A loong dark teatime of the soul
I want to … drink ONLY from His chalice of pain - Mother Teresa
Time has just published an article about a new book containing letters from Mother Teresa detailing her years-long crisis of the soul.
As is to be expected, the thrust of the article was largely one of wonder at how such a great saint could suffer such doubt and darkness and still persevere and do such great work, and how that can be an inspiration to those w/ smaller lives who suffer doubt. I was grateful there were quotes from Christopher Hitchens and other atheists sprinkled throughout the piece to give it at least some measure of balance.
The atheist position is simpler. In 1948, Hitchens ventures, Teresa finally woke up, although she could not admit it. He likens her to die-hard Western communists late in the cold war: “There was a huge amount of cognitive dissonance,” he says. “They thought, ‘Jesus, the Soviet Union is a failure, [but] I’m not supposed to think that. It means my life is meaningless.’ They carried on somehow, but the mainspring was gone. And I think once the mainspring is gone, it cannot be repaired.” That, he says, was Teresa.
But for the most part, she was lauded for not giving up on a god that had seemingly given up on her.
Why is this something to be praised? I guess it helps that she arguably did so much good work. But one could argue, she could have done much more if she’d not been burdened w/ self-loathing and distress?
There is a theory that she couldn’t handle her success and invented this problem to alleviate the guilt. That’s sad, if it’s so.
And her obsession w/ pain and suffering is off putting, to say the least. It explains why she wasn’t particularly compelled to actually relieve much of it in her fellow man:
One of Mother Teresa’s volunteers in Calcutta described her “Home for the Dying” as resembling photos of concentration camps such as Belsen. No chairs, just stretcher beds. Virtually no medical care or painkillers beyond aspirin, and a refusal to take a 15-year-old boy to a hospital. Hitchens adds, “Bear in mind that Mother Teresa’s global income is more than enough to outfit several first class clinics in Bengal. The decision not to do so… is a deliberate one. The point is not the honest relief of suffering, but the promulgation of a cult based on death and suffering and subjection.” - from here
Life’s hard - why make it harder? Why worship pain almost more than you do Christ? I guess some people think it helps them deal w/ the inevitable pain of life, but I don’t. It just seems to make people more miserable.
This counsel clearly granted Teresa a tremendous sense of release. For all that she had expected and even craved to share in Christ’s Passion, she had not anticipated that she might recapitulate the particular moment on the Cross when he asks, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” The idea that rather than a nihilistic vacuum, his felt absence might be the ordeal she had prayed for, that her perseverance in its face might echo his faith unto death on the Cross, that it might indeed be a grace, enhancing the efficacy of her calling, made sense of her pain. Neuner would later write, “It was the redeeming experience of her life when she realized that the night of her heart was the special share she had in Jesus’ passion.” And she thanked Neuner profusely: “I can’t express in words — the gratitude I owe you for your kindness to me — for the first time in … years — I have come to love the darkness.”
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 … Where is my Faith — even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness — My God — how painful is this unknown pain — I have no Faith — I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart — & make me suffer untold agony.
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