Mother Teresa: A saint despite spiritual 'darkness'

August 31, 2016

Vatican City, Aug 31: When Pope Francis canonizes Mother Teresa on Sunday, he'll be honoring a nun who won admirers around the world and a Nobel Peace Prize for her joy-filled dedication to the "poorest of the poor."image

He'll also be recognising holiness in a woman who felt so abandoned by God that she was unable to pray and was convinced, despite her ever-present smile, that she was experiencing the "tortures of hell."

For nearly 50 years, Mother Teresa endured what the church calls a "dark night of the soul" a period of spiritual doubt, despair and loneliness that many of the great mystics experienced, her namesake St. Therese of Lisieux included. In Mother Teresa's case, the dark night lasted most of her adult life, an almost unheard of trial.

No one but Mother Teresa's spiritual directors and bishop knew of her spiritual agony until her correspondence came to light during her beatification cause. The letters were then made available to the general public in a 2007 book, "Come Be My Light."

For the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, the Canadian priest who published the letters and spearheaded Mother Teresa's saint- making campaign, the revelations were further confirmation of Mother Teresa's heroic saintliness. He said that by canonizing her, Francis is recognising that Mother Teresa not only shared the material poverty of the poor but the spiritual poverty of those who feel "unloved, unwanted, uncared for."

"That was her experience in her relationship with Jesus," Kolodiejchuk said in an interview. "She understood very well when people would share their horror stories, their pain and suffering of being unloved, lonely. She would be able to share that empathy because she herself was experiencing it."

Tens of thousands of people are expected for the canonization ceremony Sunday for the tiny, stooped nun who was fast-tracked for sainthood just a year after she died in 1997.

St. John Paul II, who was Mother Teresa's greatest champion, beatified her before a crowd of 300,000 in St. Peter's Square in 2003.

Francis has made the canonization the high point of his Jubilee of Mercy, a yearlong emphasis on the church's merciful side. Francis has an obvious interest in highlighting Mother Teresa's mercy-filled service to outcasts on the periphery, given that her life's work exemplifies the priorities of his own pontificate.

But Francis is also sending a more subtle message to the faithful through the canonization of the ethnic Albanian nun: That saints can be imperfect they can suffer as Mother Teresa did and even feel unloved by God, said Ines Angeli Murzaku, a professor of church history at Seton Hall University in New Jersey and herself a native Albanian.
"That existential periphery which is suffering and being marginalized, he wants to bring that to the attention of the world," she said in a telephone interview. Mother Teresa "is so real. She's not remote. She's not a perfect, perfect saint."

That said, her blind faith in enduring the "darkness," as she called it, and persevering through it seems almost superhuman to outsiders.

Take the Feb. 28, 1957 letter she wrote the then- archbishop of Kolkata, Jesuit Archbishop Ferdinand Perier.

"There is so much contradiction in my soul. Such deep longing for God, so deep that it is painful, a suffering continual, and yet not wanted by God, repulsed, empty, no faith, no love no zeal," she wrote. "Souls hold no attraction. Heaven means nothing, to me it looks like an empty place. The thought of it means nothing to me and yet this torturing longing for God."

"Pray for me please that I keep smiling at him in spite of everything."
In another letter, she acknowledged that her smile was "a big cloak which covers a multitude of pains."

Revelations that the smile was a mask to inner doubts about God's presence fueled criticism of Mother Teresa spearheaded most famously by the late Christopher Hitchens that the Balkan nun was something of a fraud.

Kolodiejchuk, though, says she was no hypocrite. He said that the smile was a genuine and heroic attempt to hide her private sufferings, even from God, and prevent others from suffering more.

"You can be joyful even if you're suffering because you are accepting, and you are working and acting with love that gives meaning to the suffering," he said in the courtyard of one of the Missionaries of Charity houses on the periphery of Rome.

The revelations nevertheless shocked even Mother Teresa's closest confidants and friends, the original sisters who joined her Missionaries of Charity after she was inspired to found the order in 1946. Kolodiejchuk said several sisters wept when he first read them her letters after he acquired them in 1998 from the archives of the Jesuits and archbishop in Kolkata.

Sister Prema, the current superior general of the Missionaries of Charity, recalled being in awe of the revelation and not being able even today to fully understand the depth of Mother Teresa's pain.

