supplemental reading

I have included a download of the reading and a link to Mother Teresa’s book. I’ve also linked to a Mike Scott song called Wonderful Disguise, which is based on something Mother Teresa said in her last interview.

reflection

Mother Teresa offers a, perhaps unexpected, lived example of some of the ideas we’ve encountered this week. In many ways one might want to see her as a patron saint of a form of Radical Theology, although she would have likely have rejected such an idea. 

The reason for her inclusion at the end of this week arises from the way that doubt played out in her life. 

Her original call to become a nun can be viewed as a concrete example of the religious sacrifice as it represents the point when she gave up everything for God. It was some years later however when she experienced what she described as her “call within the call.” This can be seen as nothing less than her identification with Christ on the Cross. For here she lost everything, including God. This loss was not a fleeting experience that arose at small and insignificant intervals during her work but remained with her  until the end. 

What we witness very directly in this movement from her original “call” to the “call within the call” is an embodiment of this theological move into the profane. In the call she stands with Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (willing to lose everything for God) while in the call within the call she hangs with Christ on the Cross (losing everything including God). This is the transition from the ultimate religious sacrifice to the sacrifice of religion itself. The later event does not supersede the former but rather deepens it.

For Mother Teresa, her devotion to the work became her affirmation of the Absolute. Her dedication to the world became her experience of heaven. What she lost internally as a type of ‘inner’ or ‘authentic’ experience was regained externally in her devotion to the other.

Indeed, the main reason why she wanted her journals destroyed, was not to hide the truth of her inner doubts, but rather because people might mistakenly think the truth of ones faith is found in some inner experience, when the truth of ones faith was to be found in the concrete work she was doing.

Light in the Darkness

Mother Teresa (1910 – 1997), was a Catholic nun and missionary who lived in India for most of her life. Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, which manages homes for people dying of HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis as well as soup kitchens; dispensaries and mobile clinics; children's and family counseling programs; orphanages, and schools.

Teresa received a number of honors in her lifetime and was canonised in 2016. The following excerpts are from her dairy's and reflect the deep sense of divine absence. An absence that was a profound and important part of her spiritual life. I originally recorded this is 2011 as part of an ikon gathering. We titled it "Confessions of an Un/Believer". You can also download this clip from my Soundcloud.