I posted previous reflections from her letters, this from Zenit Catholic news agency is simply amazing. She's a great.

ZENIT News Agency, The World Seen from Rome ==================================================

The Soul of Mother Teresa, Part 2 (Concluded) The Meaning of Her Darkness

ROME, DEC. 20, 2002 (Zenit.org).- Mother Teresa's beatification is officially scheduled for next year. Today, ZENIT publishes the second installment of Part 2 of a study by the postulator of the cause, Missionary of Charity Father Brian Kolodiejchuk. The article is reprinted with his permission.

Part 1 was published in ZENIT on Nov. 28 and 29. The first installment of Part 2 appeared Thursday. All are posted in the ZENIT archives.

* * *

The Soul of Mother Teresa: Hidden Aspects of her Interior Life (Part 2)

Copyright by Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C. Postulator

All rights reserved.

...

3. The Meaning of Mother Teresa's Darkness

For all those familiar with Christian mysticism, this feature of Mother Teresa's spiritual life should not come as a surprise. Mother Teresa herself exclaimed that it was emptying her of self, of that egoism that impedes union with God. What is distinctive, however, is that this experience of darkness came after she had already reached a very high degree of union with Him. She herself testifies to her close union with God. "I long for God. I long to love Him with every drop of life in me. I want to love Him with a deep personal love. I can't say I am distracted; my mind and heart is habitually with God." Her union was at the level not of feelings but of mind and will: "I know I have Jesus in that unbroken union, for my mind is fixed on Him and in Him alone -- in my will."

It is also significant that a certain light came to her when she understood that by her interior suffering she was sharing in Christ's redemptive suffering for the sake of others. Mother Teresa stated that the aim of the Missionaries of Charity, and therefore her aim as well, was to quench the infinite thirst of Jesus on the cross for love and for souls by laboring for the salvation and the sanctification of the poorest of the poor. Seen in this light, the long and painful interior darkness takes on not only new meaning, but also gives the reason for her total, even joyful surrender to it.

In her experience of feeling rejected by God, she was more and more identified with her crucified Spouse at the moment of His supreme sacrifice on the Cross. The apparent absence of God that she experienced now and the memory of His presence and love that she had experienced earlier set her on fire with thirst for Him. Her "painful thirst" for Him was so strong that she could say, "During this year I have had many opportunities to satiate the Thirst of Jesus for love, for souls. It has been a year filled with Passion of Christ. I do not know whose Thirst is greater, His or mine for Him." Mother Teresa's acceptance of and living in darkness was a specially graced means of being united and identified with Jesus on the Cross and of satiating Jesus' painful thirst for love and for souls. Thus she fulfilled the aim of her vocation.

4. Joy -- The paradox of light in darkness

One of the greatest indications of Mother Teresa's faith and love during her long and painful interior darkness was her deep and constant joy. She simply radiated joy to those around her. Her joy was not a matter of temperament and natural inclination but the result of God's grace and her surrender. This required a conscious and resolute effort. When it was hardest, her smile was brightest.

Mother Teresa was determined to become "an apostle of joy" and spread the fragrance of Christ's joy wherever she went. Her love for God was such that she desired not just to accept the cross, but to do so with joy. "My second [retreat] resolution is to become an apostle of joy, to console the Sacred Heart of Jesus through joy. Please ask Our Lady to give me her heart so that I may with greater ease fulfill His desire in me. I want to smile even at Jesus and so hide if possible the pain and the darkness of my soul even from Him." She decided to smile at Jesus every time something was taken from her. "I give Him a big smile in return. Thank God that He still stoops down to take from me."

Though Mother Teresa's desire "to hide her pain even from Jesus" was, of course, unrealizable, she did successfully hide it from others, even those closest to her. "Sometimes the pain is so great that I feel as if everything will break. The smile is a big cloak which covers a multitude of pains." Her selfless love was intent on radiating "His love, His presence, His compassion." A simple smile was one of her favorite ways of doing so.

Mother Teresa had the gift of communicating God's love to others. She radiated the joy of loving Jesus even in the midst of her severest trials. After a brief encounter with Mother Teresa, those who were discouraged or in despair would go away full of consolation and hope. To her Sisters she wrote, "Remember that the passion of Christ ends always in the joy of the Resurrection, so when you feel in your own heart the suffering of Christ, remember the Resurrection has to come, the joy of Easter has to dawn. Never let anything so fill you with sorrow as to make you forget the joy of the Risen Christ!"

