This year marks the 10th anniversary of the deaths of two famous women, Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Diana, Princess of Wales. Our cathedral recently gave the public an opportunity to pay their respects to the latter, but (so far as I am aware) no such opportunity has yet been given for those of us who would rather honour the memory of Mother Teresa.
And now, thanks to an extraordinary decision by the Roman Catholic Church, we have an even greater reason to honour her. A book has been published, under the tile of Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, consisting primarily of correspondence between Mother Teresa and a succession of her confessors and spiritual directors.
I should say at once that as a priest I have considerable unease about the publication of this material, particularly as Mother Teresa herself asked for it to be destroyed. What passes between a person and her confessor is absolutely confidential, and it surely makes no difference whether the confession is oral or written.
That said, it appears from a very full and balanced account in Time Magazine that what we have been given is a wonderfully inspiring and encouraging spiritual testament to real, hard-fought and often despairing faith in the light of the perceived absence and silence of God.
Mother Teresa testifies that on September 10th, 1946, while on her way by train to retreat in Darjeeling, Jesus spoke to her and called her to leave the order to which she then belonged and start a new ministry among the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. There followed the usual, long drawn-out process of discernment by the Church to test the authenticity of this call, but on January 6th, 1948 she was given official sanction by the Church.
And from that date on until her death in 1997 she never again heard Christ's voice or experienced his presence with her. What St John of the Cross famously called the Dark Night of the Soul lasted for her 49 years! Yet throughout that time Mother Teresa remained completely faithful to her difficult vocation.
That's real faith. And that's why this true servant of the poor is worth remembering - not with pop concerts, candles in the wind, and yet more mawkish sentimentality – but with heartfelt thanksgiving.
Roger Barker
