Jim Blazsik

To honor Darwin’s birthday, I decided to share a blog I wrote last year.

Mother Teresa and the Atheists
 
I don’t want atheists to feel bad but…Mother Teresa did not lose her faith. Atheists were gleeful and the mainstream press was in hysteria over comments made by Mother Teresa in the book, “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light” a compilation of letters and papers written by Mother Teresa and published 10 years after her death.

We know atheists get kinda hateful at times, but pick on Mother Teresa? I know one reason is that she is an icon of charity, and that validates the goodness of Christianity. They hate that stuff. But to comment on matters of faith and spirituality they know nothing about?

Or do they? As we shall see later, atheists have their own spirituality.

But what about the statements by Mother Teresa that has created all this controversy? Here are several:

“There is so much contradiction in my soul, such deep longing for God, so deep that it is painful, a suffering continual — yet not wanted by God, repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal. … Heaven means nothing to me, it looks like an empty place.”

“They say people in hell suffer eternal pain because of the loss of God. … In my soul I feel just this terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing. Jesus please forgive the blasphemy.”

One must remember that it is Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, postulator for the cause of canonization for Mother Teresa, who released the letters and papers for publication. He wanted to inspire others by showing the depth of her relationship with God.

But how are we to look at her struggle of faith? Is Mother Teresa a different person in private, contrasted by the saintly figure of charity in the public eye?

The struggles of Mother Teresa doesn’t question her relationship with God, it verifies it. Her relationship with God was not one of a mindless fool, or a mechanical robot. As Christians, we are all human, all struggling in our relationship with the Divine. The Lord knows and understands that we are made of dust, and wants us to express our doubts and fears to Him.

The very task that Mother Teresa dedicated herself, will lend itself to the struggles of the soul: the reaching of the poorest of the poor, and relieving the pain that is suffered in the worst conditions of humanity. The more deeper we reach to the lost and suffering, the more we will give ourselves to that suffering.

But it goes into a much deeper spiritual sense, what St John of the Cross calls “the dark night of the soul.” We see this in the saints of the Scriptures. The panorama of Job in his sufferings and questions to God, David anointed king but a refugee away from his inheritance and the altar of God, John the Baptist in prison having his doubts whether Jesus is the Messiah, and Paul with his thorn in the flesh.

What is the dark night of the soul? I think it starts with:

” I want to know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.” Phil. 3:10.

It starts with Christ, and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings. It is the actual sharing of the experiences with Him in Gethsemane. Standing with Him before Pilate. Being with Him through His scourging, and the crown of thorns. Carrying His cross along side of Him, being stripped of all you trust in, and being crucified with Him.

I think the darkest part of the night is when Christ, hanging between heaven and earth, cries out: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” At this, one feels the agony of being separated from God, and abandoned by Him.

But why would anyone want to experience such a desert, such an agony?
There is a fellowship, a closeness to Christ that cannot be described. It is not the sublime, or the vision of the Heavenly Glory. In the dark night of the soul one becomes self aware of the reality of God, simply because everything else that you trust in is stripped away.

Mother Teresa expresses it this way:

“I have begun to love my darkness for I believe now that it is a part, a very small part, of Jesus’ darkness and pain on earth.”
“If my pain and suffering, my darkness and separation give you a drop of consolation, my own Jesus, do with me as you wish. … Imprint on my soul and life the suffering of your heart. … I want to satiate your thirst with every single drop of blood that you can find in me. … Please do not take the trouble to return soon. I am ready to wait for you for all eternity.”

For the Christian, the dark night of the soul dawns into the light, to the heavenly glory of Christ.
 
But what about the atheist? Is there an atheistic spirituality? An atheist’s “dark night of the soul?”

The dishonest atheist is totally unaware that the decision to believe there is no God is just a rejection of the true God for another. We are driven to believe in something, and the dishonest atheist must trust in something in order to bring meaning.

The dishonest atheist believes in modern science as a god, and fanatically trusts in it to calm the fears that he may be wrong in all of this. But modern science does not satisfy the human heart: the dishonest atheist must also pursue other gods of self indulgence.

This is the great hypocrisy. The dishonest atheist believes in the gods of their own choosing, they just don’t want to believe in…God. In the midst of insecurity, the dishonest atheist will hate anything that will remind him of God. They will even hate a Mother Teresa, a picture of faith and charity, because they see God in her.

It is when the atheist becomes an honest atheist, that he becomes self aware of what he believes and completely understands his plight.

The honest atheist will experience a unique dark night of the soul.
There is the realization that modern science will never answer the questions of how the universe came into being, or the origin of life. The honest atheist understands that without God the darkness is darkness. And, if we are the result of impersonal, random forces; there is no hope, no basis for right or wrong, and no purpose or meaning. There isn’t any recognition of beauty, for beauty implies design. There is not even the assurance of the perception of reality, much more to define it.

In this dark night of the soul, the honest atheist finds himself alone, with the full awareness of always being alone, in the vastness of a stark impersonal universe. There is no one else in the prison of his own choosing.

And the million hells he experiences of loneliness, despair and hopelessness on earth will then slip into the darkest gloom of the Hell of eternity. And there he will be alone, trapped within himself forever.

Then any atheist will have to be the honest atheist, when the discovery happens: God was always there. Then the atheist will become completely self aware that he always knew there was a God, but hated him. But he couldn’t face the reality of hating God, so the chosen way of getting back at Him was the denial that He exists. This truly is the Grand Delusion. 
 
Earlier I asked the question: “why would anyone want to experience such a desert, such an agony?” I already gave one answer, is there an other?

This is Mother Teresa’s response:

“I wish to live in this world that is so far from God, which has turned so much from the light of Jesus, to help them — to take upon myself something of their suffering.”

Honest atheist, let Mother Teresa be a light to you, to lead you to the Light of the world. She walked through a dark night of the soul, but she wasn’t alone.
She is showing you that you will not have to walk alone.

© Jim Blazsik 2009 Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.