CONCLUSION

In the world of today, Mother Teresa has become a sign of God's love. Through her God has reminded the world of His intense love -- His thirst -- for mankind and His desire to be loved in return. This article has presented some of those hidden aspects that were at the root of Mother Teresa's extraordinary influence on the world. Her vow of 1942 shows her act of loving and total surrender to whatever God would ask of her. This prepared the way for the call of 1946, when Jesus directly asked her to satiate His thirst for love and for souls by taking Him to the poor and bringing them to Him. Mother Teresa wholeheartedly embraced her new vocation, living it with great love and joy. Only a few people had any intimation of the interior "darkness" she willingly accepted for the love of God and of the countless people whom she touched with her compassion. Together, these three defining features of Mother Teresa's spiritual life -- her vow to not refuse God anything, the mystical exp! eriences surrounding her Inspiration, and the enduring spiritual darkness -- reveal her previously unknown depth of holiness and place her among the ranks of the great mystics of the Church.

ZE02122020

=================================================== ZENIT is an International News Agency.

To receive ZENIT News Services by e-mail, FREE Subscription at: http://www.zenit.org/english/subscribe.html

For reprint permission, please contact infoenglish@zenit.org.

-- Theresa Huether (Rodntee4Jesus@aol.com), December 22, 2002

Answers

maranatha!!

-- Theresa (Rodntee4Jesus@aol.com), December 22, 2002.

Dear Theresa,

Thank you so much for sharing that beautiful story about a holy, pious, women, Mother Teresa.

Many saints have experienced a "dark night of the soul." Teresa, is a dark night of the soul the same as depression? Or is it a spiritual dryness? I know when saints have experienced this dark night of the soul they felt that God was far away from them and they could not pray.

ML

-- MaryLu (mlc327@juno.com), December 22, 2002.

Hi M.L. , sorry, I haven't revisited this post in a few days. I haven't experienced a real dark night. I've had dryness, for sure, and press on in the mind as best as I can, or just trust God. But when I read about Mother Teresa's 'not even wanting to show Jesus her pain', I can barely relate. She, as St. Teresa of Avila and John of the cross are on another 'plane of holiness'. I really don't pray for a dark night, I don't think I'm strong enough to get through it gracefully.

One thing that struck me, she talked about putting on a smile to hide the pain. I've heard that taught before. It's not phoniness. Sometimes when you have to be ministering, being it singing, or teaching, or distributing Communion, and we are crying on the inside, we have to 'put ourselves aside' so to speak, it's not about me, it's about Jesus. I know that's off the subject, but I think the experience of the dark night would serve to bring us to that dying of self.

It would serve to bring us to deeper holiness by giving us the opportunity to go in faith, to really trust God when our feelings of joy and comfort are absent.

-- Theresa Huether (Rodntee4Jesus@aol.com), December 24, 2002.

another thought on the dark night M.L, you had mentioned some saints couldn't even pray. I think God would even strip us of our prayer life.. if it leads us to a NEW FRESH prayer life. We could get stale and stuck in the same mindset, the same rote system of prayer, and a dark night would make one even surrender that to Him. Surrneder unto a new emptiness, a new depth= to be filled with more of Him.

-- Theresa (Rodntee4Jesus@aol.com), December 24, 2002.

Dear Theresa,

I have experienced 'dryness in the spiritual life' and each dry period makes me come out of it stronger; my faith is deepened and takes on a whole new life.

God speaks to us during those dry periods and we learn to listen to what He is telling us.

I don't pray for dry periods either, and could not do what Mother Teresa did...she truly is a saint.

ML

-- MaryLu (mlc327@juno.com), December 24, 2002.

I had the privilege of being with her on a few occasions and hearing her sisters talk about her. We have idealized her too much to see the grit of her spirit. Thank God for this revelation. The kind of joy she talks about and radiates is not cheap sentiment but a coming to grips with the devil of suffering through the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. Nothing more. Those who think she looked at and smelled roses all the time sadly distort her spirituality. The beautiful sentiments she wrote about were paid for with the blood of Christ and her own suffering united to it.

-- shadeaura (shadeaura@aol.com), February 05, 2003.