Today we remember a beautiful modern-day saint whose love for God and neighbor have truly left an imprint on the world. Bl. Teresa of Calcutta's dedication to the poor, the unforgotten, the dying, and the lepers of society in India will not be soon forgotten. Her generosity of heart and willingness to live moment by moment according to God's Will were obvious markers of her ability to care for each person individually as God presented each soul to her. She was asked to trust God and to fulfill this mission of mercy to the poor and she did so without wavering and without an initial idea of how it was to be accomplished.
In founding her order of the Missionaries of Charity, living moment by moment with little acts of love, and finding herself in the darkness of night within her soul, I would argue that Blessed Mother Teresa embodies many of the major spiritualities found within the Discalced Carmelite order. Just as our Foundress St. Teresa of Avila (Mother Teresa's namesake)had to struggle with the establishment of a new religious order and all that this entails, so Mother Teresa faced many uncertainties and the growing pains of finding places for her sisters to live, where to start and share their mission of mercy, and what habit and other rules needed to be followed while ensuring obedience to the local bishop and the Holy Father.
She knew instinctively that all of the acts of mercy she was to perform needed to stem from an intense intimate relationship with Our Lord Jesus, which is why contemplative prayer was and remains the central part of her religious order. The religious of her order pray four hours every day. She was quoted as saying, "Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart." She knew that eveything she did and accomplished was from Our Lord and out of her deep love for Jesus. She did everything for Him and lived a life of intense poverty of spirit. She was quoted as saying,
"There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the
work. This is where the respect and the love and the devoticome in -- that we do
it to God, to Christ, and that's why we try to do it as beautifully as possible." and "We try to pray through our work by doing it with Jesus, for Jesus, to Jesus.
That helps us put our whole heart and soul into doing it. The dying, the
crippled, the mentally ill, the unwanted, the unloved -- they are Jesus in
disguise."
In tandem with her order's Rule and stress on the importance of such prayer before action, Bl. Mother Teresa experienced over forty years of intense spiritual aridity and darkness. Her letters which have recently been published, reveal a woman who was clinging to God in the confines of her soul and heart, without any consolations or the ability to see where she was in her spiritual journey. As we know from St. John of the Cross' treatise on the Dark Night of the Soul, this dark night of the soul is only experienced fully by a chosen few who are radically united to Christ Crucified and realize His agape love within their own soul for love of neighbor and Our Triune God. She recognized that if she ever became a saint, it would be a saint of 'darkness' She shared the agony of this purification with a few select priests who she swore to secrecy regarding her interior life.
On 7 May 1964, she described the state of her soul with these astonishing words: "To be in love and yet not to love, to live by faith and yet not to believe. To spend myself and yet be in total darkness". And again, some years earlier, on 28 February 1957, she wrote: "There is so much contradiction in my soul. - Such deep longing for God - so deep that is painful - a suffering continual - and yet not wanted by God - repulsed -empty - no faith - no love - no zeal... Heaven means nothing - to me it looks like an empty place... yet this torturing longing for God". (See http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=9194)
When reading her painful words, one is not just reminded of St. John of the Cross, but also of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and Holy Face who endured a tunnel of darkness the last 18 months of her life for atheists who had gained influence in France and throughout Europe. Despite this obscure reality, St. Therese did not reveal this to others but instead lived a selfless life of love by living her 'Little Way'. This shortcut that our Little Flower developed to reach heaven requires that one bloom where one is planted by serving and loving others in each present moment and in all the small, seemingly insignificant moments of life. By making each person feel Christ's infinite and unconditional love, each of these saints was able to touch souls both near and far and to convert all who came into contact with them. Each gave all of the Glory to God and sought only His Will and to make His Divine love and mercy known to the whole world. Similar to St. Therese, she embraced this Little Way each day as evident in her own words, "“To show great love for God and our neighbor we need not do great things. It is how much love we put in the doing that makes our offering something beautiful for God.” and “We can do no great things,” she said, “only small things with great love.” (See http://www.gratefulness.org/giftpeople/teresa_calcutta.htm)
Today, we pray that Blessed Teresa teaches us to love from a pure heart those who are in our path this very moment. Maybe we are withholding love from a family member or a neighbor, or ignoring a need that is before us and requires our time, talent, treasure, and/or love. We pray that she will help us to love the seemingly unlovable and help us to become aware of the lepers who perhaps we have secretly cast out and rejected. We ask that she helps us to love humanity globally on a universal mystical level, by loving those placed in our midst individually and by recognizing the uniqueness of each person's soul and life story. We keep in mind what she shared with us, that before we try to love the entire world we should start by trying to love one other person—someone apparently unlovable, unwanted, or rejected. “You can save only one at a time. We can love only one at a time.”
Lut us pray with her today and each and every day as she did on a daily basis as follows:
Dear Jesus, help me to spread
Thy fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Thy spirit and love. Penetrate
and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of
Thine. Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with
may feel Thy presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me but only
Jesus. Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as
to be a light to others. Amen.
