Just in time for the anniversary of her birth, the news services were reporting the story of the publication of a book of letters written by Mother Teresa. According to the reports, this book will show that she was plagued by doubts and possibly a loss of faith throughout most of her life.The reasoning behind the secular media publishing these reports now are obvious, of course.They'll look for any excuse to cast doubt in God's existence and even better....in their view....if they can discredit a holy person and the Catholic church all in one fell swope. Some even supposed that this new information could put her canonization in jeopardy.
When an email was sent to me regarding the book, I realized right away that Mother Teresa had been under-going what is known in spiritual circles as "the dark night of the soul". Further reading of comments from Church leaders confirmed what I had thought.
Using the "logic" of those inclined to believe "The Da Vinci Code", one would think the Catholic Church would have suppressed the letters, but it was Father Brian Kolodiejchuk -the head of those pushing for her sainthood- that insisted on saving the letters and publishing them.
The book is due to be released in September. At present, Time Magazine has exclusive rights to excerpts.Their online article can be found here.
A good understanding of the Catholic Church's view can be found in this article from Zenit.
4 comments:
RTS, I have a good friend who is Catholic, and his position is that the stories of the OT (the Great Flood, Jonah and the Whale, etc) are not truly historical, but are parables.
Does the Catholic church teach this? Do most/many Catholics hold this same view, or only a small minority, as some do in non-Catholic traditions?
Thanks, Mike
The Church teaches that we should read the bible in a contextual way....some of the stories are historical fact and others (like the flood or Jonah)are, as you say, parables of sorts.
I can't say how many Catholics hold this view........they may not understand the Church's teachings.
The Bible is a very complex set of books and not always easy to understand.
(As you can see, I haven't written in this blog for quite some time......maybe I should come back more often)
When it comes to the Bible I would lean, foremost, on the discernment of the Holy Spirit.
I personally met Mother Teresa in the late 70s when my aunt joined the first group of Filipinas to enter the Missionaries of Charity. I could sense the strength of her charisma and charism even then. That she should go through the "dark night of the soul" only goes to show that even with the reputation of being a "living saint," she was human just like the rest of us.
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