Product Description

During her lifelong service to the poorest of the poor, Mother Teresa became an icon of compassion to people of all religions, and none. Her selfless commitment to the care of the sick and the dying, as well as to thousands of others who no one else was prepared to help, has been recognised and acclaimed throughout the world. Yet this impressive collection of her writings shows a different and unexpected picture of the Nobel Peace Prize winner. Her absolute conviction that she was doing God's will is well known but what is a revelation is the discovery that she fulfilled her mission in spite of feeling a chasm of spiritual emptiness within her, which lasted for decades. This book is a moving chronicle of her spiritual journey and it reveals the secrets she shared only with her closest confidants. It also illustrates how the experience of an agonizing sense of loss need not hold anyone back from doing something extraordinary with their lives.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #97230 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

About the Author
Born in Skopje in 1910, Mother Teresa joined the Sisters of Loreto in Dublin in 1928 and was sent to India, where she began her novitiate. She taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta from 1931 to 1948, until leaving the Loreto order to begin the Missionaries of Charity. Through her sisters, brothers and priests, her service to the poorest of the poor spread all around the world. She won many awards, including the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. After her death in 1997, the process for her sainthood was quickly begun and she was beatified in 2003. Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C., Ph.D., was born in Winnipeg, Canada. He met Mother Teresa in 1977 and was associated with her until her death in 1997. He joined the Missionaries of Charity Fathers at the time of their foundation in 1984. Fr. Brian is postulator of the Cause of Beatification and Canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and director of the Mother Teresa Center.

Excerpted from Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The revealing private writings of the Nobel Peace Prize winner by Mother Teresa, Brian Kolodiejchuk. Copyright © 2008. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
"Put your hand in His [Jesus'] hand, and walk alone with Him. Walk ahead, because if you look back you will go back." These parting words from her mother were engraved on the heart of eighteen-year-old Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu, the future Mother Teresa, as she left her home in Skopje to commence her life as a missionary. On September 26, 1928, she journeyed to Ireland to join the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (the Loreto Sisters), a noncloistered congregation of women religious primarily dedicated to education. She had applied to go to the missions in
Bengal. Such a venture demanded abundant faith and courage, for she and her family knew well that "at that time, when missionaries went to the missions, they
never returned."

Young though she was, Gonxha had taken six years to decide on her vocation. She had been raised in a family that fostered piety and devotion, and in a fervent parish community that also contributed to her religious upbringing. In this setting, Mother Teresa would later reveal, she first felt called to consecrate her life to God:

"I was only twelve years old then. It was then that I first knew I had a vocation to the poor, in 1922. I wanted to be a missionary, I wanted to go out and give the life of Christ to the people in the missionary countries. At the beginning, between twelve and eighteen I didn't want to become a nun. We were a very happy family. But when I was eighteen, I decided to leave my home and become a nun, and since then, this forty years, I've never doubted even for a second that I've done the right thing; it was the will of God. It was His choice."

Thus her decision was not a whim of her youthful years but rather a considered choice, the fruit of her profound relationship with Jesus. Many years later she would disclose, "From childhood the Heart of Jesus has been my first love." She made her determination clear in the application letter to the superior of the Loreto nuns:

"Reverend Mother Superior,
Be so kind to hear my sincere desire. I want to join your Society, so that one day I may become a missionary sister, and work for Jesus who died for us all. I have completed the fifth class of high school; of languages I know Albanian, which is my mother tongue and Serbian, I know a little French, English I do not know at all, but I hope in the good God that He will help me to learn the little I need and so I am beginning immediately these [days] to practice it.
I don't have any special conditions, I only want to be in the missions, and for everything else I surrender myself completely to the good God's disposal."
In Skoplje, 28-vi-1928.
Gonda Bojadijevic

An exceptional grace she had received on the day of her first Holy Communion had fueled her desire to take this daring step into the unknown: "From the age of 51/2 years,--when first I received Him [Jesus]--the love for souls has been within--It grew with the years--until I came to India--with the hope of saving many souls."
Sailing across the Mediterranean Sea, the zealous young missionary wrote to her loved ones at home: "Pray for your missionary, that Jesus may help her to save as many immortal souls as possible from the darkness of unbelief." Her hope to bring light to those in darkness would be fulfilled, but in a way she could not have anticipated as she traveled to her chosen mission land.

Customer Reviews

Her Interior Journey
Father Kolodiejchuk is the current Director of the Mother Teresa Center, the Postulator for her canonization and the editor of this book. During the course of his work he has had cause to collect all the information he can on Mother Teresa. This includes decades of letters she had written to her confessors. He has done an excellent job of compiling and editing this book, which has the approval of the Vatican. It lets us look at her inner feelings and conflicts as she walked the path that God called her too. It is interesting to note that she had requested that all these letters be destroyed upon her death.

The book shows how she was called by Jesus to start up her great work that we are all now familiar with, the Missionaries of Charity. While with the Sisters of Loreto she had communion with Jesus and heard his call. She answered it and eventually, with strong faith, received permission to go out and live and serve the poor with great compassion.

We see through her letters that as she moves down the path God chose for her she starts to find that she can no longer communicate with Jesus. And the more successful her ministry becomes, the darker the night becomes. She was living in a spiritual darkness were she felt a total absence of God. This Dark Night of the soul has been well documented and experienced by Saint John of the Cross. Many throughout the ages have felt this feeling of the complete absence of God as one progress through their spiritual path. But most, though some have lived in this state of darkness for many years, had eventually recovered.

Blessed Mother Teresa's Dark Night though is the longest in recorded history. By her own account it appears to have lasted almost five decades of her life with the Missionaries of Charity. Her letters reveal the depth of her loss and suffering. Like all who experience this Dark Night she could not feel God's presence at all. Everybody at one time or another experiences some doubt, but this darkness take sone deeper then just doubt.

How much pain do you feel when you believe that your God has abandoned you. Yet it is in the darkness were Jesus brings us the closes to Him. It is through strong faith in Jesus and love that one moves forward. For though we feel He may not be present, He is always with us. Mother Teresa's faith and love for Jesus was so strong that she was able to keep her commitment to Christ as she learned that His love for her was infinite. Her letters show us a life of true faith as she still prayed to get closer to Jesus. And as she learns to accept His love without experiencing it she continued to walk the path chosen for her and embraced the darkness.

This book takes you on an interior journey of sacrifice, dedication and love. The book is inspirational. It also shows us that everyone needs to have access to a spiritual director. This is a book you will want to keep in your collection. You will read it more then once.

Simply Beautiful!
Simply the most beautiful book I have ever read. Mother Teresa's letters reveal not only a profound spirituality, an unwavering devotion to Christ and the missionary life, and a true Christian humility of the highest order, but they also present a portrait of the fullness of the Christian life, a living faith. They show Mother Teresa to be a repository of Christ's love, a vessel through which his love was brought to the poor of the world, and an example to the world of the full meaning of the Christian life.

As St. Faustina taught us about the fullness of God's Mercy, Blessed Mother Teresa taught us about his fullness of his Love.

"Mother Teresa:Come Be My Light"
Revelations about an amazing woman. Not a biography, but hundreds of letters (which she had asked to be destroyed). They are mostly written to her confidants, confessors, priests and her Archbishop. The revelation is about her inner desolation throughout her life; her courage and blind faith - for she received no consolation from the time she set about following what she was sure were God's wishes in founding her homes for the dying and destitute. Despite enormous success and her sisters spreading throughout the world, she received no joy but shared the loneliness of Jesus at the end of his life.