Posted on 03/04/2002 5:34:20 PM PST by marshmallow
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- As Missionaries of Charity Father Brian Kolodiejchuk pores over the letters of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and the reports of her spiritual directors, he is increasingly struck by the enormous difficulty of all she accomplished.
The priest, who is in charge of preparing material for Mother Teresa's beatification, is not surprised by the effort it took to open houses for the dying, the sick and the homeless.
The surprising aspect is how much she did despite feeling for years that God had abandoned her, he said.
Her letters to her spiritual directors over the years are filled with references to "interior darkness," to feeling unloved by God and even to the temptation to doubt that God exists.
She wrote to her spiritual director in a 1959-60 spiritual diary, "In my soul, I feel just the terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing."
In another letter she wrote that she wanted to love God "like he has not been loved," and yet she felt her love was not reciprocated.
In the context of Mother Teresa's life, the thoughts are not heresy, but signs of holiness, Father Kolodiejchuk said in a late-February interview. Mother Teresa was convinced God existed and had a plan for her life, even if she did not feel his presence, the priest said.
"Everyone wants to share, to talk about things, to be encouraged by others," he said, but Mother Teresa, "hurting on the inside, kept smiling, kept working, kept being joyful."
In a 1961 letter to the Missionaries of Charity, she wrote, "Without suffering our work would just be social work. ... All the desolation of poor people must be redeemed and we must share in it."
Father Kolodiejchuk, a 45-year-old Canadian ordained in the Ukrainian-Byzantine rite, was among the first members of the Missionaries of Charity Fathers. Members of Mother Teresa's order often heard her refer to Sept. 10, 1946, as "Inspiration Day," when on a train in India she experienced a call to live and work with the poor.
Mother Teresa had described the call as "an order, a duty, an absolute certainty" that she must leave the Sisters of Loreto and move into the slums of Calcutta to devote herself completely to the poor.
"We thought that in some way, which she never explained, she experienced Jesus' call," Father Kolodiejchuk said.
But now, from reading her correspondence with her spiritual director, he said, it is clear she experienced what theologians call an "interior imaginative locution" -- she distinctly heard a voice in her head tell her what to do.
"And it continued for some months," he said.
"The call was so direct that she knew it was the right thing despite this darkness she experienced for many years, at least until the 1970s," the priest said.
At one point, a former archbishop of Calcutta wanted to share some of her letters with a struggling founder of another religious congregation, Father Kolodiejchuk said.
Mother Teresa begged him not to and asked that all her letters be destroyed. Father Kolodiejchuk said she told the archbishop, "When people know about the beginning, they will think more about me and less about Jesus."
Does Father Kolodiejchuk worry that he is betraying her wishes by publicizing the information? "I think her perspective is very different now," Father Kolodiejchuk answered.
Several of the letters and diary entries were published last year in the "Journal of Theological Reflection" of the Jesuit-run Vidyajyoti School of Theology in New Delhi. The investigations into her faith life are not idle prying, the priest said. Beatification and canonization are recognitions not of a person's life work -- which is obviously praiseworthy in Mother Teresa's case -- but of holiness.
While some people may be surprised or even shocked by Mother Teresa's spiritual struggles, he said he hopes it also will help them come to "a fuller and deeper appreciation of holiness, which Mother Teresa lived in a way both simple and profound: she took what Jesus gave with a smile and stayed faithful even in the smallest things."
The feeling that God is far away or even nonexistent is a common spiritual experience, he said. "Maybe we won't have the same intensity of experiences, but most of what she did was very ordinary -- it just became extraordinary when it was all put together," Father Kolodiejchuk said.
Mother Teresa died in Calcutta in September 1997.
In 1999, Pope John Paul II waived the rule requiring a five-year wait before a beatification process can begin.
Although he works on the cause from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, Father Kolodiejchuk said he believes it will be "several months" before the Vatican formally recognizes that Mother Teresa heroically lived the Christian virtues and declares her venerable.
He said work also is underway on preparing a report on the potential miracle needed for beatification: the 1998 cure of an Indian woman who had a huge, unidentified growth in her abdomen.
