September 2-8, 2007 Issue |
Posted 8/29/07 at 11:55 AM
Mother Teresa: Come
Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta
Edited with commentary by Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, MC
Doubleday, 2007
416 pages, $22.95
Doubleday.com
When someone mentions Blessed Mother Teresa, the picture of
her in my mind is of a compassionate woman wearing the familiar Missionaries of
Charity’s blue-and-white headdress.
Her arms are outstretched, her gaze heavenward. She has a
beautifully tender smile on her face, one that radiates Christ.
However, as I learned recently from Mother Teresa: Come Be
My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta, there was a lot more
behind that smile than I ever imagined.
Set to be released this week to coincide with the 10th
anniversary of her death, Sept. 5, the book — edited with commentary by
Missionaries of Charity Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, the postulator of her cause
for sainthood — is a collection of Mother Teresa’s letters to her spiritual
directors and close associates.
The letters, presented chronologically, start out optimistic
as she excitedly begs the archbishop of Calcutta to let her follow her “call
within a call” to leave the Loreto order for the streets to serve the “poorest
of the poor.” She describes interior locutions, her personal conversations with
Jesus — whom she called “the Voice” — regarding the call.
After the archbishop gives his blessing and she begins her
work, however, her letters begin to reveal one of the costs of her pledge to
refuse Jesus nothing. No longer does she sense the complete unity with Jesus
she had since she was a little girl receiving her first Communion. She reveals
an all-consuming darkness in her soul, a sense that God has completely
abandoned her.
“Lord, my God,” Mother Teresa wrote to one spiritual
director, “who am I that You should forsake me? The child of your Love — and
now become as the most hated one — the one — You have thrown away as unwanted —
unloved. … Where is my Faith — even deep down right in there is nothing, but
emptiness & darkness.”
What she was going through was “pure [St.] John of the
Cross,” according to another priest with whom she corresponded. It was her
“dark night of the soul” common among mystics — a period of spiritual dryness
allowed by God to work in the depths of one’s soul.
Yet through it all Mother Teresa remained completely devoted
to Jesus. For almost 50 years Mother Teresa continued to work feverishly to
serve the poor around the world. She gave countless talks and retreats and said
she only wished she could experience what she was preaching.
Eventually she came to “love the darkness,” realizing Jesus
was allowing her to partake in his passion as a way to identify more closely
with the poor she was serving.
To respect her writing style, Mother Teresa’s letters were
edited as little as possible, the dash often being the only punctuation mark.
It can make reading her letters a bit jarring until the reader gets used to it.
But this collection of letters paints a picture of a wonderfully dedicated,
intense, devoted servant of God.
If you thought you knew all there was to know about Mother
Teresa, this book will prove you wrong.
She told one priest her “smile is a big cloak” hiding what
she felt on the inside. Would that we could all smile despite our everyday
struggles — much less intense than Mother Teresa’s were. In her life and in her
death, this “saint of Calcutta” continues to be an inspiration to all trying to
live in service to God.
Former Register copy editor
Tina Dennelly writes
from Oakdale, New York.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Make a Donation now!
Insightful. Informative. Uncompromisingly faithful. The National Catholic Register is more than a newspaper. It’s a cause. Your support for the Register funds important journalism that helps to build a Culture of Life in our nation, and throughout the world. Help us promote the Church’s New Evangelization by donating to the National Catholic Register right now.
.
