Did you know Mother Teresa experienced visions of Jesus?

[Jubilate Deo]

"By Hannah Brockhaus

Vatican City, Feb 15, 2017 / 04:42 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Even her friend of more than 30 years, Father Sebastian Vazhakala, did not know Mother Teresa had conversations with and visions of Jesus before forming the Missionaries of Charity.

It wasn't until after her death, for the vast majority of people, that this part of Mother Teresa's spiritual life was uncovered. “It was a big discovery,” Missionary of Charity priest, Fr. Vazhakala told CNA.  

When Mother Teresa's cause for canonization was opened, just two years after her death in 1997, documents were found in the archives of the Jesuits in Calcutta, with the spiritual director and another of Mother Teresa's close priest friends, and in the office of the bishop, containing her accounts of the communications.

Fr. Vazhakala, who co-founded the contemplative branch of the Missionaries of Charity alongside Mother Teresa, said he has a document handwritten by Mother Teresa where she discusses what Jesus spoke to her directly during the time of the locutions and visions.

During a period lasting from Sept. 10, 1946 to Dec. 3, 1947, Mother Teresa had ongoing communication with Jesus through words and visions, Fr. Vazhakala said. This all happened while she was a missionary sister in the Irish order of the Sisters of Loreto, teaching at St. Mary's school in Calcutta.

Mother Teresa wrote that one day at Holy Communion, she heard Jesus say, “I want Indian nuns, victims of my love, who would be Mary and Martha, who would be so united to me as to radiate my love on souls.”

It was through these communications of the Eucharistic Jesus that Mother Teresa received her directions for forming her congregation of the Missionaries of Charity.

“She was so united with Jesus,” Fr. Vazhakala explained, “that she was able to radiate not her love, but Jesus’ love through her, and with a human expression.”

Jesus told her what sort of nuns he wanted her order to be filled with: “'I want free nuns covered with the poverty of the Cross. I want obedient nuns covered with the obedience of the Cross. I want full-of-love nuns covered with the charity of the Cross,'” Fr. Vazhakala related.

According to the Missionary, Jesus asked her, “Would you refuse to do this for me?” “In fact, Jesus told her in 1947,” Fr. Vazhakala explained, “'I cannot go alone to the poor people, you carry me with you into them.'”

After this period of joy and consolation, around 1949, Mother Teresa started to experience a “terrible darkness and dryness” in her spiritual life, said Fr. Vazhakala. “And in the beginning she thought it was because of her own sinfulness, unworthiness, her own weakness.”

Mother Teresa's spiritual director at the time helped her to understand that this spiritual dryness was just another way that Jesus wanted her to share in the poverty of the poor of Calcutta.

This period lasted nearly 50 years, until her death, and she found it very painful. But, Fr. Vazhakala shared that she said, “If my darkness and dryness can be a light to some soul let me be the first one to do that. If my life, if my suffering, is going to help souls to be saved, then I will prefer from the creation of the world to the end of time to suffer and die.”

People around the world know about Mother Teresa's visible acts of charity toward the poor and sick in the slums of Calcutta, but “the interior life of Mother is not known to people,” said Fr. Vazhakala.

Mother Teresa's motto, and the motto of her congregation, was the words of Jesus, “I thirst.” And that they could quench the thirst of Jesus by bringing souls to him. “And in every breathing, each sigh, each act of mind, shall be an act of love divine. That was her daily prayer. That was what was motivating her and all the sacrifices, even until that age of 87, and without resting,” he said.

Mother Teresa never rested from her work during her life on earth, and she continues to “work” for souls from heaven. “When I die and go home to God, I can bring more souls to God,” she said at one point, Fr. Vazhakala noted.

She said, “I'm not going to sleep in heaven, but I'm going to work harder in another form.”

Mary Shovlain contributed to this report.

This article was originally published on CNA Aug. 27, 2016."

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/did-you-know-mother-teresa-experienced-visions-of-jesus-60088/

[Era Might]

One thing I learned, while a member of the community at a MC soup kitchen, was they are very medieval in their view of life. The church is not synonymous with medieval theology, but I understand their focus.

[Jubilate Deo]

4 minutes ago, Era Might said:

One thing I learned, while a member of the community at a MC soup kitchen, was they are very medieval in their view of life. The church is not synonymous with medieval theology, but I understand their focus.

Would you mind explaining this for me, please?

[Era Might]

Just now, Jubilate Deo said:

Would you mind explaining this for me, please?

The MCs are very focused on suffering and an Ideal of charity that transcends personal, social identity. The Sisters are sort of icons of charity, not like, say, Franciscans who are more earthy. Suffering is a big aspect of the MC spirituality. But the people they serve probably know more of true suffering than they do. And I say this with great respect for the MC sisters.

[Seven77]

1 hour ago, Era Might said:

The MCs are very focused on suffering and an Ideal of charity that transcends personal, social identity. The Sisters are sort of icons of charity, not like, say, Franciscans who are more earthy. Suffering is a big aspect of the MC spirituality. But the people they serve probably know more of true suffering than they do. And I say this with great respect for the MC sisters.

I think that their focus on suffering is a practical one designed to enter into solidarity with those whom they serve. The MCs austerity suggests as much.

[Era Might]

On 5/23/2017 at 3:35 PM, Seven77 said:

I think that their focus on suffering is a practical one designed to enter into solidarity with those whom they serve. The MCs austerity suggests as much.

Yeah, I think day-to-day that's probably their motivation. But, I think there was something uniquely...dark about Mother Teresa. If I recall, in her vision of Jesus, he tells her to be his light in the dark places. I would see the Franciscans as a more "practical" spirituality of poverty. St. Francis was fundamentally happy and simple. I don't think Mother Teresa was, maybe her visions brought a great revelation of love but also a great suffering. St. Francis sort of went from here to there in his conversion, from darkness to light, but Mother Teresa's conversion was not as a sinner but as a nun. She already knew the more practical spirituality, she was a schoolteacher. Something changed for her, I guess she was more akin to John of the Cross than Francis, she could only find light in darkness (no canticle of brother sun for her).