reading the article about Mother Teresa's spiritual darkness in a recent issue of Time made me think. not about the existence of God, no. not that my faith is something that i've fabricated for myself either, like the triumphant aethists crowing over exerpts from Mother Teresa's letters to her SDs, saying that "now this is proof that God doesn't exist!"

but more about the faith Mother Teresa must have had to press on in spite of not feeling God at all in her life, her great love for Jesus, her Spouse, and what she said to a film-maker who came to look for her in his own search for God when he was in Calcutta.

"Your longing for God is so deep, and yet He keeps Himself away from you.. He must be forcing Himself to do so - because He loves you so much - the personal love Christ has for you is infinite.. The Small difficulty you have regarding His Church is finite. Overcome the finite with the infinite." Mother Teresa writes to film-maker Malcolm Muggeridge in 1970. the idea of God having to force Himself to keep away from us, His lovingly crafted creations and children, touches me more than you'd imagine. here we are, complaining about how "boo-hoo, poor me! i can't feel God in my life, i don't want to believe in Him anymore!" seems almost preposterous now when seen in context of what Mother Teresa says about His love for us. God's love for us must be so much more than our love for Him, so infinite as compared to the finiteness of the concept of love our puny human hearts can contain.

so then, the next question would be why would God want to keep Himself away from us? Mother Teresa found herself tormented by this question for almost the rest of her life after beginning her work in Calcutta, and even when presented with a possible reason as to why God would want to keep Himself away from her, she found it torturous to live in such darkness of the soul. and yet, she kept on. Mother Teresa's spiritual advisor Rev. Joseph Neuner tells her that 'the absence [she felt] was in fact part of the "spiritual side" of her work for Jesus.' how can God's absence in Mother Teresa's life be what He wants of her, it seems is the next logical question that begs for an answer.

what i found so beautiful was that this absence of God was exactly what Jesus felt when He was dying on His cross that fateful day 2000 years ago. "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?", He cries out in His passion. isn't this precisely what Mother Teresa felt? that God had forsaken her, and there she is, imploring and imploring, asking and asking, "Why have You forsaken me?" Mother Teresa told her fellow nuns in her order that she wanted to focus on sharing in the suffering of Jesus, among all the other commendable and imitable aspects of Jesus's short life on earth. when she realised that what she was going through - the spiritual darkness and nihilistic vacuum in her soul - was precisely what she was asking for, she recognised it as a grace, a blessing, and made some sense of her pain. because she had a unique part in Jesus's passion and suffering. this didn't make her life any easier to live as it was, nor did it make the spiritual vacuum any easier to bear. she's constantly described to be in 'torment' and describes the darkness as 'painful', and this makes her continuous trust in God even more amazing, to me.

which revealed one more thing to me: that knowing the reason behind the pain and suffering doesn't negate it or make it any easier to bear. accepting the reasons that explain your suffering will not make the pain disappear or make your yoke any lighter. all those isn't enough, and i know why. it's all in the level of the mind. you know why, you understand why, you accept why, but it's not gonna negate the suffering because your mind won't be able to sustain you. it's never gonna be enough. and even though Mother Teresa couldn't feel God in her life, she knew that He was there somewhere through the darkness and she never stopped placing her trust in Him. sure, she did stumble once or twice, she did question His presence, but ultimately she never stopped believing. and God sustained her, even though she couldn't feel it.

"I accept not in my feelings, but with my will, the Will of God - I accept His will." Mother Teresa said. she couldn't feel God's love, couldn't feel God's presence, and yet she accepted His will for her with her will. isn't that total trust? it makes me ashamed of myself everytime i compain that i can't feel God, and therefore He can't be real in my life. what kind of ludicrous argument is that? our feelings lie all the time; they're powerful and are a layer in our lives that's enmeshed as part of our being, and yet they're not the be-all and end-all.

Mother Teresa's example speaks very very strongly to me about not giving up in 'connecting' to God, in seeking His face, in trying to reach out to Him and feel His love. she couldn't feel it for much of her life, and yet she never stopped trying. it makes me feel a lot less of a hypocrite when i talk about God and yet think that i can't feel him and so what i believe in can't be real. it makes me believe that God IS there regardless of whether i feel Him or not, feel His love or not.

aethists and scholars may be rejoicing over Mother Teresa's letters because to them, it's proof that God doesn't exist. my lit lecturer posted an article about her letters on my module forum and suggested that Mother Teresa is the perfect Conradian heroine - the epitome of using something (in her case, religion and God), to fill up the void and abyss that exists in all humankind. that we are all essentially nothing and the loneliness we feel deep in our souls is cos there is absolutely nothing - nihilism at its best. God isn't real, he's just something we fabricate to fill in the nothing.

but i think that Mother Teresa's letters prove to me without doubt that God exists regardless of what i feel in my heart, and it strengthens my faith much especially these days when my feelings are swirling about in me in horrifying dizzying torrents. she's proof that you don't have to feel God for Him to be real, for Him to work in my life.

it's an amazing testimony that really speaks to me and reaches out to somewhere deep in me. the writer of the Time magazine article, David Van Biema succintly puts it, "if she could carry on for a half-century without God in her head or heart, then perhaps people not quite as saintly can cope with less extreme versions of the same problem." and i am very much heartened.