Emptiness and Doubt

I ventured out of my blog hermitage yesterday afternoon to find much discussion on the spiritual suffering of the Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa).

It reminded me of something I had written awhile ago. The words are mine but I do not claim credit. The inspiration, and the meaning between the words, comes from elsewhere.

As flowing water falls to seek the lowest point,
     it gives all its energy away until none remains,
     and then returns to its source to fall again.
What does the water gain from this falling?
What does life gain?

It seems many people were surprised to learn of her spiritual emptiness and dryness. It just goes to show you that we all take different paths. (And that you shouldn’t read too much of pop religious material. It is just candy, nothing too deep.)

The opportunity to love is the reward for loving. Loving is its own reward. We just don’t see this very well on this side of heaven. Giving goes with receiving. And Bl. Teresa gave almost everything she received spiritually and everything materially. It follows that she would feel empty. She held nothing for herself.

There was also much discussion about her doubt. Again, I am not too surprised. She was after all, human. Doubt is a cold-hearted fact of the spiritual journey. Although that person sitting next to you in church looks confident in their faith, they have had to struggle with doubt as much as you, maybe even more. Ask them? Everyone must face doubt, but not alone. Jesus is right there with us in our doubt, whether we know it or not. From a post the other day:

On the thin border
between faith and doubt walks Christ,
calling all to trust.

Jesus calls for a total and complete trust. A total and complete giving over to Him. A total and complete emptying of oneself of dependence on things of this world, even dependence on oneself, so that one can depend totally and completely on God. If that does not involve doubt—doubt in what is not seen, doubt with oneself—then it is not faith; it is something else. “Narrow is the gate…”

Bl. Teresa is an example for me in answering a question anyone serious about their spiritual journey must face: Do I love God for His consolations? Or do I love God for God’s sake? Do I want to be with God because of what He can give me, or do I want to be with God just because? Although she may have wished for the consolations, Bl. Teresa has shown everyone that she would rather love God (and others) for God’s sake.

A commenter on another weblog noted that sometime ago before this recent round on Bl. Teresa’s suffering, Fr. Cantalamessa, the preacher to the pope, outlined three purposes for her suffering: to provide the humility necessary to inoculate her against the fame and praise the world would shower upon her; to enable her to experience the isolation and desolation of the sick and rejected she ministered to; and as a special gift, a share in the Lord’s spiritual suffering during His passion.

Whether we are married or not, we all sleep spiritually alone until the Wedding Banguet in heaven.

FYI — This Wednesday, September 5th, is Blessed Teresa’s annual memorial day.

Thank you Father for the timing of this. Although I am no where near the levels that your Blessed Teresa experienced, this has helped to put a handle to some of my own experience with dryness and doubt. Thank you for reminding me to remember that it is You I seek, not your consolations. The opportunity to love, to give, is my reward. From You, in You, through You, all is gift. You are in my emptiness. You are in my doubt. Even if I do not see You, You are there. I love You.

The Body of Christ

The term Body of Christ means three things: 1) the actual physical body of Jesus; 2) the Church (with a capital “C”) because we as individual persons are church, parts of the Body, branches on the Vine; and 3) the Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament. (Note: Some believers have issues with the third one. There is a plausible explanation below.)

God seeks us. He wants to have an I-You relationship (or I-Thou if you wish to be more formal). That means person-to-person, subject-to-subject, not subject-to-object. Objects are used and manipulated. Persons are in relation with each other, to communicate, to commune, to love, to be together. God will not—cannot—ever be an object. Unfortunately we often treat Him as an object for our own benefit and desires. We try to cajole and manipulate God into doing things for us like we cajole and manipulate other people. We do not seek relationship, union, community. We use. We manipulate. We are selfish. If we do not even treat other people as persons most of the time, how can we treat God as a person?

Some have described the humiliation that God must have endured to lower Himself to become a mere creature—to be born, to live, and to die as a human. Ah! The mystery of the Incarnation. But there is even more humility hidden within this one act. God not only risked becoming human, He also risked becoming an object. In becoming human, He not only bridged the gap between humanity and God to bring home His lost children, but He also showed us how to be fully human. Also in becoming human, God risked the objectification of His person, of becoming an object that could be manipulated and used, idolized or discarded. By risking to become an object to us, God is another bridge for us to rise above the slavery of subject-object, the I-It way of seeing life, to the freedom of the subject-subject relationship, the I-You of union and community.

There is no love or mutual respect in I-It. This is control, judgment, labeling, which leads to pride. (The Biblical term is slavery.) Only in I-You is there love and mutual respect, and the paradox of union and liberation.

So, in the term Body of Christ, I can recognize the person of Jesus in His actual body. I can recognize the person in other people (when I open my heart). Can I recognize the person in the Eucharist? Do I see the Eucharist as an object, some “thing” to be used for consumption? How do I see this little thin waffer of bread as the Bread of Life, as the person of Jesus, as God? How can I rise above the I-It-ness of this object and recognize the I-You-ness of Jesus?

No wonder so many of Jesus’ followers left Him as described near the end of John 6. No wonder some believers still have issues with the Eucharist today. It is hard enough to believe God came in the Incarnation as a mere creature, but it is even harder to believe God is in what appears to be an object. And neither, man or object, can be made an idol.

When I attempt to contemplate the I-You-ness of the Eucharist, I enter into silence. I am speechless, thoughtless. My thoughts and words fade as the objects they are, gently blown away in the sweet breathe of the Holy Spirit. Part of my mind wants to hold onto those thoughts, but mind only deals in objects. You are above that. And I am in silence.

