Hi Guys,
I just wanted to quickly share this with you. Last night at dinner we had two guest priests from the Missionaries of Charity. One of them was the superior general of the order, Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk - a very kind and humble man. He began the order of the Missionary of Charity Fathers under Mother Teresa's direction 25 years ago and was in Rome celebrating their 25th anniversary on Oct. 13 at St. Peters. So we were so blessed to have them both visit.
Upon Mother Teresa's death, all her writings were released to two of her sisters and to Rev. Kolodiejchuk. They were charged with the duty of sorting through everything, (about 33,000 pages in all!) and it was Rev. Kolodiejchuk who complied and wrote the book that revealed the inner life of Mother Teresa - her agony of darkness. It was also his decision to release the information to the world.
He gave such a remarkable account of Mother Teresa - her incredible strength. He said that what she did in one lifetime was not humanly possible - it was entirely the work of God acting through her. At her death she had over 4,000 nuns in her care and 500 houses around the world.
But her inner struggle was most fascinating. It was not a loss of faith - on the contrary, her faith was rock solid. It was rather the pain of the lover longing for their beloved. She had no sense of consolation or presence of Christ and the sensed loss of him was excruciating to her. She totally accepted it and knew that it made her a victim, like Christ and like the poor that she served. She felt the desolation and loneliness of the poor, and for that reason she was able to serve them not from a position of authority, but truly as one of them.
The book written by Rev. Kolodiejchuk is called Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday), consisting primarily of correspondence between Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a period of 66 years!
