Piddingworth Greg Benton |
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| 'Piddingworth...where St. George's Cross is not yet banned.' --Mark Steyn |
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| Honour all men. Love the Brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the King. (1Peter 2) |
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| Trust in the Lord and He will give you the strength & courage to do your Duty... Rose West Leonard |
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| THE PARADOX OF FAITH |
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| AP/file |
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| Mother Teresa suffered with doubt... |
| A new book featuring the private thoughts of Mother Teresa of Calcutta will be released on 4 September and the preliminary reviews from that most distinguished forum, 'popular opinion', are feeding off the revelation that this woman experienced days, even years of darkness and doubt in her life of faith in God, Christ, and herself. For anyone who has read a book since 'See Spot Run', or is even marginally familiar with Christian or religious life in general, the 'news' that a 'spiritual' person, even a popular 'saintly' person could suffer the very human experience of doubt about themselves, of God's power and existence and purpose, of Christ's presence, and the like, is not surprising at all. Indeed, it could rightly be said that it is virtually impossible to know the depth of joy that God's grace allows without having also known the misery of suffering and doubt that so often engulfs the soul. In a world where popular culture regards animal cartoons as possessing human qualities and the 'heroes' of life-like mass media are fantasised into possessing god-like powers, it is not all that surprising that a Christian 'saint' would fail to meet the test of the polyester latte set whose sophistication is generally no more than a pretense for their own fears. Popular culture would like to think of Christian 'saints' as animated Barbie Dolls that don't burp or wet and who go about 'doing good' in the name of 'niceness' which is just another name for 'Jesus'. One can almost imagine one of those old pop-up books with Mother Teresa and her sisters on a street in Calcutta. It would be so cute! They would all be smiling and 'happy' as would the people around them receiving care. Missing, of course, would be the stench, the disease, the utter misery...the reality of human existence. Some journalists demonstrating their remarkable, but all-too-common ignorance are asking: 'How can an atheist be a saint?' and attack Teresa for being a 'fraud'. They cannot distinguish between 'paradox' and 'contradiction'; the former being an inherent characteristic of Christ's teaching as well as of the Christian life whilst the latter is the literal interpretation of opposing ideas. Jesus taught: Those who find their life will lose it and those who lose their life, for my sake, will find it.(Matt 10.39) 'For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. (Lk 14.11) To popular culture, caught up in the superficiality of ideas, these statements just don't make any sense...hence, 'you can't win for losing'...including someone like Mother Teresa, whose life of humility, literally and figuratively, and self-deprecation, brought her both abundance of satisfaction and exaltation but accompanying fears, doubts, pain and grief. When she expresses these fears and doubts about God she communicates them to God; an apparent contradiction that is the paradox of faith itself. 'Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.' cried the father of a sick boy as he sought out the healing power that Jesus of Nazareth possessed. (Mk 9.24) The man surrenders the very reason that is competing against his desire to have his son healed. It just doesn't make any sense at all to the 'reasonable' human mind, yet he offers his unbelief in faith as an act of faith itself. One might liken the jackals of journalism to those who stood staring at Christ being crucified (itself a paradox) and mocking him. 'He saved others, why doesn't he save himself?!' Of course, they didn't really believe that Jesus 'saved' anybody but that he was a fraud and snake-oil salesman. What they wanted was for him to prove to their 'reasonable' minds that he possessed the power of God by coming down from the cross. Similarly, Mother Teresa must come down from the cross she bore in order to be regarded as an acceptable and popular 'saint' in the name of a God in whom they neither believe nor of whom they have any understanding. Mother Teresa, like thousands of saints before her, discovered the often painful truth that, in the course of serving God, and as one seeks to come closer and closer to him, there can be and usually is a commensurate experience of darkness that is often so overwhelming that one loses the sight of the Light of the World. Where God is; where love is; evil is not far behind. Indeed it lurks about and hovers over and through the myriad lives of human beings who, just as they seem to be exalted in joy and ecstasy, can come crashing down. Teresa did not abandon her God, her faith, her sisters, her work, her people as the jackals would charge. She was neither an atheist nor a fraud. Indeed, the intensity and sheer openness with which she demonstrates her fear, is itself evidence of a profound personal faith that is quite beyond understanding and lives, as it should, in the mystery of the communion between the soul and God. Atheists and their ilk, now quite popular as they climb the best-seller lists can offer no insight into something and someone about whom they have neither understanding nor genuine interest. It is perhaps a paradox itself that in accusing Mother Teresa of being an atheist that, if she was, would then make her a member of the fraternity of atheists...one of them! The writings of a Christian's spiritual journey ought only to be of interest to those who share the journey and in the context of the mystical realities, the paradoxical realities, that are the essence of the call to union with God. Mother Teresa did not want her papers to be kept as they might, after her death, take the focus away from God and the sacred mission. They were not destroyed as they were thought to be necessary toward the cause by those who would have her declared a 'Saint' by the Church. Whatever the end result, the response thus far by her detractors and their disciples, attest very well to the authenticity of the woman, a nun, a human being who by most spiritual, scriptural, theological and canonical accounts is indeed a Saint. GE Benton 31 August 2007 |