Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith

The following are excerpts from letters written by Mother Teresa over the course of her life. What's striking about what we read is how DIFFERENT her "jesus" was from the one I worship. My Jesus is anything but absent. I sense His presence continually. As for the inner darkness, one of the greatest and most important benefits of loving and being loved by the true son of God is an abiding, continual PEACE and inner light. Sure we have trials and tribulations, but those are external, what counts is what's inside. Mother Teresa's inner world was one of torment, darkness, hopelessness and abandon. WOW. Can you say spiritual bankruptcy. Yea, the catholic church is trying to spin it in a positive light, but they can't, know why? There was no light. It's all about darkness. If Mother Teresa's darkness was this great and she is held up as an icon of all that this world's religions hold out to those who hope in them, what does that say? This world and it's religions are empty, manmade organizations, not the living, vibrant organism I know as the true body of Christ. Protestant's should'nt think that somehow they are any bettter. They are simply daughters who descend from the same harlot. Wake up......................

in a letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, that is only now being made public, she wrote with weary familiarity of a different Christ, an absent one. "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."

Although perpetually cheery in public, the Teresa of the letters lived in a state of deep and abiding spiritual pain. In more than 40 communications, many of which have never before been published, she bemoans the "dryness," "darkness," "loneliness" and "torture" she is undergoing. She compares the experience to hell and at one point says it has driven her to doubt the existence of heaven and even of God. Not all atheists and doubters will agree. Both Kolodiejchuk and Martin assume that Teresa's inability to perceive Christ in her life did not mean he wasn't there. In fact, they see his absence as part of the divine gift that enabled her to do great work.??? The more success Teresa had — and half a year later so many young women had joined her society that she needed to move again — the worse she felt. In March 1953, she wrote PĂ©rier, "Please pray specially for me that I may not spoil His work and that Our Lord may show Himself — for there is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead. It has been like this more or less from the time I started 'the work.'" A year later she sounded desolate: "Such deep longing for God — and ... repulsed — empty — no faith — no love — no zeal. — [The saving of] Souls holds no attraction — Heaven means nothing — pray for me please that I keep smiling at Him in spite of everything." For these confessors, she developed a kind of shorthand of pain, referring almost casually to "my darkness" and to Jesus as "the Absent One." I want to love Jesus as he has never been loved before Neuner would later write, "It was the redeeming experience of her life when she realized that the night of her heart was the special share she had in Jesus' passion." And she thanked Neuner profusely: "I can't express in words — the gratitude I owe you for your kindness to me — for the first time in ... years — I have come to love the darkness. "

Come to love the darkness? Whichever jesus this lady worshiped, it absolutely was NOT the Jesus I know.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

When These Things BEGIN To Happen

<< Luke 21 >>
8 And he said, Take heed that ye be not led astray: for many shall come in my name, saying, I am he ; and, The time is at hand: go ye not after them.
9 And when ye shall hear of wars and tumults, be not terrified: for these things must needs come to pass first; but the end is not immediately.
10 Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom;
11 and there shall be great earthquakes, and in divers places famines and pestilences; and there shall be terrors and great signs from heaven.
12 But before all these things, they shall lay their hands on you, and shall persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name's sake.
13 It shall turn out unto you for a testimony.
14 Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate beforehand how to answer:
15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to withstand or to gainsay.
16 But ye shall be delivered up even by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolk, and friends; and'some of you shall they cause to be put to death.
17 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake.
18 And not a hair of your head shall perish.
19 In your patience ye shall win your souls.
20 But when ye see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that her desolation is at hand.
21 Then let them that are in Judaea flee unto the mountains; and let them that are in the midst of her depart out; and let not them that are in the country enter therein.
22 For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
23 Woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days! for there shall be great distress upon the land, and wrath unto this people.
24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led captive into all the nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
25 And there shall be signs in sun and moon and stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, in perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the billows;
26 men fainting for fear, and for expectation of the things which are coming on the world: for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.
27 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
28 But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads; because your redemption draweth nigh.

So, our redemption draweth nigh when those things BEGIN to come to pass. What things are at the "beginning" of those things which will come to pass?

Wars and tumults
Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom;
There shall be great earthquakes,
In divers places famines and pestilences; and
There shall be terrors and great signs from heaven.

Hmmm, have we seen any of these things in the news lately? Get ready, He's coming soon!!

36 But watch ye at every season, making supplication, that ye may prevail to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

Today's news:
Hundreds dead, missing in NKorea floods: reportNorth Korea late Monday said hundreds of people were dead or missing and thousands of houses destroyed in torrential rains which battered the country over the past week.

Quake shakes hurricane-braced HawaiiAn earthquake on Monday jolted the Big Island of Hawaii, which is already under a hurricane watch and a tropical storm warning.The magnitude 5.3 temblor struck at 7:38 p.m. local time, about 25 miles south of Hilo, according to a preliminary report from the U.S. Geological Survey.

A moderate earthquake rocks central Spain, including capital MadridA moderate earthquake rocked the central Spanish region of Ciudad Real on Sunday and was felt throughout much of the country, officials said.