Читать книгу Mother Teresa's Secret Fire - Joseph Langford - Страница 15

Six

In the Darkness, Light

St. Teresa?

Mother Teresa’s holiness — seldom discussed in accounts of her life — is the passkey to understanding the very qualities we most admire in her. Her sanctity is the ultimate source of the light she shone on the world. Without understanding the role of personal holiness, a holiness open to us all, one can only conclude that Mother Teresa had been born that way, a rare kind of prodigy, like an Einstein or Mozart of the spiritual realm, rather than a model inviting imitation, drawing us on.

But what the commentators tended to overlook, the poor and the simple had already sensed. They could feel the presence of God in Mother Teresa; they intuited her holiness, and were drawn to it. As her work progressed, a growing groundswell of recognition and respect — even in the press — pointed to the presence of God in her. By the time she won the Nobel Prize, Time magazine had already proclaimed Mother Teresa a “living saint” on its front cover. On the other side of the world, the poor of Calcutta, sleeping under bits of paper and cloth, lit candles to the divinity they saw in her, honored in makeshift shrines by the roadside.

People praying at an altar for Mother Teresa (Raghu Rai/Magnum Photos)

Saints, however, are so rare in our experience, and so often relegated to the past, that we no longer realize what sainthood means, nor what the saints might have to do with our lives. And so, before examining Mother Teresa’s light, we first need to understand the source of her light, the state of “being light” that Jesus called her to, which is sanctity.

God’s purpose in sending the saints lies well beyond our usual supposition that the saints are merely distant moral beacons, standard-bearers to which the rest of humanity can never quite measure up. The mystery of the saints is something deeper and far more attractive — more than austere asceticism and images on holy cards, stained-glass windows, or statues. In sending us saints, God indicates his yearning, and his ability, to participate fully in our world. The saints reflect the beauty of God and his plan for us, a beauty they make concrete and tangible — and inviting. In the words of Thomas Merton, a saint is “a window through which God’s mercy shines on the world. And for this reason, he strives to be holy in order that the goodness of God may never be obscured by any selfish act.”

The saints illumine us with the Creator’s own light, granting us a glimpse of who both he and we truly are. They are a mirror of our God-given dignity, of what we were created to be, and of what we can yet become.

Primordial Light

The story of Mother Teresa, and of all the saints, does not begin with their conversion, nor even with their birth. The real history of the saints reaches back to the beginning of all things, as described in the book of Genesis, when, on the first day of creation, God said, “Let there be light” (Gen 1:3). This first step in creation does not refer to the light of the sun, which was not created until the fourth day, but to God’s own light — a divine light destined to dispel the darkness and bring order out of chaos, from before the dawn of time until time is no more. Before there was anything else, there was light, as the atmosphere and foundation of all.

Adam and Eve were created to inhabit and embody that first light, as the crown of God’s creation. According to Jewish tradition, after the Fall, God left a trace of original glory on the body of Adam and Eve. At the tip of their hands and feet, God left slivers of flesh dipped in light, translucent tokens of that first light that is still our dignity and destiny. Something as humble as fingernails would be God’s reminder to us of the transparency that once was ours, and of the light from which, and for which, we were made.

The saints still serve this same evocative and ultimately practical purpose. They are that small sliver of humanity, dipped in God, that still shines with his light. Their lives serve to beckon us back, to call us to our senses and our source, as God called out to Adam after the Fall, “Where are you?” (Gen 3:9). Despite the variety of their lives, their backgrounds, and their stories, the saints all embody this one sweeping truth: that with the coming of Christ as New Adam, the prophesied times of restoration are here. In him, and in those transformed by him, the glory of the first Adam is once again restored. But the saints are not only heralds of this promised restoration; they are its living proof. They reflect here and now, for every generation and culture — mirrored in the joy, the innocence, and the goodness suffusing their countenance — the luminous faces of our first parents, coming forth fresh from the hand of God.

But there is something more. The saints show us not only how good we can be, but more importantly, they show us how supremely good God is. The saints are the living reflections of God’s goodness in our midst. In their role as mirrors of God, each saint is unique, for God’s goodness and beauty are infinitely rich. Like precious stones in a great mosaic, each saint reveals some facet, some special attribute of God’s boundless being, some unique hue of the divine splendor.

