The Life of a Mystic–Mother Teresa

If you’ve listened to the media reports about this book, you would be led to believe that Mother Teresa was an aetheist, who continued doing good works in God’s name, nonetheless. Yet after picking the book up and actually reading it, nothing could be further from the truth. What this book does do, is give us an even greater insight into the inspiration–the “call within a call,” that Mother Teresa experienced early in her mid-30’s which ultimately led her to leaving a religious community, that ran a private school, to form a new religious community made up of Indian sisters whose mission it would be to serve the poor in a radical fashion.

Who called Mother Teresa?

God.

The voice that would be silent later in her life, (what the media reports), spoke to her over the course of a year. Beginning on September 10th 1946 she began to hear the voice of Jesus giving her explicit directions on forming a community of sisters made up of women from India who He wanted to serve the poor in His name. He named this new community the Missionaries of Charity.

The “voice” of Jesus pleaded with her over and over throughout this year “Come, come, carry Me into the holes of the poor, Come, be My light,” from whence the title of the book comes. One could even say that this book is titled by Jesus Himself.

This mission entrusted to her was deeply related to a vision, one presumes of Jesus on the Cross crying out “I thirst” and the entire spirituality of Mother Teresa is immersed in this event. Recognizing Jesus in the faces of the outcasts (similiar to the crucified Christ) and her union with the crucified Jesus also explains the later absence of feeling and tangible presence of God similar to what Jesus experienced on the cross “My God, my God, why has thou abandoned me.”

Mother Teresa’s later experiences, like many mystics before her, can only be understood by reading the works of those who have written about the Spiritual path, most notably in this country Father Benedict Groeschel in his Spiritual Passages: The Psychology of Spiritual Development (Spiritual Passages, Paper) and his recently released popular presentation Questions and Answers About Your Journey to God, even though both of these books are accessible to Catholics and non-Catholics, some Protestants might find the work of Evelyn Underhill, a Protestant herself, Mysticismmore to their liking.

This book provides a rare peak into the life of a modern saint. From the early supernatural phenomena to the popular acclaim in later life, Come Be My Light can help everyone to be a better follower of Christ.