Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta

"I am told God loves me--and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul." I wrote this quotation on the white board at the beginning of a recent Sunday School lesson on the Israelites' wilderness wanderings and asked the kids who they thought had written it. Their guesses ranged from Kurt Cobain to Alanis Morissette to Sylvia Plath...people we associate with acute depression or drugs or angry rejections of the world. No one supposed the meek, humble, seemingly always-at-peace saint, Mother Teresa of Calcutta. This response from my junior and senior highers mirrored the response of Christians all over the world when these private letters and journals of Mother Teresa were made public for the first time a couple months ago. For those who have not yet seen the book, it offers a remarkably candid and penetrating insight into the depth of Mother Teresa's spiritual life, revealing a surprising and tragic absence of any sense of God's presence or comfort with her for most of the final 50 years of her life. I have found myself reading her letters and diary entries with a mix of voyeuristic curiosity, heartwrenching concern, and a desire to glean wisdom from this luminary of Christian history. Many times Mother Teresa begged that these papers be destroyed, and I can't blame her for desiring that; I would be mortified if my deepest thoughts and feelings-- intended for myself, for God, or for my closest confidants-- were made public. And there would be an added sense of betrayal, as opposed to, say, posting something on a myspace page that eventually made its way to unintended eyes. Ultimately, the Catholic Church decided that Teresa's own spiritual experience belonged not to herself, but to the Church. And, in spite of feeling like part of the betrayal when I immerse myself in her descriptions of the depths of her soul, I do have to agree that the potential benefits of Mother Teresa's personal writings for the spiritual development of every Christian outweigh other concerns. Some of the valuable lessons from Mother Teresa's words: A Deeper Understanding of Spiritual Darkness "There is no God in me--when the pain of longing is so great--I just long & long for God--and then it is that I feel--He does not want me--He is not there..." Although the darkness and sense of abandonment that Mother Teresa suffered was, it seems, more profound than that which most of us are likely to experience (corresponding to her unusually high calling), her words will connect powerfully with anyone who has gone through a period of doubt, darkness, or depression, as well as enlightening everyone's understanding of the complexities of such a spiritual state. Too frequently those in the Church rush to interpret spiritual dryness as a sign of spiritual failure or unfaithfulness; indeed, Mother Teresa initially regarded her own feelings of being abandoned by God as resulting from her own sinfulness. But there is not always such

I am an Evangelical pastor of nearly 25 years. Nobdoy has spoken of the spiritual dryness that we SO reluctantly admit to, as Mother Theresa. No wonder she wanted her letters burned, we may still not be ready for the reality of Christ. She approaches only the Apostle Paul in doing so. She teaches that if we aproach the benefits of following our risen saviour only in terms of self-gratification, we miss the whole point. Our Lord will withhold it, to test and clarify our desire to follow him for no other reason than to gain Him. I do not claim to have grasped the things she testifies to, only to see at a distance that she is correct and the things she suffered where not punishement for sin, but the course of growth in Christ which, as Augustine ponted out, is only achieved for it's own sake, with no regard to present benefit. She moved forward, without regard to personal gain, because she grasped the overwheleming reality of Christ our Saviour. Buy the book when you are ready to be drawn into Christ centered spiritual maturity that no seminary,Sunday School, nor Sunday preaching could have prepared you for.

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 co

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!