If someone makes a fuss over you it must be very, very difficult indeed not to have at least a very little itsy bit stick.. and an itsy bitsy bit would be all that it takes. Now imagine if tens of thousands, even millions of people are admiring you? I suppose that is why people like film stars and politicians can be so insufferable.
I suppose Mother Theresa saw enough miracles and enough of God to know what's real and what's nonsense. For her, I imagine there was no going back.
Mother Teresa . The one thing that comes across in really, really intense darkness and suffering. Of course in terms of mystical theology of course we talk of the dark night of the soul. But there there are two dark nights. The dark night of personal salvific suffering. Gettjng your own personal pot cleaned. Then the dark night of redemptive , getting everyone else cleaned as you lie on the Cross with Christ.
A good modern example of the two was St Teresa of the Andes. She would I would Say as her Prioress in Carmel knew a saint before she even entered Carmel when she left school. She had already been through the dark night of the soul. How is this possible that a schoolgirl should have moved so far forward so fast? Who knows? Ask God. But she did. After that in Carmel her darkness was purely for others. The second dark night.
I don't know how it all works, but there is this quote from Mother Theresa which tells me a lot. "Do small things with great love." I think because she was faithful in the little things, God gave her more. I also bet she never complained much about her second dark night, keeping her eyes on Jesus.
Anyway back to the book. The bast way to start any non fictional book is to scan and understand the index . This gives you a basic understanding of what the author is going to say , in general terms before he says it. You know where he is coming from / Then from this you can see if he has anything new to say. I have read many , many ,many books on this subject matter ,I don't know..maybe forty fifty or more from really very,very good authors in the last few centuries, not a few of them saints. So...it can be hard to expect anything new... I understand from having a glance at it that it is basically based on the tradition of St Teresa of Avila which has seven levels of spiritual /prayer growth. So we shall see..but it is hard being so well read in the subject matter to expect anything new.
I have a picture on my wall. When Mother Teresa visited my home city she stayed in a convent near here. When the Mother Superior went to the chapel the next morning Mother Teresa was sleeping in front of the altar were she had spent the night. But she said to the nun in charge, pointing at this painting which I have of the burial of Christ, This painting is very,very special. I must take a picture of it.This is the same one Mother Teresa talked about.
This is the present my father gave my mother when they were engaged , it hangs behind me on the wall, my dearest possession .
Title: Transport of Christ to the tomb Date: 1864-1870 Artist: Ciseri, Antonio, 1821-1891 https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55116 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Ciseri I can't find much about him. The painting posted appears to be one of two of his masterpieces. More of his works are displayed on Wikipedia.
The Cross, The Cross, The Cross, Written on all Christian Hearts in letters of Gold. Never,ever far from our every thought. For as we die with Him. so shall we live with Him. May my feet, dear Lord, never stray in my thoughts and prayers, never wander far from the foot of thy dear Cross!
I must say its not easy to find a good Catholic book to read these days. I used to read TAN books all the time years ago. I must see if they do them online.
The first Chapter of the book is entitled, 'Everything is Gift'. In which the Father gives a reminder that as Vatican 2 indicated the path to sanctity, the prayer path is for everyone not just the few. That it is possible for everyone to become a saint. A welcome rmeinder. But I would nuance this by saying that God is best thought of as a Father or a King rather than as a President of Chairman of the Board. We talk of the Kingdom of Heaven rather than the State of Heaven. There is a reason for this in that God is Master in His own House and does exactly as pleases Himself. His thoughts are not our thoughts and since He is very great and we are very,very little. Which is why we speak of Mystery; the best definition of Catholic Mysticism I have ever read is, 'The exploration of the Mystery of Christ'. To which I might add that it is the lived exploration of Christ. Modern Catholics tend to think of the Spiritual Path in terms of equality and democracy or in terms of, 'We've got it coming to us'. But this is very,very deceptive. Heaven is not a Social Welfare State, nor does it treat everyone as equal; nor should it for not every soul was or is created equal not do they or should they remain so. To see this we have only to look at the nine choirs of angels. Each choir ascending in progression to the Throne of God. Each choir supremely different and each higher and lower than the other. God did not create the angels equal. Why should He? Similiarly each of us was created to fill the place of a Demon , once an angel in heaven who fell from their Throne. So each of us is destined to go to a particular choir of angels. Some higher and some lower. That is the degree of holiness we are called to fulfill. \Each of us has a particular cup of holiness to fill to the brim but this cup is bigger for some and smaller for others. It is in the nature of how God created us and what He calls us to be. St Therese of Liseaux describes this best of all. https://www.littleflower.org/prayers/pearls-of-wisdom/st-thereses-wisdom-garden-of-souls/ St. Therese’s Wisdom: Garden of Souls Taken from “Pearls of Wisdom” by M. Susan Lautenbach Jesus has been gracious enough to teach me a lesson about the mystery of the differences in souls, simply by holding up to my eyes, the book of nature. I understood how all the flowers God created are beautiful- how the splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not take away from the perfume of the violet or the simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wildflower. And so it is in the world of souls… Jesus’ garden. He willed to create great souls comparable to lilies and roses, but he created small ones as well… and theses must be content to be daisies or violets destined to give joy to God’s glances, when he looks down at His feet. Perfection consists in doing God’s will… in being what He would have us be. -St. Therese of Lisieux
I mention this because it is so counter cultural in the West and, I am afraid in the Modern Church. In the modern Church everyone is equal and everyone is on the road to heaven, Islam, Jew, Catholic Protestant, Communist, atheist, trans, Homosexual, whatever. Everyone is well meaning ,everyone is to be valued the same, everyone has a good heart and means well and so on. So there is no hell, God would never have it so. There is no sin , there are just bad choices. All of us are basically on the same page though some of make batter choices than others and so on and on and on. So we look at the Kingdom of God just as we look at the wider world. We see and judge the things of God as people of this World and not of the World to come. 1 Corinthians 2 1 When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. [1] 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power. 6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" [2] -- 10 but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. [3] 14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: 16 "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" [4] But we have the mind of Christ.
