Tenth Anniversary of Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Feast of St. Cuthbert.
We have a proprietary claim on St. Cuthbert as the most important missionary of the Borders Country of Scotland & England ‘from Berwick to Galloway and Northumberland’. Cuthbert was known for his charm and winning ways and also for his gift of reading souls. One might find the type of person who discerns our spirit too closely rather off-putting. In the Mass Introduction Fr. Hugh recalled what the First Abbot, Dom Columban Mulcahy, used to say, that, “a genuinely recollected man is an attractive personality, there is nothing forbidding in his attitude”. As the Hymn expresses it, the attraction of The attractiveness of Cuthbert, as Fr. Hugh said, might be define in the words of the Hymn, “the beauty of holiness”.

Feast of St. Cuthbert.We have a proprietary claim on St. Cuthbert as the most important missionary of the Borders Country of Scotland & England “from Berwick to Galloway and Northumberland”. Cuthbert was known for his charm and winning ways and also for his gift of reading souls. One might find the type of person who discerns our spirit too closely rather off-putting. In the Mass Introduction Fr. Hugh recalled what the First Abbot, Dom Columban Mulcahy, used to say, that, "genuinely recollected man is an attractive personality, there is nothing forbidding in his attitude". As the Hymn expresses it, the attraction of The attractiveness of Cuthbert, as Fr. Hugh said, might be defined in the words of the Hymn, "the beauty of holiness".

About St Cuthberts Way
Taken at an easy pace, this 62 mile walking holiday along St Cuthberts Way from Melrose to Holy Island is a walk through the spiritual and historic life of the Borders.
Walking along St Cuthberts Way we pass through Melrose Abbey, the times of St Cuthbert, Trimontium, Dere Street and Roman road building, the lands of the Border rievers and St Cuthbert's Cave, will all become familiar. Journey's end on the walk is Lindisfarne, and we finish in the time honoured way across the Pilgrims' Ford.St Cuthberts Way follows tracks, paths and country roads with the longest days probably being the 3rd and 4th but no problem to those who pace themselves sensibly. (Scottish Tourism C-N-Do Scotland)

Tenth Anniversary of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
We have also been remembering the anniversary of another very attractive holy person, Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
For the Guesthouse Chapel I had two things, as it were in my pocket, one was Mother Teresa’s Daily Prayer, “the Fragrance of Jesus” by Cardinal Newman, the other was the extraordinary article, “The ‘Atheism’ of Mother Teresa” by the Papal Chaplain, Fr. Cantalamessa.
The contrast of the two echoes the Gospel, “so be ye wise as serpents and innocent as doves”.

1. Mother Teresa's Daily Prayer
Dear Jesus, help me to spread Thy fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with Thy spirit and love.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly
that all my life may only be a radiance of Thine.
by Cardinal Newman

St Paul uses the word fragrance and also the word aroma in " Cor. 2:15. His words are echoed in Newman's prayer, "But thanks be to God, who in Christ Jesus always leads us in triumph. and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God " . . .

2. "The 'Atheism' of Mother Teresa," Is the title of the National Catholic Register article of the preacher to the papal household. Commenting upon the recently published book, Mother Teresa: Come be My Light.
He makes many excellent observations about both Mother Teresa's "dark night of the soul" and the existential anguish endured by many atheists.
Mother Teresa was able to see her trial ever more clearly as an answer to her desire to share the sitio (thirst) of Jesus on the cross: “If my pain and suffering, my darkness and separation give you a drop of consolation, my own Jesus, do with me as you wish. ... Imprint on my soul and life the suffering of your heart. ... I want to satiate your thirst with every single drop of blood that you can find in me. ... Please do not take the trouble to return soon. I am ready to wait for you for all eternity.”
. . . .
The point about the "a-theism" of Jesus, of course, goes right to the heart of the mystery of the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery. Could Jesus, who is God, experience the absence of God? This is addressed at length by Hans Urs von Balthasar in Mysterium Paschale, who writes that "The handing over of self is a 'total existential commitment." Elsewhere (Theo-Drama III, I think) von Balthasar writes that, on the Cross, "God is forsaken by God" because of man's godlessness. As von Balthasar notes, this scandal of the Cross is the "one unique scandal in which the believer can glory." Likewise, and because of that Scandal, the "scandal" of Mother Teresa's "atheism" is something in which believers can also glory, not arrogantly, but with the recognition that all of us are called to be purified, made holy, and die to self, by God's grace.
By the Side of the Atheists
The world of today knows a new category of people: the atheists in good faith, those who live painfully the situation of the silence of God, who do not believe in God but do not boast about it; rather they experience the existential anguish and the lack of meaning of everything: They too, in their own way, live in the dark night of the spirit.
Albert Camus called them “the saints without God.” The mystics exist above all for them; they are their travel and table companions. Like Jesus, they “sat down at the table of sinners and ate with them” (see Luke 15:2).
COMMENTS on the above Blog focus mostly on the remark, “How wrong author and atheist Christopher Hitchens is when he writes “God is not great. Religion poisons everything,” and presents Mother Theresa as a product of the media-era”. Very worthwhile discussion.
Read the entire article
See the Ignatius Press Blog