What I don't understand about Blessed (and Saint in one day) Mother Theresa

[JurisPrudens]

…is why, if she experienced a vision of Jesus in her early life, did she suffer so much from not feeling God’s presence in subsequent years?

 

[Stylteralmaldo]

Imagine experiencing the presense of most beloved person in your life and then not experiencing that person for the rest of your life. That would seem to me to be a great burden. A burden greater than not having experienced that person in the first place.

 

[GEddie]

Imagine experiencing the presense of most beloved person in your life and then not experiencing that person for the rest of your life. That would seem to me to be a great burden. A burden greater than not having experienced that person in the first place.

But when the missed “person” is divine, maybe this is part of the notorious “dark night of the soul”?

ICXC NIKA

 

[Dorothy]

But when the missed “person” is divine, maybe this is part of the notorious “dark night of the soul”?

ICXC NIKA

Yes it is! And, with her faith, she grew spiritually in that dark night tremendously.

Faith without consolations.

 

[PraiseChrist]

If I’m correct God allows this, so we that we don’t fall in love with the consolations he gives us (like the peace felt during prayer) but with him. St John of the Cross wrote this

 

[boomerang]

Perhaps the fifty years of not feeling as though God was here, or near, or helping her, made her doubt her early religious experience…and from there, doubt even more?

Perhaps the early vision made her feel “special” and chosen–as many do when they have visions like that–and then, she did not. And it was crushing to her.

.

Well said!

 

[abinjoy]

…is why, if she experienced a vision of Jesus in her early life, did she suffer so much from not feeling God’s presence in subsequent years?

It is called the “Dark Night of the Soul”.
You can further look up this topic on the internet

 

[GEddie]

If one gets too comfortable, either bodily or spiritually, it is totally human to just “nestle” and not go forward and fight the battle.

ICXC NIKA

 

[fhansen]

All the answers so far are true. Those kinds of experiences are so overwhelming, and so complete in the knowledge given, that the person is forever changed in a way. They know something they didn’t really know before-or are confirmed in the knowledge or faith they had before to a degree they couldn’t even know was possible-and they know they’re expected to do something with it.

And yet nothing’s changed; they’re still the same person with all the weakness, challenges, sufferings, conflicts, pride (yes, even MT), fears, doubt, self-doubt, etc, that we all, as humans, must deal with in life. They’re not living continuously in the state they’ve been shown, a state we were all *made for. * But they know it exists, they’ve “tasted” heaven, and that knowledge necessarily challenges and colors the way they live the rest of their lives even as it makes life more burdensome in its own way. .

 

[LiamQ]

One of the biggest misconceptions about the spiritual life is that it is all about the consolations and having warm-fuzzies. Well, that’s actually not the case at all.

Those of us who experience consolations are probably experiencing them because we’re absolutely at the utter beginning of everything and, if God didn’t send those consolations, we’d be completely lost on our way. They’re a sign that we’re moving in the right direction, but they’re not the goal. As one priest describes them, they’re little cookies God gives us to help us get trained. At some point, the cookies go away.

St. Teresa of Calcultta had a dark night of the soul because she was extremely advanced spiritually, and was being utterly purged of absolutely everything offensive to God or that would undermine the level of holiness God intended for her.

 

[LiamQ]

Perhaps the fifty years of not **feeling **as though God was here, or near, or helping her, made her doubt her early religious experience…and from there, doubt even more?

You assume St. Teresa of Calcutta was like a secular person who always tries to subordinate their thoughts to their feelings.

One of the cardinal rules of Catholic spirituality is that one’s feelings should be ignored, because our emotions change on a daily basis, and can lead us all over the map. Not to mention the simple fact that devils can move our passions by putting images into our imaginations, and if we follow those passions too closely, we can be completely mislead. Our intellect is to conform our passions to right reason, and our passions are only to move when the intellect says they can. This is what it means to be a human.

I assure you, St. Teresa experiencing desolations was a sign to her, through supernatural faith and through her objective knowledge of spiritual theology, that God was absolutely working in her in a tremendously wonderful way; and she subordinated herself to Him in the darkness in a way which only the Saints can do.

These are the people that merit wonderful things for this wicked and foolish world, which is so wrapped up in its own pride that it refuses to submit to God under any circumstances other than its own.

 

[Katherine438]

There are times when God will let us know that He is there … we can feel Him … it’s very special. In my own life there was even a time when I asked God for something very specific, and it happened just as specifically as I asked … so I was thrilled and jumping up and down for a long time in knowing that He really was listening to me when I prayed … it was a very deep and emotional experience, and I thank Him for it all the time.

However, life still goes on … things happen … I had a house destroyed in 2012 by Superstorm Sandy … and although I tried to cling to Jesus, there were too many times that I was just too hung up in getting my house rebuilt that I stayed away much more than I should have.

Mother Teresa brought me back to Church this week and I felt Jesus as I prayed to Him last week … however I didn’t feel Him the nights after … but that means nothing … Jesus does not give us this special connected feeling every time we speak to Him.

When it comes to Mother Teresa I do indeed believe that Jesus was molding her into the Saint that she became … and part of that molding was the dark night of her soul … but what a magnificent Saint she is … only Jesus knows what is best for an individual soul … He gives to each as He sees fit … He is our Father, and although we sometimes don’t like what a Father does because we don’t understand, we always respect and love Him for being our Father … Mother Teresa did just that … she felt the darkness, but she continued to love and respect her Father and what He had asked her to do in this world.

 

[1pppp]

Interesting 2 'c opinions of this spiritual condition. as Pentecostals would understand this diffrently as would Christians who function in the. gifts of the the holy spirit. But she ceretanny was a nice person just like Gandhi.
ifferently.