The Shepherd Voice

My brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,

We were indeed privileged to celebrate last month the birth centenary of two great women saints: St. Alphonsa and Blessed Teresa of Kolkota. One thing they shared in common was that they were both inspired by St. Theresa of Lisieux, also known as the Little Flower, known for her little way of love. In spite of spending her life within the four walls of the cloister, by her life of prayers and suffering she not only became a great saint within a short span of 24 years but also Patroness of the Missions.

St. Alphonsa’s life was a life of suffering. She lost her mother at a young age and was looked after by her maternal aunt. Alphonsa wanted to become a nun and a saint but her aunt’s plan was to get her married. To thwart this plan Alphonsa wanted to disfigure herself by stepping into fire but accidentally she fell into it and got badly disfigured. As a result her aunt gave up the idea of settling Alphonsa in marriage.

At the age of seventeen she joined the Clarist Congregation and the following year received the postulant’s veil. At twenty she received her religious habit and the following year she started her novitiate and took her perpetual vows at the age of twenty-six. Thereafter she began to teach but owing to her sickness was often unable to fulfill her responsibility as teacher. But God had his own plan to make her a saint and he did that through suffering.

She suffered a great deal though on occasions she got miraculously healed. When her superiors requested her to pray for permanent relief from suffering, her response was “I am ready to suffer not only this but anything. The modern world has sunk to the lowest depths in the pursuit of pleasure. Let the Lord do with me as he will, trampling over, wounding or piercing me, a humble sacrificial offering for the sake of a world that is on its way to ruin and for the priests and religious who are growing less fervent in their life”. She died in 1946 at the age of thirty-five.

Pope Benedict XVI said “This exceptional woman was convinced that her cross was the very means of reaching the heavenly banquet prepared for her by the Father”. On the occasion of her canonization in 2008, he said that St. Alphonsa’s life was one of “extreme physical and spiritual suffering”. “By accepting the invitation to the Wedding Feast, and by adorning herself with the garment of God’s grace through prayer and penance, she conformed her life to Christ’s and now delighted in the ‘rich fare and choice wines’ of the heavenly kingdom.

Her heroic virtues of patience, fortitude and perseverance in the midst of deep suffering remind us that God always provides the strength we need to overcome every trial. God does choose some for the apostolate of suffering. Jesus suffered not for his sins – he had none – he suffered for the sins of humankind. So too as his disciples, we too share in his sufferings, some times not just for our sins but also for the sins of others. It is this understanding that enables people to suffer with joy and with a smile on their face no matter how excruciating their suffering is and become a source of blessing for others.

Blessed Teresa of Kolkota also had to suffer but her suffering was of another kind. It was interior suffering that enabled her to share in the abandonment that Jesus must have experienced when he cried to his Father and asked “Why have you abandoned me?” and the poorest of the poor feel when they are discarded, unloved, feel uncared for and unwanted.

This “terrible darkness” was not just for some days. It lasted for decades. In one of her letters to her spiritual director she wrote: “Now Father, this untold darkness since 49 or 50, this terrible sense of loss, this loneliness, this continual longing for God which gives me that pain deep down in my heart. Darkness is such that I do not really see, neither with my mind nor with my reason. The place of God in my soul is blank. There is no God in me. When the pain of longing is so great I just long and long for God and then it is that I feel He does not want me. He is not there. God does not want me. Some times I just hear my own heart cry out, “My God” and nothing else comes. “The torture and pain I can’t explain”.

Blessed Teresa of Kolkota kept these mystical experiences from those who were very close to her except her spiritual directors from whom she sought guidance. She made several attempts to get back what she had written to them but they knew that those letters of hers contained her profound spirituality and mystical experiences. She even wanted her letters to be burnt. But then how would her sisters know that her work had its roots in the mystery of Jesus’ mission.

Her description makes it clear that most of the time she was not enjoying light and consolation of God’s sensible presence but rather striving to live by faith, surrendering with love and confidence to God’s good pleasure. She had so progressed in that love that she could rise above the fear of suffering, embrace it even before it came, and live in Jesus’ love.

Interior darkness is not something new in the Catholic Church. St. John of the cross called it “dark night” of the soul. It designated the painful purifications one undergoes before reaching union with God. Their first phase is known as the “night of the senses when one is freed from attachments to sensory satisfactions and drawn into the prayer of contemplation”. While God communicates his love and light, because of its imperfection the soul is not capable of receiving these gifts and experiences them as darkness, pain, dryness and emptiness. Although the absence of God is only apparent, it is a great suffering.

But it does not result in mediocrity or laziness. Nay, one continues to fulfill his duties faithfully and generously, without discouragement, self-concern or emotional disturbance. Consolation is not experienced but there is a notable longing for God and an increase of love, humility, patience and other virtues.

The second phase of this purification is known as the night of the spirit during which one is prayed from the deepest roots of ones imperfections. This is a state of extreme aridity and a feeling of rejection by God. The experience can be so profound that one may feel as if one is heading for eternal damnation. It is even more painful because one wants only God and loves him internally but is unable to recognize one’s love for him. It tests severely the virtues of faith, hope and charity. Prayers become difficult, almost impossible. By this painful purification the disciple is led to total detachment from all created things and a lofty degree of union with God and becomes a fit instrument to serve him selflessly.

The result of Blessed Teresa’s interior suffering was the flourishing of her congregation. On her face there was always that radiant and charming smile which expressed joy. While the number of vocations in other congregations was dwindling, her novitiates were full to capacity. The number of congregations with her charism to serve the poorest of the poor, active or contemplative, for men or women grew in number. So too the number of her lay collaborators cutting across all religions and round the world steadily increased together with the centres for the poorest of the poor in their various forms multiplied round the world.

Blessed Teresa was always deeply aware that she was doing God’s work and that he would provide the means for it. She was only His instrument. She trusted him totally and her trust never failed.

The institutions for the orphans and the variously challenged people, for the aged and the destitutes, for HIV/AIDS patients and drug addicts, for leprosy and TB patients spread round the globe not only providing physical relief but love and compassion so that they could all get a sense of belonging and live or die in dignity.

The example of our two great women saints demonstrate for us the power of suffering, in whatever form it comes, for our own purification and sanctification and for the service of others. May it inspire us to be fitting instruments in his hands for his greater glory in all our apostolates.

With warm regards and God bless,

Yours sincerely in Christ,

+Vincent M. Concessao
Archbishop of Delhi
22.7.2010