Light from Darkness
There’s been news on Mother Theresa, the “Saint of the Gutters”, and how her secret letters apparently revealed 50 years of doubt, a period of not feeling the presence of God in her life.
Well, I don’t know the whole story and I haven’t read any details, but I did catch this one part from one of her letters to a certain Rev. Michael Van Der Peet:
“Jesus has a very special love for you,” she assured Van der Peet. “[But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see,–Listen and do not hear–the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak … I want you to pray for me–that I let Him have [a] free hand.“
I think that’s a perfect example of what I think faith should be like. Or how we should be like regarding many things.
Many times people get caught up in emotions, like things are only real when they feel them. I beg to differ, feelings are highly subjective and situational, not to mention they are very fleeting. If we only love those who are nice or good to us, then that is not real love. If we only have faith when things are going our way, or if we have reason to say we feel God’s presence, then that is not faith. Those are just human reactions, the way I see it.
Like in her letter, she started and ended with how she believed in Jesus and what He can do, despite not feeling any reason for that faith. That is true love, not an emotion but a commitment — that even if she could not feel it, she held on to her certainty of it, she gave it away, she gave it back. That is true faith, the light we find, and the one we make, that shines when it’s darkest.
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