” That’s crucial. I don’t mean to inject levity into this discussion, but I noticed that a local bunch of ditzy elderly liberal nuns are giving a course on “How to Be a Mystic.” I kid you not.
Of course, the diocesan retreat center is offering a course taught by a sister on “How to be a Spiritual Director.”
Sigh. It’s all so easy, isn’t it?”
Oh well, what are you gonna do? Being a mystic, by the way, isn’t what this is about at all. Last evening I was having a nice scotch, neat, with the priest and he mentioned this business about Mother Teresa, Having been at the cottage with a computer or TV for the past 10 weeks, I hadn’t heard this. He said this news made him very sad and he commented that she might have done well to read +John of the Cross or +Teresa of Avila.
“”How to be a Spiritual Director.””
Oh, there’s a prescription for spiritual shipwreck!
More to the point, many on this thread -- not to mention media commentators -- would do well to read them! Since Mother Teresa, in choosing her name in religion, specifically had in mind both Teresa of Avila and the Little Flower (who also suffered the Dark Night of the Soul), I would assume she was familiar with their writings. Personally, I've never found that reading the experiences of someone else who "went through the same thing" helped very much.
I'm somewhat bemused by the image of your priest relaxing with a friend and a scotch commenting on how Mother Teresa should have handled her Dark Night of the Soul, as if it were a minor condition, like dandruff or indigestion, that will respond to the right patent remedy! ;-)
I can't help but wonder, too, in view of her earlier mystical experiences that set her on her work with the poorest of the poor, whether what she experienced as terrible spiritual dryness might not be what most of us feel like most of the time, i.e., not ecstatic union with God. But she was so aware of what that union was that she felt the lack of it acutely -- that it's the contrast that made it so painful.