JULY L 2010 K N I G H T S O F C O LU M BU S CO C L O UMB U IA

Transcription

1 KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS JULY 2010 COLUMBIA

2

3 THE LIGHT AMID DARKNESS Understanding the heroic faith and love of Mother Teresa in view of her dark night of the soul by Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, MC MOTHER TERESA S LIFE AND MISSION BLESSED TERESA of Calcutta, the diminutive Catholic nun whose life was spent in service to, and as an advocate for, the poorest of the poor, died Sept. 5, 1997, and was beatified by Pope John Paul II in As she advances toward sainthood, she remains an icon of faith and selfless dedication to others. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of her birth (Aug. 26, 1910), an exhibition titled Mother Teresa: Life, Spirituality and Message will be on display at the Knights of Columbus Museum until Oct. 4, Mother Teresa addressed the assembled employees of the Knights of Columbus at the Order s international headquarters in New Haven, Conn., in She was also the inaugural recipient of the Knights highest honor, the Gaudium et Spes Award, in Additional information about her close relationship with the K of C are included in the exhibition. In the following pages, we share short reflections about her inspirational life from two men who knew her well. J U L Y C O L U M B I A 9

4 The publication of the book Come, Be My Light (2007), containing many of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta s letters to her spiritual advisors, provoked a good deal of discussion and, unfortunately, confusion as a result of hasty and superficial interpretations. Could Mother Teresa really have lost or at least had doubts about her faith? An essential key to understanding the meaning of Mother Teresa s darkness is to examine it in light of her religious and missionary vocation, and to grasp how she lived a heroic life of faith and charity, sharing in Christ s mission of saving souls. The private writings of Mother Teresa do not constitute a biography, nor do they say everything about her interior life. Rather, they present several hidden aspects of her spiritual life that give us a hitherto unknown window into the profundity of her holiness. The first of these was the private vow she made in 1942, binding under [pain of ] mortal sin, to give to God anything that He may ask, Not to refuse Him anything. Four years later, after telling Mother Teresa in prayer what he wanted from her, Jesus referred to this vow. She wrote, In all my prayers and Holy Communions He is continually asking Wilt thou refuse? The manner and details of this call within a call to serve the poorest of the poor is the second hidden aspect of Mother Teresa s life. Her letters disclose that in 1946 and 1947, she received locutions, visions and (most probably) had moments of spiritual ecstasy. Her confessor, Father Van Exem, wrote of her continual, deep and violent union with God. CONSOLATION AND LONGING Even though Mother Teresa knew the consolation of great intimacy with God, Jesus also declared that her vocation is to love and suffer and save souls ; that she and her sisters were to be victims of My love ; and that if you are My own little Spouse the Spouse of the Crucified Jesus you will have to bear these torments on your heart. Mother Teresa had no way of knowing at the time what exactly these words meant and how much she would have to suffer to fulfill this vocation and to become a victim of love. Her mission in the streets of Calcutta began in earnest in During this time, the experience of darkness began again. She felt a terrible sense of loss, a great loneliness and the torment of thinking she was not wanted by God. Even more painful than this sense of loss was the pain of unfulfilled longing. It is so painful to be lonely for God, she wrote. We can only imagine how terrible this experience was for someone who, in her own words, wanted to live only for love of Him. An important key to understanding Mother Teresa s faith is the fact that she had already reached union with Jesus, the state of contemplative prayer. In his book Fire Within (1989), Marist Fa- 10 C O L U M B I A J U L Y

5 From far left: Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson stands with Sister Mary Nirmala Joshi, who succeeded Mother Teresa of Calcutta as superior of the Missionaries of Charity, and other members of the community during a visit to the Knights of Columbus Museum May 5. Mother Teresa coming down stairs. Missionary of Charity Father Brian Kolodiejchuk delivers a lecture at the Knights of Columbus Museum June 1. Past Supreme Knight Virgil C. Dechant stands at a podium with Mother Teresa in 1992 during the inaugural presentation of the Gaudium et Spes Award. MOTHER TERESA STAIRS: Raghu Rai/Magnum Photos ther Thomas Dubay explains that in this state of union, the person experiences consolation or the joy of union as well as moments of dryness and longing for even greater union. While Mother Teresa did experience consolation and joy, her faith was later characterized by extreme dryness and a very intense longing. A TRIAL OF FAITH AND LOVE Jesuit Father Joseph Neuner, who was a spiritual advisor to Mother Teresa, offered a key insight into Mother Teresa s life in He said that Mother s darkness was her way of union with Jesus and the spiritual side of her work. Mother Teresa often stated that the greatest poverty in the world today is to be unloved, unwanted, uncared for and she experienced this with Jesus. In this regard, it is important to note that Mother Teresa did not have a crisis of faith that is, a real existential or intellectual question, as if on an intellectual or volitional level she entertained the possibility that God really did not exist. Instead, Mother Teresa experienced a trial of faith and, even more, a trial of love. Nonetheless, her faith, hope and love remained unshakable, even though she could not feel them. It was for this reason that Christ could share for so long and so intensely his most painful suffering the torments of his heart that he underwent during his agony and crucifixion. And because Mother Teresa was so united to Jesus, she also identified with the spiritually poorest of the poor, sharing their spiritual destitution. In the end, rather than being something negative in an otherwise holy life, Mother Teresa s darkness was an important and essential aspect of her vocation to be a religious and a missionary. Mother Teresa, I believe, is one of the great mystics and, as others have said as well, among the great saints of the Church. For the love of Jesus and the poor, she accepted the pain of not experiencing God s love. In 1988, reflecting on Christ s experience of abandonment on the cross, Pope John Paul II stated: That lack of interior consolation was Jesus greatest agony. We can say the same of Mother Teresa, who was sent to proclaim the good news to the poor, the good news that God is love and that He loves each one of us (cf. Lk 4:18). Indeed, Mother Teresa fulfilled the vocation Jesus gave to her paradoxically while in darkness, to be his light. MISSIONARY OF CHARITY FATHER BRIAN KOLODIEJCHUK is the postulator of the cause for canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and the editor of Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday, 2007). J U L Y C O L U M B I A 11

