The Ironic Reality

There is an Ironic reality where, in many cases, the more one gets to know God and begins doing wondrous works in His name for His glory the more one experiences spiritual dryness. Basically, when one thinks he is becoming closer to God is often the time God chooses to hide His presence, or appear as if He has parted from them. Besides all the testimonies I have heard of my godly friends I also happened to read recently in Time Magazine that Mother Teresa went through almost 50 years of spiritual dryness. In fact, during the peaks of her ministry's "success" Mother Teresa felt God's presence the least. She wrote in a letter to Archbishop Ferdinand Périer in 1955 "The more I want Him - the less I am wanted". Then later she wrote in a letter to Jesus (she wrote many letters addressed to Him) "If this brings You glory - if souls are brought to You - with joy I accept all to the end of my life."

Personally I find this encouraging, as I know I have experienced a lot of spiritual dryness in my life. The funny thing is that while this can, in some sense, drive someone to doubt God, the doubt can either make that person run from Him or run to Him. Mother Teresa was definitely someone that ran toward Him. In 1953 she wrote to Périer, “Please pray specially for me that I may not spoil His work and that Our Lord may show Himself – for there is such terrible darkness in me, as if everything was dead. It has been like this more or less from the time I started ‘the work.’” And in 1956 she wrote,“Such deep longing for God – and… repulsed – empty – no faith – no love – no zeal. – [The saving of] Souls holds no attraction – Heaven means nothing – pray for me please that I keep smiling at Him in spite of everything.” By 1961 she came to accept this “darkness” as an unavoidable reality in her life. She wrote in a letter to Rev. Joseph Neuner, “I can’t express in words – the gratitude I owe for your kindness to me – for the first time in… years – I have come to love the darkness – for I believe now that it is part of a very, very small part of Jesus’ darkness & pain on earth. You have taught me to accept it [as] a ‘spiritual side of your work’ as you wrote – Today really I feel a deep joy – that Jesus can’t go anywhere through the agony – but that he wants to go through it in me.”

Mother Teresa had her own personal conviction that Jesus was letting her experience a glimpse of the pain and suffering that He went through on earth. However, by no means is this the way that everyone should interpret their own sufferings. People can easily go to two extremes of what they think God wants for them: either they think God wants nothing but pain for them to grow spiritually, or that He wishes nothing but joy and happiness for them. The truth is God wants the ‘best’ for everyone, but the ‘best’ comes in many forms, often in a way quite unexpected.

The part that touched me the most about the article on Mother Teresa was the fact that she pursued God in spite of her sufferings, doubts even. Perseverance and loyalty is greatly rewarded. I have experienced great fulfilment through perseverance in my own life although it looks nothing like what Mother Teresa went through. It doesn’t have to be that difficult, but suffering is definitely a part of life.

What Rev. James Martin wrote about Mother Teresa stuck out to me, “Let’s say you’re married and you fall in love and you believe with all your heart that marriage is a sacrament. And your wife, God forbid, gets a stroke and she’s comatose. And you will never experience her love again. It’s like loving and caring for a person for 50 years and once in a while you complain to your spiritual director, but you know on the deepest level that she loves you even though she’s silent and that what you’re doing makes sense. Mother Teresa knew that what she was doing made sense.”

Most Christians who discover the realness of God and His love for them know that it makes sense to follow Him despite what they are going through.