Mother Teresa
Drawn-out longing sickens the heart, but desire come true is a tree of life Proverbs 13:12 Robert Alter
Drawn-out longing – By any account, Mother Teresa was a modern saint. For decades she poured out her life for India’s poor. Recognized worldwide for her uncompromised commitment to others, she appeared to be the perfect example of a spiritual warrior, hailed by men and women of all faiths. She fought for the poor at every turn. After she died, her private letters (which she wanted destroyed) revealed another battle, a fight she kept secret from the world.
She wrote:
Lord, my God, 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. I call, I cling, I want—and there is no One to answer—no One on Whom I can cling—no, No One—Alone. The darkness is so dark—and I am alone.—Unwanted, forsaken.—The loneliness of the heart that wants love is unbearable.—Where is my faith?—even deep down, right in, there is nothing but emptiness & darkness.—My God—how painful is this unknown pain. It pains without ceasing.—I have no faith.—I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd my heart—& make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me—I am afraid to uncover them—because of the blasphemy—If there be God,—please forgive me.—Trust that all will end in Heaven with Jesus.—When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven—there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul.—Love—the word—it brings nothing.—I am told God loves me—and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Before the work started—there was so much union—love—faith—trust—prayer—sacrifice.—Did I make the mistake in surrendering blindly to the call of the Sacred Heart? The work is not a doubt—because I am convinced that it is His not mine.—I don’t feel—not even a single simple thought or temptation enters my heart to claim anything in the work.
The whole time smiling—Sisters & people pass such remarks.—They think my faith, trust & love are filling my very being & that the intimacy with God and union to His will must be absorbing my heart.—Could they but know—and how my cheerfulness is the cloak by which I cover the emptiness & misery.
In spite of all—this darkness & emptiness is not as painful as the longing for God.—The contradiction I fear will unbalance me.—What are You doing My God to one so small? When You asked to print Your Passion on my heart—is this the answer?
If this brings You glory, if You get a drop of joy from this—if souls are brought to You—if my suffering satiates Your Thirst—here I am Lord, with joy I accept all to the end of life—& I will smile at Your Hidden Face—always.”[1]
“There is so much contradiction in my soul—Such deep longing for God—so deep that it is painful—a suffering continual—and yet not wanted by God—repulsed—empty—no faith—no love—no zeal.—Souls hold no attraction—Heaven means nothing—to me it looks like an empty place—the thought of it means nothing to me and yet this torturing longing for God.—Pray for me please that I keep smiling at Him in spite of everything. For I am only His—so He has every right over me. I am perfectly happy to be nobody to God.”[2]
“Drawn-out longing” is the description of Mother Teresa’s inner life, the life she kept hidden from the public. It was a life of excruciating emptiness, of felt loss, and it plagued her everyday despite all that she did for others. Her words remind me of Nietzsche: “Some cannot loosen their own chains and can nonetheless redeem their friends.”[3]
“ . . . there is no one immune to despair and longing for the lap of the divine.”[4]
Others have suggested that Mother Teresa’s interior pain and agony allowed her to completely identify with the poor she served. It made her capable of doing what she did in the outside world. But at what cost? Maybe we need to reconsider.
Mesillat Yesharim—The Path of the Righteous. It’s not for everyone. Not everyone is willing to be a “nobody to God.” Luzzatto writes: “But the majority of the people cannot be saints. It is enough that they are pious. The few, however, who desire to earn the privilege of being near to God, and by their own merit impute merit to the mass of the people spiritually dependent upon them, must live by that saintly code to which the average person cannot be expected to conform.”[5] Perhaps that is Mother Teresa’s real gift to the world. Perhaps to really be saintly is to suffer for others, and to feel abandoned by God. If this is what you choose, the way forward will hurt, perhaps for years. The way forward may redeem others at the cost of yourself. Not all can bear this. It is no disgrace to say, “Lord, it’s too much for me.” Not everyone is able to carry the cross, even if they think they want to. Are you really ready?
Topical Index: Mother Teresa, drawn-out longing, despair, cost, Proverbs 13:12
[1] Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the “Saint of Calcutta”, ed. Brian Kolodiejchuk (Doubleday, 2007), pp. 187-188.
[2] Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the “Saint of Calcutta”, ed. Brian Kolodiejchuk (Doubleday, 2007), pp. 169-170.
[3] Friedrich Nietzsche, citied in Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist’s Memoir, p. 235.
[4] Irvin D. Yalom, Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist’s Memoir, p. 213.
[5] Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, Mesillat Yesharim: The Path of the Upright, p. 169.
These words of Mother Teresa are the most powerful and moving I believe I have ever read. The honesty and humility is astounding and refreshing in a world where religious masks are the norm rather than the exception. She did indeed carry a cross I could, (can) not even if I really wanted to. It is indeed too much for me. Next to Mother Teresa, I am less than nothing. No, I am not ready.
Faith is the act of belief necessary of appropriating the reality of what it is to live as “set apart” for God in the context of God’s own real essence (that of love) revealed to us in the preaching, acts, and the work of Christ on the cross that acquired redemption… for all of mankind. And so, too, as a new creation in Christ, we also are called to that same manner of work—work that involves self-sacrificial engagement in the world, with the world, yet not of it.
Nevertheless, our fallen human nature is not thereby removed from the pain of suffering that redemptive work as it is performed, even as it was not spared from Christ, who, in his human nature experienced the full weight of suffering as the condition of that work. His response? “Father, if you are willing, take away this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.”
“But we are not like Christ,” we may say. Not like Christ, to whom, “an angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him.” (see Luke 22:42-43)
Oh, but we are given all the more by Christ, who sent his Spirit to indwell us and empower us for that same manner of self-sacrifice, and fill us with God’s divine power… for the sake of those who remain lost in this world, and who we are called to love with Christ’s love for them, “in the hope that does not disappoint” because that love, the love of God, “has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (see Romans 5:5)
“Now you are the body of Christ, and members of it by being part of it.” (see 1 Corinthians 12:27) “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his footsteps,” (see 1 Peter 2:21) “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered for a short time, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.” (see 1 Peter 5:10)