"People do say, 'Do it faster,'" the priest said. But the official process takes time, he said. "It is designed to discern the sense of the people of God and the verification of the miracle is God's confirmation of that."
You could have kept your posting fingers to yourself, and read about Mother Teresa on this thread from people who have something to contribute, but you chose to hijack it with one of the stalest and most fruitless arguments around. It it clear that your knowledge of Catholics is gleaned from propaganda.
You know nothing about "most Catholics" but present yourself as knowledgeable. Why don't you find some PROTESTANT who's been the sort of leader Mother Teresa has? Why don't you present that protestant, whoever it may be, for discussion? Because you can't.
You apparently have nothing to contribute here except sectarian preaching and gratuitous remarks about Catholics going to hell.
I've met lots of ADULT protestants who could present a viewpoint that was interesting, informative, and spiritually challenging. You, no doubt, aspire to be one of their number. Years and years and years from now, you may be.
What type of work do you do?
Well, to make a long story short, my faith was shattered. I didn't want to not have God, but I couldn't get over the doubts I had about Him, that feeling that either He had abandoned me, or He wasn't there to begin with. At one point I was even considering suicide, wondering what was the point of existence if there was no ultimate source of it all.
At the very moment that I was at the lowest point of my life, God sent the most wonderful friend that anyone could ask for in this life on earth. A few months ago we were engaged. And every day since we met has been a joyful lesson in how magnificent and beautiful our God is, that nothing about us is beyond His ken. My faith in Him is stronger than ever... so much so that I've told everyone around me that if I had to go through all that again - and it was more than I'd wish on my worst enemy, seriously - I would do it. Would look forward to it even, because now I know God was looking out after me the whole time.
Thank you for sharing your story :-)
It's rapidly becoming my favorite....so much wisdom there.
It truly is the living word and as relevant today as it was yesterday or 2000+ years ago.
Do you agree?
The question is: is it necessary only that we sit around on the front porch, waiting for our inevitable raising to eternal life? Or are we to take Jesus seriously when he tells us that things are expected of us? There are too many such NT references to list here, but you know that Jesus said to do more than simply sit and wait.
It's true that no man can do what God wants -- not perfectly, anyway. But the alternative is to do nothing, and that's directly contrary to Jesus' own words. And it certainly goes contrary to the examples throughout the Bible, and later history wherein God calls people to do His will.
I think of it this way: what we do for God is rather like what our kids do when they make us breakfast. It's far from perfect, but it's offered in love, and accepted for what it is. (I recall one particularly good one -- molasses cookie surrounded by two slices of bologna.)
You don't know anything about me! Yet, you feel the need to try and cheapen both my faith and myself with your truly ignorant comments.
You could have just as easily framed your response as a question for disscussion such as "Do you think Bill Gates funding of hospitals compares with Mother Teresa's works?"...but you didn't. So I'm led to the conclusion that your not here for either disscussion or to lend moral support to any other human being...but, just to try to start arguments. You do realize your not very good at it...don't you?
I will resume my job search shortly, but this exchange, this contemplation on the darkness of trials, has been a tremendous encouragement for me. I realize that this process is fruitful for me, however painful, and that I will be stronger and more faithful.
By contrast, consider the words of Jesus Himself in (for example) Matt. 5-7.
I'm not trying to say that we are saved by works alone. But it's also true -- you said as much yourself -- that we can't just sit around and wait for salvation. If we could, then God would never call us to actually do things.
Faith without works is fruitless. (See, e.g., the story of Jesus and the barren fig tree).
Likewise, works without faith are no good (e.g., Luke 14:24).
If we are to sum it up in His words:
"Not every one who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.' "Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And every one who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it." (Matt. 7:21-27)
Which is to say, both faith and works are needed. Where grace comes in is that God recognizes and forgives the deficiencies in our works, so long as they're done in His name.
Taking it back to Mother Teresa -- there is a woman who did her works in faith.
You are nothing but a child. Posting with you is a waste of time. Grow up.
And one more thing: Christ thought I was worthy for Him to give His life that I may live with Him in Eternity. Feel free to question Him about that.
Another similar statement by some well-known speaker (seems like it might have been Martin Luther King): Life comprises 10% experiences and 90% how we react to those experiences.
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