As the sounds and thoughts return, I see kenosis connecting all three connotations of the Body of Christ. You gave Your life for me. I am called to give my life to others. I see the pattern of the Trinity in this. And in the Eucharist, You once again give yourself to me. You are the gift given to me so that I may give to others. You are the energy for me in this giving like the Holy Spirit is often described as the personification of the love between the Father and the Son. I am to risk being object too for others to manipulate and use, to idolize or discard, in the hopes of raising them above the I-It-ness of this world to the I-You-ness of your Reality.

My Lord and my God, Jesus Christ, purify my heart so that I may see You, so that I may see You in others, and that others may see You in me. Help me to see You in the Body of Christ, within your Church, within your Eucharist. Lead me into proper relationship with all people and all things.

Gossip

Gossip is a community killer. It is a cancer. It separates, isolates, and destroys a person. It literally kills something inside, not only for the victim, but those who spread the gossip. In the victim, it kills self-esteem and spreads to other things. In the gossiper, it kills compassion and love, and then spreads to elsewhere. It blackens everyone’s hearts.

It was gossip about God by the snake in the garden that lead Adam and Eve to separation from God and from each other. It literally lead to death for them and for us. Gossip is one of the most subtle and insidious form of pride.

Gorging on Emotions

I don’t remember where I read it, but this one line has been stuck in my mind for the last few weeks. It was something along the lines of “gorging on emotions.” The idea of feeding upon my emotions is bothersome. It sounds self-cannibalistic. It sounds down right stupid (a word I use sparingly). I dislike the connotation of unhealthiness and its allusion to gluttony. But as I reflect on my certain moods, this line has a ring of truth. There are at times this reinforcing cycle of emotions and mood. Why do I feed on my emotions? And what or who do my emotions feed?

On one level, this reminds me of how C.S. Lewis describes the devils in The Screwtape Letters. They are ravenous creatures who seek out souls (and other weaker devils) to consume in order to attempt to satisfy temporarily the pangs of emptiness within. Do I gorge myself, or even politely dine at times, on my emotions just to fill some emptiness within?

On another level, this “gorging on emotions” reminds me of how I can easily distract and entertain myself with my own thoughts. Do I dwell and walk among my emotions just to entertain myself? Is it out of boredom? If it is for distraction, what am I distracting myself from?

Is it a matter of my emotions controlling me, or me controlling my emotions? Is this analogous to my thoughts controlling me or controlling my thoughts?

I don’t think it is about control, but of remembering which contains the other. Am I my emotions, or are my emotions a part of me? Am I my thinking, or is my thinking a part of me? I sometimes forget, in certain moods more often than others, that my thoughts and emotions are a part of me. They are not who I am. This seems especially hard to recognize with emotions because they are so closely connected to mood and attitude, and even thoughts.

I am made in the image of God, and God is not thoughts and emotions, therefore I am not thoughts and emotions. They are part of being human, gifts of being.

Just because I may feel sad does not mean that I am sad, that is, my being is sadness. The English language attempts to equate the two, my I-am-ness with sadness. To say that I am sadness contradicts and negates all the joy and happiness in my life, both now and in the past and future. The feelings of sadness are in the forefront of my attention, displacing but not eliminating the feelings of happiness.

Enough with semantics. What or who do my emotions feed? What or who benefits from this gorging? Where is the pay off (reinforcement)? It is the very thing I just described—my false self (as Thomas Merton would say), the egoic little me (as Eckhart Tolle would say). The false self—the preoccupation, attachment, and over-identification of self as my thoughts and emotions—is really an empty entity. It needs something to make itself feel real and important, and what better is there than emotions and “feelings”? The false self distorts the purpose of emotions as a part of being human into something else, into something to consume and temporarily fill the emptiness and nothingness of itself.

On the thin border
between faith and doubt walks Christ,
calling all to trust.

Only in Christ can one have complete and total trust. This means that I should not even place trust within myself, that is, my false egoic little me. Only Christ can feed. Only He can fill the emptiness within. My doubt lies not in Christ, but in letting go of myself, to let go of something that “feels” real but is really no-thing, and reach for Reality Himself.

Oh to dare to trust.

Tarnish Remover

From Br. Joseph (Aug. 28, 2007) —

A few years ago, a priest gave a wonderful little homily on tarnish. You know about tarnish, that stuff that builds up and covers the shine of metal objects like gold, silver, brass and such. One summer, the sister in charge of the summer work-grant students had noticed how tarnished the beautiful, antique brass Tabernacle had become in the student chapel. She put several students to work on it. It took a lot of hard work and several days of polishing. After they were done, the Tabernacle shone bright like a beacon on a hill, just like it should for a king. (And it still does!)

In Father’s homily, he made note of this, and compared it to people. People throw a lot of tarnish around on other people. There are many, many ways we do this to each other. Sometimes we are ignorant of the tarnish we glob onto others; sometimes we do it on purpose. Either way, we are to blame. We add to the tarnish, to the dulling of the shine on the tabernacles of other hearts. The shine is always there, but we help cover up that shine, the shine of love, and it becomes harder for them to open up and to reach out to others.

Father also noted some people are tarnish removers, that is, they notice and help try to remove the tarnish and “stuff” that has built up over the weeks, months, years. They also try to help prevent more tarnish from being added. (Note: the Sacrament of Reconciliation does a much, much better job of removing tarnish!)

So, the choice is yours—add more tarnish, or be tarnish remover.

Keep hope alive. Dare to trust. Reflect love in all things. Be tarnish remover.

Our Lady of Mercy, pray for us…

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