News Flash! Christians Walk By Faith Not By Sight

Time Magazine has *breathlessly* released a review of a new book on the "true spiritual condition" of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The news is this: She didn't "feel" the presence of God in her life, and sometimes had doubts, but plugged along in obedience to Christ! For most Catholics and many non-Catholic Christians this comes as no surprise and is well-known as the Dark Night of the Soul described by believers such as King David, Elijah, Jonah, St. John of the Cross and many others. Does it invalidate her testimony? Does it validate Christopher Hitchen's critical writing about her? Nah. I don't think so.

When I had my conversion experience as a 14 year old, I must admit for about one year afterward, I had quite an emotional rush. I do also distinctly remember when the "rush" left. It was sophomore year in high school-1974, I was in the commons area chatting with my girlfriend. I told her I didn't feel Jesus like I had previously, but had no doubts that He was with me. I remember that little tract with the tooty toot train that had Faith as the engine, Fact as the middle car, and Feeling as the Caboose. You had to be lead by faith, not feelings. It was a simple construct but certainly consistent with Christian belief and practice.Ironically, I experienced my conversion in a charismatic type of group but was probably the least emotive person I knew. Just the way God made me I suppose, a little less serotonin than average, leaving me enough angst to always drive me to Him! Well it turns out that many saints from biblical to modern times have wrestled with the lack of an emotional sense of God's presence. Mother Teresa had this persistent dark, dry lack of pious feelings towards God for most of her ministry of more than 40 years! Yet she, kept on trudging along seeing God in the poor but not in herself, never feeling his emotional consolations, but inspiring thousands to walk with Christ. A British agnostic, Malcolm Muggeridge converted to Catholicism after he finished his biography of her as a result of her life and spirituality.

So we press on, by faith. We go to Mass daily, and we pray. We offer up the suffering of our sad hearts for the salvation of souls. We receive Christ in the Eucharist, by faith. We receive absolution of our sins by Christ through the priest, through faith. We walk by faith not by sight.

St. John of the Cross, pray for us that the dark nights we experience will only lead us closer to Jesus.

Mother Theresa, intercede for us that we won't grow weary in well-doing despite a lack of consolations.

Lord Jesus, we offer up to you the sadness in our hearts, our pain, our emptiness, our lonely longing, and all our anxiety. Take them uniting them to your suffering for the sake of the body of Christ as you see fit. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Amen