6 IT ALL BEGINS WITH PRAYER Mother Teresa strongly believed that prayer and family life are of central importance by Jim Towey Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on Aug. 26, 1910, was very private about her own upbringing. Accounts of Mother Teresa s life report the bare essentials of her early years because she was reluctant to talk about them. In a 1960 letter to her biographer, Eileen Egan, she wrote, In the book you are writing please omit anything about me personally. I want you to leave me and my family out. She did not talk in detail about her home life in Skopje, Macedonia, or the effect that the premature, tragic death of her father had upon her family. Nonetheless, we do know that she had wonderful parents as well as an older brother and sister, and that her family was plunged into poverty when her father died in The relatively comfortable childhood she enjoyed ended for her at the age of nine. But this reversal of fortune seemed not only to draw the Bojaxhiu family closer together, but also to engrave upon Agnes heart an awareness of the beauty of the sanctifying vocation her parents were given. And while Agnes eventually chose to pursue the religious life and serve as a missionary in the faraway land of India, she never forgot the transformative effect of a family that prayed together. THE FAMILY S LIFELINE In later years, Mother Teresa would often meet young couples and impress upon them the necessary linkage between family life and prayer. When my wife Mary and I were engaged, we waited until Mother Teresa visited Washington, D.C., in December 1991 to give her our first wedding invitation. As it turned out, she could not attend, but she did send dozens of sisters from her religious order. In the parlor of her home for AIDS victims she took our hands and said, Be one heart full of love in the heart of Jesus through Mary. Pray together and you will stay together. Mother knew that prayer was the family s lifeline that appealing to God had to be a matter of first resort. Her initial visit to the United States 50 years ago this October was to Las Vegas of all places, where she delivered a compelling message to thousands gathered for a convention of the National Council of Catholic Women. Her talk focused on the role of the family and the laity in the proclamation of the Gospel. The order Mother Teresa founded, the Missionaries of Charity, does not simply preach this message the sisters help people to practice it. This past May, I visited Calcutta and was impressed to see an army of sisters fanning out across the city to help families and children, teaching them the importance of prayer in the home. Mother knew that supplying poor families with rice and medicine was not enough. Rather, she worked to feed their spiritual hunger 12 C O L U M B I A J U L Y

7 PHOTO: CNS photo/jayanta Shaw, Reuters and to heal their souls. It was as if the lessons from her childhood home became a missionary mandate. As she said so often, It all begins with prayer. LEARNING TO PRAY For married couples in North America facing the pressures of balancing work and home life, praying can be difficult, if not elusive. I once asked Mother Teresa to teach me how to pray. We were walking in a poor area in Tijuana, Mexico, and I luckily found myself alone with her for a moment. When she heard my question, she stopped, as if to add emphasis to what she was about to say, and replied, The only way to learn how to pray is to pray. She then added, If you are too busy to pray, you are too busy. Mother knew that families that were too busy to pray together would eventually be too busy for each other or for their children, leading to inevitable breakdowns. She had an intense love for families and desired their harmony and happiness. Thus, she urged families to pray the rosary together and was delighted when families came to her chapels for Mass or eucharistic adoration. Looking Missionaries of Charity sisters gather under a picture of Blessed Teresa in Calcutta. Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in The order now has a worldwide presence serving those who suffer, including AIDS victims and the homeless and dying. to the Holy Family as an example, she urged couples to make their homes another Nazareth. Indeed, Mother Teresa s early life experiences and her admirable parents taught her that the vocation to family life was a high calling. In an age that seeks to redefine the family and questions the institution of marriage, it is fitting during this centennial celebration year to recall Mother s love of family life and her simple wisdom. JIM TOWEY worked for 12 years as U.S. legal counsel to Mother Teresa of Calcutta. A member of Father Hugon Council 3521 in Tallahassee, Fla., he served as director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives from and as president of St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., from J U L Y C O L U M B I A 13