Our Responsorial Psalm this Sunday says, “I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.” It captures the theme of the readings about our faith journey and the call to deny oneself to follow the Lord. While reflecting on the readings, I thought about our everyday struggles to become faithful servants of God and the weakness that is brought about by our sins and failures. How can we respond to the invitation to deny ourselves and walk with the Lord in faith? Can we walk with Jesus despite sinfulness, doubts, struggles, and worries? Mother Teresa’s letters to her spiritual director were made public in 2007, ten years after her death. Everyone knows that Mother Teresa’s life was marked with apostolate to the poorest of the poor all over the world out of love for Christ. She radiates joy and love to those she served in the many footages. Yet she kept the struggles about the faith to herself. Mother Teresa questioned the existence of God. She revealed in her letters that “Inside my soul, there is darkness.”
The diaries of the spiritual struggles of Mother Teresa, who was acclaimed and celebrated as one of the greatest and holiest people of our time, surprised many. However, those revelations also brought hope and relief to the faithful who struggled with their faith and the so-called darkness of the soul. Amidst their own struggles, they thought they had the chance to live a holy life and become closer to God like Mother Teresa.
Mother Teresa’s struggles may not reflect a robust faith that would characterize a saint. Despite her struggles and doubts, Mother Teresa pursued her apostolate with the poor with sincerity and love. She was a saint not because of a so-called perfect faith but because she was willing to claim her weakness before God. She allowed God to fill the weakness in her heart. She did not stop searching and opening her way to receive God.
By the same token, our faith journey does not proceed because of our successes in living the Christian life or because we don’t have questions about God, and everything is going well. It may be easy to say that we become followers of Christ when our lives reflect the ideal picture of a holy life and clean living. It is a joy when it’s easy to allow God to take control of our lives, and our prayers seem to align with His will. But even when we struggle with our prayers, when our spiritual life seems empty and dry, and when we feel that God is distant, Christ still walks with us. We can still live a holy life. God is still with us even when we give in to temptations of selfishness, dishonesty, and unfaithfulness. We can still find the path to live a holy life.
God reminds us that He continues to mold us. Our perceived failure in marriage, business, and other pursuits should not stop us from walking with God. Our mistakes in life should not prevent us from becoming closer to God. Even when we fail to reach the good, it does not exclude us from God’s Kingdom.
According to Fr. George Smiga, a spiritual writer, our relationship with God depends not only on our
successes in living a Christian life. It depends on God’s love and our openness to acknowledge our sinfulness and our willingness to make amends. “Holiness is not being perfect. Holiness is claiming
our weakness in the presence of God’s strength.” If Mother Teresa can be a saint despite struggling with doubts about their faith, then there is room for transformation that our doubts and shortcomings
will lead us to reclaim our faithfulness to God. Owning our imperfections allows us to see God correctly. It also gives us a new insight and orientation towards the sufferings and struggles of others. It allows us to see others with kindness and compassion. When we know we are imperfect, we have more patience and compassion to listen and understand the weaknesses of others.
The humility to acknowledge our sinfulness is our hope because it allows us to profoundly appreciate the freedom and depth of God’s love for us. God always gives us the chance to live a holy life. We have a God who cares and always meets us wherever we are on the road of life as we walk before the “Lord in the land of the living.” Let us recite the same prayer that Mother Teresa used to pray during her moments of dryness: “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).