The saints not only reflect God’s light, they also echo his voice, calling humanity back into the divine embrace. The saints are God’s reminders, his memos to mankind, re-enacting the message and the beauty of the gospel before the eyes of each era. Like the ancient prophets before them, the saints reverberate with that particular Word of God most necessary to each age.

What Word of God was Mother Teresa’s life echoing? Why did he send her, rather than another, into our night? To fathom God’s purpose in sending her, we need to know more of Mother Teresa’s interior life — to see her not only from the outside, through the lens of her accomplishments, but illumined by her own sense of purpose, to allow her to point us toward the unseen north star of her soul.

Though all the saints are in some way “light-bearers,” witnessing to the light would become the focus of Mother Teresa’s entire vocation. Jesus sent her to “be his light” in the darkness of a Calcutta night that transcended geography. Mother Teresa’s Calcutta was everywhere, symbol of a night that invades and lies in wait in every heart.

Mother Teresa was not called to share her light from “above,” nor from afar — unlike some contemporary proponents of a prosperity gospel, she was not one to stand above the fray, dispensing wisdom from a peaceful and pampered life. Instead, she accepted to be plunged body and soul into the lowest depths of our night, illuminating that night from within, forging a path through our inner darkness into light. The fact that she confronted the night in her own soul first, as her personal letters reveal, does not diminish her spiritual credentials; rather, it augments her credibility. Her dark night makes her not just a teacher but a guide — an escort and companion for our own labored journey into light.

Bowed by Darkness, or Beacon of Light?

But before we move on to explore the secrets of Mother Teresa’s interior life, we first need to be sure not to misconstrue her “darkness” — a darkness God allowed her to experience as a share in the inner night of Calcutta’s poorest of the poor. Mother Teresa was wounded with the inner wounds of her people; she bled with them and died with them. God was calling her to share the heavy, if forgotten, inner burdens of the poor, not only their material deprivation. She was to be fixed to the hidden inward cross of the poor, and to be riven by the same interior anguish that Jesus himself had undergone.

But as painful as her darkness was, theirs was the true night, the darkness that eats away at faith. In Mother Teresa’s time, millions of Calcutta’s street population drew their dying breath under the dusty feet of passersby, after having spent an entire existence deprived of any human evidence of a loving God. This was a tragedy not of God’s making, but man’s — yet one that burdened not man’s heart, but God’s. This was the ultimate sense of Mother Teresa’s dark night, borne in the name of her God, and her poor.

But what of reports that suggested that Mother Teresa had undergone a crisis of faith, or worse, that her smile and her devotion to God and neighbor were little more than hypocrisy? Emphatically, Mother Teresa’s dark night was not a “crisis of faith,” nor did it represent a wavering on her part. Far from being a loss of faith, her letters reveal instead her hard-fought victory of faith, the triumph of faith’s light that shines even in the darkness, for “the darkness has not overcome it” (Jn 1:5).

The same letters that recount her darkness at the feeling level (not at the level of faith) testify, too, to her unshakeable belief, even when she no longer sensed God’s presence. Her letters reveal a supreme, even heroic exercise of faith at its zenith, free of dependence on circumstance or feelings. She consistently chose to believe, refusing to turn away from a brilliance once beheld, simply because clouds had covered her inner sky. No matter how long the hours of her night, never once did she suspect that the sun existed no more. Even in the deepest night of her inner Calcutta, she kept her course towards the Day Star, and never lost her way.

The passages that speak of her darkness recount as well her deep yearning for God through it all. Her constant longing itself witnesses to the solidity of her faith, for no one continues to long for the return of a loved one who no longer exists.

Mother Teresa’s trial of faith is not without precedent in Christian tradition, nor without parallels in Scripture. Recall Jesus’ challenge to the Canaanite woman, who, after begging that he cure her daughter, was seemingly rebuffed in the harshest terms. In both cases, Jesus used what appeared to be rejection in order to draw out the fullness of their faith, precisely by challenging that faith to the maximum. Jesus gave each one the chance to surmount his challenges one by one, and to stand triumphant as a model for the rest of us. His appreciation of the Canaanite woman could have been addressed just as easily, two thousand years later, to Mother Teresa: “O woman, great is your faith!” (Mt 15:28).

