS God (though they claim to believe it), and if he wants to make parts of His Body look like bread and wine, He can certainly do so. Back in those primitive times, men didn't understand how that was possible---but today, we do. The change can happen either at the atomic or sub-atomic level, and the surface appearance would still be bread and wine.
Absolutely, we should celebrate every life lived in obedience to Christ. But we need to be careful that we do not elevate the man for the work of God.
It is His strength that sees us through each day, each good gift is from His unchanging grace, each pearl of priceless wisdom is from His storehouse.
We should celebrate. We should celebrate that Mother Teresa turned her life over to God and sought to walk the narrow path.
It is not her self-discipline or her works that we should glorify or boast about though, but the Lord from whom all good things flow.
"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal 6:14)
"Neither do we go beyond our limits by boasting of work done bt others " (2Cor 10:15)
If I lived a life dedicated to the glory of God, what a terrible thing if in my death, people made me into an idol.
Too many people wittingly or unwittingly follow a god other than God. It may be our pastor, our priest, our saint, or our own ‘wisdom’.
Now to Him who is able to do immeasurable more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (Eph 3:20-21)
We have all read on FR over time that many, if not most Catholics do not really believe this hoax about Jesus...
When Jesus squeezed the grapes into the cup, there was no mention of a transformation...There was no instruction to the apostles to pray and magically, mysteriously, or miraculously turn the juice into blood...
There is no place found in scripture where any one was instructed to pray over a piece of bread and turn it into flesh...
When miracles took place in the bible, they REALLY took place...When Jesus brought someone back from the dead, they didn't continue to lay there, they got up and walked...When someone was healed of leprosy, the leprosy was gone...
Jesus did not say 'pay no attention to the fact that this guy may appear to be dead as a doorknob, he's actually alive, or, that woman may still be carrying rotted flesh around on her body, but she is completely healthy...
When Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding, the people didn't say, "well this looks like water, it tastes like water, but that woman says her son turned it into the best wine we ever had...So have a little faith and drink up"...
If the juice and the bread was turned into flesh and blood, it would look, taste, feel and smell like flesh and blood...There's no mystery to it...
God gave physical life by sending manna to eat...Jesus gave spiritual life by dying on the cross...You don't get spiritual life by eating and drinking...You get it by believing...
So you don't believe what Jesus said in the Bible?? "This IS my Body". "This IS my Blood.?" " And yet, even at THAT table, those items retained the appearance of bread and wine. I think the Apostles would have noticed and commented on whether the Passover meal they were eating suddenly changed substance on the macro level.
To put it bluntly--you either believe what the Bible says, or you don't. Protestants have built huge sand-castles that they claim provide "positive proof" of various doctrines using statements MUCH more abiguous and less frequent than these.
51 -- I am the living bread that came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
52 -- The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
53 -- Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
54 -- Whosoever eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
55 -- For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
. . . 60 -- Many therefore of his disciiples, when they heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can bear it?
I certainly do believe Jesus said that...
Joh 4:14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
Was Jesus passing around a ladle of water from the bucket he was carrying???
Jesus never mentioned at the Last Supper that he had changed anything into real flesh and real wine...He never told the Apostles or anyone else to change the juice and bread into flesh and blood for future religious ceremonies...When Jesus said "Do this" (in remembrance of me), he was not talking about a mysterious alteration of sub-atomic matter...
Jesus was preparing to die...And He was preparing his disciples to carry on after he was gone...All that would be left physically would be an empty tomb...
Jesus wanted to make sure the disciples remembered his Crucifixion and told them that when they come together to drink wine and eat bread, to put their minds on His Crucifixion when they did...
“We have all read on FR over time that many, if not most Catholics do not really believe this hoax about Jesus...”
I certainly believe that’s the most blasphemous statement I’ve ever read.
Exactly...Jesus threw them (and you) a curve ball and they missed it...Jesus was talking spiritual, they were thinking physical...They figured he was their meal ticket...
Joh 6:27 Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
If what you believe about the mass was true, a one time, lifetime mass would be sufficient...
Joh 6:33 For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
Joh 6:36 But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not.
Joh 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
Joh 6:35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
Do you believe on Jesus??? Have you hungered since??? Have you been thirsty??? Was Jesus lying???
Joh 6:36 But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not.
Joh 6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Can you explain why in this verse that if you believe on Jesus, you have everlasting life??? No eating flesh and drinking blood???
Joh 6:47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
Could it possibly get any more clear than that???
Joh 6:48 I am that bread of life.
Believe on the Bread of Life...Life for your soul, not you body...
Joh 6:51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
Here's the curve ball...A moment ago, He said believing on Him would give eternal life...Now, He says to an already unbelieving crowd that if they eat him, they will have eternal life...And what did this accomplish??? It separated the believers from the phoneys...The believers didn't understand it...They just accepted it...And none of them pulled out a fork and said, "Lets's eat"...
And none of them then, or ever were told that a priest would mysteriously turn wine into God's blood and bread into God's actual flesh...
Joh 6:58 This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live forever.
Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth;
The spirit raises up; gives life, not the eating of flesh and blood...
the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
What is it called by Catholics who do not believe Jesus is present in the eucharist???
Yes -- His Body and Blood!
And where are you getting this "juice" you refer to? As Robert Farrar Capon said, "You have to do something dishonest to keep the squeezings of the grape from turning into wine."
Well, at least I guess you're not of the "raisin paste" school.
Catholics believe that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. Aquinas called it the perfect symbol -- the symbol which is what it signifies. Catholics who believe otherwise are heretics.
OK, I get it — you take sort of a Jesus Seminar approach, except where they call everything they don’t like “a later interpolation,” you call everything you don’t like “figurative” or “allegorical,” by which you mean “meaningless.”
Does that mean they are not really Catholics??? Or Christians??? Does your church have a position on this???
Every thing I read says that only 30% of Catholics believe in the presense of Jesus in the Eucharist...That would surely shrink the size of your church if they are not actually Catholics and/or Christians...
I guess this means you are not interested in what the scripture actually says about the topic...
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