Kolodiejchuk, the postulator for the cause, says that in retrospect, Mother Teresa's "darkness" was actually a critical part of her vocation, kept hidden from the world that only saw a firm but loving mother superior who was the first in the chapel each morning and often worked herself to exhaustion at night tending to society's most unloved.

"We assumed at least she was enjoying this wonderful consoling union and love from Jesus," he said. "But we discover, no it's even the opposite. For me, this darkness is the single most heroic aspect of her life."

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Agencies
June 18,2020

New Delhi, Jun 18: Vodafone Idea on Thursday told the Supreme Court that it has incurred Rs 1 lakh crore losses as it insisted it is not in a position to furnish bank guarantees.

A bench comprising Justices Arun Mishra, S. Abdul Nazeer, and M.R. Shah, taking up the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) matter through video conferencing, directed the telecom companies to submit their financial documents and books for the last 10 years.

Asking Vodafone if it was a foreign company, the bench said that how can the company say it would not furnish any bank guarantee.

"What if you fly away overnight in future without paying anything?" it asked.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing Vodafone Idea, denied his client is a completely foreign firm and cited before the bench its tie-ups and investments.

Vodafone owes over Rs 58,000 crore as AGR dues and so far, has paid close to Rs 7,000 crore.

Rohatgi contended before the court that the telecom company is in a tough situation, and cannot furnish any fresh bank guarantee, as profits have eluded the company in past many quarters. He submitted before the bench that Rs 15,000 crore bank guarantees are lying with the government, and his client's losses are over Rs 1 lakh crore.

"I cannot offer any more surety," he informed the bench.

Justice Mishra noted that this is public money and these dues should be recovered. "Do not tell us that you will pay if you were to make profits... the money must come," he noted.

Justice Shah observed that the telecom industry is the only industry which earned during the Covid-19 pandemic. "After all, this money will be used for public welfare", he said.

Rohatgi argued that his client would have to fold up if orders were issued to clear dues tomorrow. "11,000 employees will have to go without notice, as we cannot pay them," he added.

Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Bharti Airtel, contended before the court that out of Rs 21,000 crore AGR dues, the company has already deposited a sum of Rs 18,000 crore.

He argued that his client has given a bank guarantee, in excess of demand, to DoT, and supported the proposal for phased repayment of remaining AGR dues. He insisted that the company needs to sit down with the government and calculate the dues. Airtel owes Rs 25,976 crore after paying Rs 18,000 crore, as per the government.

Senior advocate Arvind Datar, representing Tata Telecom, informed the bench that his client has paid Rs 6,504 crore in AGR dues so far, and furnishing a bank guarantee may adversely impact investments in the sector.

The total AGR dues are close to Rs 1.5 lakh crore.

The top court will now take up the matter in the third week of July.

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Agencies
January 26,2020

New Delhi, Jan 26: Google on Sunday marked India's 71st Republic Day by dedicating a doodle illustrating the country's rich cultural heritage that permeates and unites the diverse nation.

From its world-famous landmarks like the Taj Mahal and India Gate, to the wide array of fauna such as its national bird (the Indian peafowl), to classical arts, textiles, and dances, the doodle, designed by Singapore-based artist Meroo Seth, brings together the rich cultural heritage of the country.

Republic Day marks the completion of India's transition towards becoming an independent republic after its constitution came into effect. The governing document had taken nearly three years of careful deliberation to finalise, and its eventual enactment was joyfully celebrated across the country.

While the Constitution was adopted by the Indian Constituent Assembly on 26 November 1949, it came into effect on January 26 -- a day when Declaration of Indian Independence (Purna Swaraj) was proclaimed by the Indian National Congress back in 1929, as opposed to the Dominion status offered by the British Regime.

Festivities embody the essence of diversity found in one of the world's most populous nations, celebrated over a three-day period with cultural events displaying national pride.

Last year's doodle on Republic Day, designed by artist Reshidev RK, had featured Rashtrapati Bhavan in the background along with a display of the country's iconic monuments and heritage.

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News Network
April 17,2020

Paris, Apr 17: Even as virologists zero in on the virus that causes COVID-19, a very basic question remains unanswered: do those who recover from the disease have immunity?