Sharing the Darkness of the Poor

As difficult and painful as her dark night became, Mother Teresa never allowed herself to become “lost” in her darkness. She never rebelled against it, nor against the God who laid it on her shoulders, nor against the poor of Calcutta with whom and for whom she bore it. On the contrary, she gradually came to understand its deeper meaning, and even to willingly embrace it for the sake of her God — who had borne that same agony for her sake, in Gethsemane.

Even while tending to the physical and material needs of the poor, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, Mother Teresa’s primary focus was their “salvation and sanctification,”²¹ their inner advancement toward divine union, as their highest dignity and long-term vocation. She was not sent simply to work for material betterment, a point even her admirers often miss. Calcutta’s poorest, living and dying on the streets, enjoyed neither sufficient material goods nor the goodness of their fellow man. Since they were left with nothing and no one to mirror to them the face of God, Mother Teresa was sent to show them in his name, in concrete works of love, how beloved of God they were. For love’s sake, she herself would bear a portion of their interior pain. She would give of herself, in this life and the next, to “light the light of those in darkness on earth.”²² The more the truth of her victorious faith is known, the more she will be an inspiration to those who are learning to find their peace, to make their contribution, and to cling to their God, as she did, in the night.

Lessons in the Night

For all who “have eyes to see,” there is a great light hidden here. Beyond the obvious light of Mother Teresa’s charity, there in the heart of her night lies a deeper light still.

But how can light be born of darkness? This question is critical, for it is key to the process and the history of divine transformation. First, there is the creation story, in which the Almighty transformed the dark void into substance and light. There is the second creation story, where Adam and Eve are cast from a luminous Eden into a world of darkness and temptation. The Redeemer, light of the world, is heralded by a night star at his birth. The Nicene Creed sings of him as “light from light, true God from true God.” Finally, in the Resurrection, the darkness of death is conquered by his brilliance emerging from the tomb.

Darkness need not be the opposite, the enemy of light. When seeded with God’s grace, darkness becomes its catalyst. Night becomes the womb to the day. It is the power of love, of God’s own nature as love, that works this alchemy. When embraced for others, when transformed by love, darkness indeed becomes light.

Paradoxically, by embracing her darkness for the sake of the poor, Mother Teresa fulfilled her call — in her welcomed darkness she became God’s light. Her sacrifice shone with a light that transcends our logic. As St. Paul comments on the archetypal mystery of divine light clothed in human darkness, shining forth from Jesus’ passion and death,

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Cor 1:22-24)

This crucified light, so utterly “other” that it seems to us darkness and scandal, is the refulgence of God’s self-emptying love (Phil 2:6-8). Divine love wraps itself in our pain and darkness, as Mother Teresa would say, “without counting the cost.” God’s very nature as love plunges him headlong into our neediness and, unbelievably, even into our sin. In St. Paul’s bold words: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin (2 Cor 5:21).

Mother Teresa would follow Jesus’ lead. She, who from childhood knew no darkness, would accept to “become darkness” for the sake of the poor. She gathered into her soul and flooded with love the very blackness that denied God’s existence, drowning the darkness in light.

The importance of Mother Teresa’s example, even for those who bear much milder Calcuttas, is in showing how far faith and love can reach in this life — even in the night, even buffeted by pain, with every wind against it. Her victory in the night is proof that the exercise of faith and love is ultimately our free choice, never beholden to circumstance, a decision accessible at all times. God makes it always possible to move beyond preoccupation with our own pain, and to reach out to assuage the pain of others. Rather than isolating us, we can choose to make of life’s burdens a sacred bridge into the pain of others.

Light on Our Horizon

There is more to Mother Teresa’s wisdom than the otherworldly, however. As global events unfold, we can already see a growing timeliness and relevance to her teaching, one that even her followers would not have foreseen — but that surely did not escape the foresight of the God who sent her.

Increasingly, the importance of Mother Teresa’s message will come from having modeled an effective, even elegant, way to live, to work, and to overcome in the face of the most daunting and overwhelming odds. Mother Teresa not only survived, but she also managed to become a saint and Nobel laureate amidst the material and spiritual challenges of civil-war Calcutta (sundered, bloodied, and impoverished by clashes between Hindus and Muslims). This chaos was the backdrop for her experiments in faith and love, a confluence of adversities that surely surpassed our own, yet giving rise to a resilient faith that can still inspire our own.

