Lord, Have Mercy

I would think most Catholics in the blogosphere have heard about this story, but in a nutshell a student in Florida took a host out of mass to keep as some kind of show and tell, and in mocking reaction to the shock of Catholics everyhwere, University of Minnesota professor P.Z. Myers promised to find and desecrate a host himself.

It appears he has done it.

The only words that come into my head in regard to him and the people who delight in what he has done are those of Jesus on the Cross while people mocked Him and spit upon His crucified body the first time around...Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.

Please join me in praying for this man and those cheering him on.

Lord, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

A Rainbow

The other day I saw the biggest, most complete rainbow I think I've ever seen. I was driving at the time, and was disappointed I wouldn't be able to get a picture of it. I got home, stepped out of my car and looked behind me...and this is what I saw. :-)

The Poorest of the Poor...

I was reading the liveblog from Jen on the America Magazine website discussing her conversion from being pro-choice to being pro-life, and having just read about Mother Teresa one of the comments struck me...it was from someone who (God bless them) had worked alongside the poor and seen much suffering. The argument was along the lines of, until the world is rid of the poor, being pro-choice is an unfortunate necessity because it just isn't fair to force children to be born into poverty and neglect, and I'm not going to be self-righteous and feel good about "being good" and take away someone's choice when they're faced with such suffering. Jen (as always) graciously responded and acknowledged that although she hadn't worked with the poor the way this person had, she did have some personal experiences that were relevant and went on to share them and discuss the issue.

As I read this, having just finished reading all about Mother Teresa in Come Be My Light, I couldn't help think about her. I mean, this is THE contemporary most of us think of when we think of helping the poor and sick and suffering, right? Even the mainstream media acknowledges her good works.

And what did Mother Teresa, a woman who devoted her life to caring for the sick and dying and poverty stricken, who joined them in poverty herself and spent her time among them, who likely knows better than the commentator on the liveblog or Jen or me or any of us what it is to be poor and suffering, what did she have to say on the issue?

"I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing, direct murder by the mother herself. And we read in the Scripture, for God says very clearly: 'Even if a mother could forget her child, I will not forget you. I have carved you in the palm of my hand.' ...That unborn child has been carved in the hand of God..."

"Many people are very, very concerned with children in India, with the children of Africa where quite a number die, maybe of malnutrition, of hunger and so on, but millions are dying deliberately by the will of the mother. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today...Let us ensure this year that we make every single child born, and unborn, wanted....Have we really made the children wanted?..."

and

"I find the unborn child to be the poorest of the poor today - the most unloved - the most unwanted, the throw away of the society."

United in Darkness

While on vacation, my father-in-law (*wave*) offered to let us read Come Be My Light, the book which tells us about the hidden suffering of Mother Teresa.

First let me say that any reviewer out there who reads this book and claims that she doubted God her whole life or had a "crisis of faith" or any such thing obviously missed the entire point of her writings. The feeling wasn't there after a certain point in her life, and this caused her much suffering because she longed to feel God's love so much, but the amazing part is that her faith remained and grew despite the lack of feeling, and in fact because of it and even through it. She did not spend her life doubting God, she says herself she never doubted God...her writing is a testament to her great faith. It's really ridiculous that some people try and twist what she said around to say the opposite. On to the book...

It begins with one of the biggest secrets of her life...her vow as a young and fairly new nun, made with the permission of her spiritual director (who obviously had confidence in her ability to keep it). She "made a vow to God, binding under [pain of] mortal sin, to give to God anything that He may ask, 'Not to refuse Him anything.'" It seems so simple and yet what a colossal promise to make. This was her driving force, and in fact people often thought her impatient because once she believed something was a request from God, she wanted to do it as quickly as possible for Him.

It is after making this vow that she heard the "call within a call" to minister to the poorest of the poor. After pushing hard to get permission from the bishop to be able to fulfill this call (but always putting obedience to the bishop first and foremost), she realized her goal and began the Missionaries of Charity. It was then that the darkness began. She worried that it meant she wasn't giving all to God at first, but over the years, through the guidance of a small handful of spiritual directors, it became apparent that Mother Teresa herself continually put God first and foremost, and so the absence of God that she felt was God's Will, a way to unite her suffering with Christ's.

Her longing for God was so great, her desire to please Him so strong, that the darkness, for instance not feeling anything in the presence of the Eucharist or in prayer, was excruciating. And yet, when she came to understand that it was God Himself who willed this, she thanked Him for the darkness and offered to endure it eternally if it would only please Him. And throughout all of this externally she radiated the love of God. Though she did not feel it herself, those around her felt it through her. She was truly living Christ's passion, as God allowed her to share in the desperate plea of Christ, "My God, my God, Why have you forsaken me?" Despite the incurable longing for Christ hidden behind a smile, her faith remained abundantly clear through her actions.

Time and time again she resolved to decrease herself even more so that Christ could increase in her. One resolution was that, "the greater the pain and darker the darkness the sweeter will be my smile at God." She constantly asks for prayers from everyone she writes to, to "Pray for me that I may not refuse Him." She also says "I want to smile even at Jesus & so hide if possible the pain and the darkness of my soul even from Him."

In response to the Offertory verse used for the Mass of the Feast of Sacred Heart (Ps. 68:21) which says, "I looked for one that would grieve together with me, and there was none: and I sought one that would console me, and I found none," she responded herself and encouraged others to respond with, "Be the one." She spoke of the Thirst of Jesus on the cross, and encouraged her sisters to "be the one who will satiate the Thirst. Instead of saying 'I Thirst' say 'be the one,'" echoing Christ's words, "Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me."

I think what touches me most is her total humility. She always assumed that those suffering around her were suffering more than herself and so she longed to help them. She didn't at all like the spotlight, she begged those who knew about her interior darkness to keep it secret so as not to draw attention to herself. She didn't like the media attention, but only submitted to it out of obedience because her spiritual advisors and bishops told her God was working through her and it was His Will, so when she did have to speak publicly and be in the spotlight, she invariably used it to point ever more to God, never to herself.

I walk away from the book with such a mix of emotions...sadness at her intense interior suffering, wonder at her incessant call to keep smiling through the pain and darkness, and inspiration from her determination to be the Light of Christ for all, and most especially for the "unwanted and unloved" of the world. Above all, though, I come away so deeply humbled by Mother Teresa's intense love of God, her desire to do all and be all for Him alone. I believe the following passage from the book sums it up perfectly:

"Her painful darkness mysteriously united her so intimately with her crucified Spouse, that He became the sole 'object of her thoughts and affections, the subject of her conversations, the end of her actions and the model of her life.' Her total surrender to His will and her determination not to refuse Him anything allowed Him to manifest through her His love for each individual. It was the light and love of Jesus Himself that radiated from her - in the midst of her own darkness - and that had such an impact on others."