There is no clear answer to this question, experts say, even if many have assumed that contracting the potentially deadly disease confers immunity, at least for a while.

"Being immunised means that you have developed an immune response against a virus such that you can repulse it," explained Eric Vivier, a professor of immunology in the public hospital system in Marseilles.

"Our immune systems remember, which normally prevents you from being infected by the same virus later on."

For some viral diseases such a measles, overcoming the sickness confers immunity for life.

But for RNA-based viruses such as Sars-Cov-2 -- the scientific name for the bug that causes the COVID-19 disease -- it takes about three weeks to build up a sufficient quantity of antibodies, and even then they may provide protection for only a few months, Vivier told AFP.

At least that is the theory. In reality, the new coronavirus has thrown up one surprise after another, to the point where virologists and epidemiologists are sure of very little.

"We do not have the answers to that -- it's an unknown," Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization's Emergencies Programme said in a press conference this week when asked how long a recovered COVID-19 patient would have immunity.

"We would expect that to be a reasonable period of protection, but it is very difficult to say with a new virus -- we can only extrapolate from other coronaviruses, and even that data is quite limited."

For SARS, which killed about 800 people across the world in 2002 and 2003, recovered patients remained protected "for about three years, on average," Francois Balloux director of the Genetics Institute at University College London, said.

"One can certainly get reinfected, but after how much time? We'll only know retroactively."

A recent study from China that has not gone through peer review reported on rhesus monkeys that recovered from Sars-Cov-2 and did not get reinfected when exposed once again to the virus.

"But that doesn't really reveal anything," said Pasteur Institute researcher Frederic Tangy, noting that the experiment unfolded over only a month.

Indeed,several cases from South Korea -- one of the first countries hit by the new coronavirus -- found that patients who recovered from COVID-19 later tested positive for the virus.

But there are several ways to explain that outcome, scientists cautioned.

While it is not impossible that these individuals became infected a second time, there is little evidence this is what happened.

More likely, said Balloux, is that the virus never completely disappeared in the first place and remains -- dormant and asymptomatic -- as a "chronic infection", like herpes.

As tests for live virus and antibodies have not yet been perfected, it is also possible that these patients at some point tested "false negative" when in fact they had not rid themselves of the pathogen.

"That suggests that people remain infected for a long time -- several weeks," Balloux added. "That is not ideal."

Another pre-publication study that looked at 175 recovered patients in Shanghai showed different concentrations of protective antibodies 10 to 15 days after the onset of symptoms.

"But whether that antibody response actually means immunity is a separate question," commented Maria Van Kerhove, Technical Lead of the WHO Emergencies Programme.

"That's something we really need to better understand -- what does that antibody response look like in terms of immunity."

Indeed, a host of questions remain.

"We are at the stage of asking whether someone who has overcome COVID-19 is really that protected," said Jean-Francois Delfraissy, president of France's official science advisory board.

For Tangy, an even grimmer reality cannot be excluded.

"It is possible that the antibodies that someone develops against the virus could actually increase the risk of the disease becoming worse," he said, noting that the most serious symptoms come later, after the patient had formed antibodies.

For the moment, it is also unclear whose antibodies are more potent in beating back the disease: someone who nearly died, or someone with only light symptoms or even no symptoms at all. And does age make a difference?

Faced with all these uncertainties, some experts have doubts about the wisdom of persuing a "herd immunity" strategy such that the virus -- unable to find new victims -- peters out by itself when a majority of the population is immune.

"The only real solution for now is a vaccine," Archie Clements, a professor at Curtin University in Perth Australia, told AFP.

At the same time, laboratories are developing a slew of antibody tests to see what proportion of the population in different countries and regions have been contaminated.

Such an approach has been favoured in Britain and Finland, while in Germany some experts have floated the idea of an "immunity passport" that would allow people to go back to work.

"It's too premature at this point," said Saad Omer, a professor of infectious diseases at the Yale School of Medicine.

"We should be able to get clearer data very quickly -- in a couple of months -- when there will be reliable antibody tests with sensitivity and specificity."

One concern is "false positives" caused by the tests detecting antibodies unrelated to COVID-19.

The idea of immunity passports or certificates also raises ethical questions, researchers say.

"People who absolutely need to work -- to feed their families, for example -- could try to get infected," Balloux.

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