While the challenges of her life may seem to have little to do with us, in coming years this may no longer be the case. The specter of severe change looms over us on many fronts — the environment, hunger, global debt, climate change, diminishing oil reserves, and health challenges and pandemics that may stretch our ability to cope.

If in the future even some of the deprivations that Mother Teresa faced in Calcutta become ours, might the life of this woman, who navigated the problems of Calcutta with such grace, hold lessons for us all — for our spiritual and emotional viability, whatever may come? Might she yet be a mentor to future generations, teaching us that circumstances need not dictate the tenor and purpose of our life, but instead, by remaining God-anchored and proactive, that we can turn even the worst circumstances to advantage?

But even if none of the gloom gathering on our horizon comes to pass, we will still need grace and courage to face the fact that our present tenor of life cannot continue indefinitely. In years to come, we all will know unforeseen suffering; we all will taste deprivation, in health if not in finance. Whatever our present circumstances, a share of personal tragedy will one day touch us all. The normal course of life will bring, along with blessings, disease to our children, accidents to loved ones, responsibility for bed-ridden relatives or a cancer-ridden spouse, loss of employment or loss of relationship, sudden reversals of fortune, or the untimely death of those we cherish. We will all need to find other sources of happiness, purpose, and fulfillment, beyond possessions and ease and protecting the status quo. In the end, the very process of our aging will itself frame the geography of our personal Calcutta.

Who will teach us to deal with such trials when they come? What solutions will there be for us, besides escape or despair, the hollow promises of a prosperity gospel, or the cosmic secrets of “attracting abundance”? Mother Teresa’s secret was quite another — more robust, reliable, and real. It was born of the most powerful force in the universe — the only One to have faced death, and overcome it forever.

Over the darkness of our inevitable night, her light shines — no longer only as “saint,” but as model and teacher, thanks to her own graced path through the night. She has shown us what the human spirit can accomplish, clinging to God, no matter the odds. As the years go by, her challenges will seem less foreign, and her solutions more meaningful, even vital. Our common human plight has become our bond with her, and our invitation to enroll in her school of the heart.

Turning the Darkness to Light

We are each called and equipped by God not only to survive our personal Calcutta, but to serve there — to contribute to those around us whose individual Calcuttas intersect our own, just as Mother Teresa did, if on a different scale. If she could face the worst of human suffering in such immense proportions — and do so despite bearing her own pain — then there must be a way that we can do the same in the lesser Calcutta that is ours. We must never forget, distracted by the demi-problems of our routine existence, just how important our one life is in the plan of God, and the great amount of good we can yet contribute.

How important can our one small, unspectacular life be? Consider this: the good that each of us can accomplish, even with limited resources and restricted reach, not even a Mother Teresa could achieve. The family, friends, and coworkers whom we alone can touch, with our unique and unrepeatable mix of gifts and qualities, not even Mother Teresa could reach. No one else on the planet, and no one else in history, possesses the same network of acquaintances and the same combination of talents and gifts as each one of us does — as you do.

There is no need, then, to travel to far-off lands to contribute to Mother Teresa’s mission, or to follow her example. Wherever we are, with whatever talents and relationships God has entrusted us, we are each called not to do what a Mother Teresa did, but to do as she did — to love as she loved in the Calcutta of our own life.

Mother Teresa’s Secret

The inner fire that saw Mother Teresa through the night will be her contribution for generations to come. Here is the wisdom of a Nobel Prize laureate and a saint. Here is her recipe for happiness in the midst of want; for living for others despite one’s own needs; for hoping in the face of setbacks; for peace within, while conflict and struggle reign without; for giving our time and our love, even while our own health and supports are wrenched away. Mother Teresa has taught us the divine alchemy that turns our personal hardships into compassion for others; our lack of material goods into wealth of spirit; and, should it come to that, the loss of our standard of living into the chance to become what ease and abundance would never have allowed us to be.

Mother Teresa’s lessons will prepare us, as no political plan or economic program could, to live through our trials with grace, and to turn them into blessing for others. If this simple, humanly un-extraordinary woman could have filled Calcutta’s slums with such love and energy and ingenuity, then we can learn to do the same in our life, no matter what may come.

“Try to deepen your understanding of these two words, ‘Thirst of God.’ ” ²³

— St. Teresa of Calcutta