I posted this originally a few years ago, but I am posting it again as we are in the Christmas season. I know people who are struggling mightily with depression and spiritual darkness because it is Christmas time. Sometimes it helps to know you are not alone.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n On and off over the last few months, I\u2019ve been reading\u00a0Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta<\/a><\/em> In 1953, after her work had begun and after years of silent suffering, she wrote\u00a0this letter to\u00a0Archbishop P\u00e9rier.<\/p>\n Your Grace,<\/p>\n . . . Please pray specifically for me that I may not \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Please give us Your blessing, A couple of things strike me here. The first is how Mother Teresa\u2019s thoughts\u00a0echo what we read in Psalm 88<\/strong>, which is the darkest of the Psalms. God\u2019s presence has abandoned\u00a0the psalmist, and the closing line reads:\u00a0\u201cmy companions are in darkness.\u201d<\/p>\n Actually\u2014not to geekify this post more than necessary\u2014but the NRSV has it wrong. For one thing, the psalmist is\u00a0the one\u00a0in darkness, not the psalmist\u2019s companions.<\/p>\n Also, there is no \u201cin\u201d in the Hebrew. It simply reads, \u201cmy companions [are] darkness.\u201d\u00a0Darkness is the only companionship the psalmist has.<\/p>\n Second, and more important, Mother Teresa\u00a0does not sit alone in the darkness but confides in another<\/strong>.<\/p>\n I think that is the hard part for many\u2014letting someone else in, letting down our protective armor, casting aside the fear of being shamed<\/span><\/a> or dismissed as having \u201cweak\u201d faith, of not \u201chaving it all together.<\/p>\n I imagine\u00a0this would have been\u00a0a particularly difficult admission for Mother Teresa, given how long and many letters it took her to convince her superiors to leave her order and venture to the slums of Calcutta. Her letters read like sales pitches; how ashamed<\/span> she must have felt when\u00a0she finally got her wish and was quickly overcome with a sense of darkness, of God\u2019s abandonment.<\/p>\n Perhaps this is why it took her so long to let the archbishop know what was happening to her\u2014the shame<\/span> of admitting\u00a0God\u2019s absence when God\u2019s presence had been so clear to her for so long, and about which she had been so forthright in her letters.<\/p>\n Still, she wrote the letter.<\/p>\n I wonder sometimes how difficult it might have been for the writer of Psalm 88 to put his thoughts in writing. In any event, I for one am glad he did.<\/p>\n Our\u00a0worth is not measured by how well we\u00a0are able to keep doubt at a distance, by how much we\u00a0are able to project that we\u00a0have their acts together. Doubt and darkness are\u00a0not a sign of a \u201clack\u201d of faith but a normal and expected part of the journey of faith.<\/p>\n [I explore some these themes in\u00a0The Sin of Certainty<\/a><\/em>]\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=inspirandinca-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0307589234\")
spoil His work and that Our Lord may show
Himself\u2014for 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 \u201cthe work.\u201d Ask Our Lord to give me
courage.<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Your devoted child in J.C,
<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0M. Teresa, M.C.<\/em><\/p>\n