Co-Founder of Missionary of Charity priest community reveals a surprising truth
Contact: Christine Schicker, 404-610-8871; Ashley Walker, 678-990-9032
HUNTINGTON, Ind., Nov. 7 /Christian Newswire/ -- In recent weeks, the once-private, inner thoughts of Mother Teresa have been at the center of media attention…and scrutiny. Thanks to thirty thousand pages of documents gathered for her canonization and most recently the public release of her personal correspondence to her confessors, the Nobel Prize winning Catholic nun - admired for her work among the poor - has been the subject of critical debate.
Did Mother Teresa believe in God? Was she in torment over a loss of faith? Did she cease to pray? Was she a hypocrite? These questions and more are on the lips of the world's most vocal mouthpieces, from atheists to theologians and everyone in between.
In an extraordinary new book published by Our Sunday Visitor, Fr. Joseph Langford, Founder with Mother Teresa of her religious community of priests, helps us understand even more about the beloved "Mother" of Calcutta in his insightful revelations about the truth of her interior life. We'll learn that the only shadow on Mother Teresa's life that we need to care about is the one cast by Mary, the "Mother" of Nazareth. Fr. Langford candidly proves in Mother Teresa: In the Shadow of Our Lady, that "to attempt to describe Mother Teresa in a few broad strokes by holding up one or another aspect of her life or work without reference to the whole is to fail to grasp who she was."
To try to understand Mother Teresa from the pages of Time magazine or 60 Minutes television is to examine an extraordinary life in an ordinary and even superficial way. As Father Langford reminds us in his new book, Mother Teresa lived with her heart in the heavens and her hands buried in the worst this world could offer. He asks quite pointedly, "Who, in reality, was Mother Teresa, beyond headlines and magazine covers, beyond the easy clichés of those who observed her from the outside?" And he answers quite masterfully, the skeptics and detractors and all others who choose to portray Mother Teresa's dark night of faith as a spiritual crisis, or even a sign of hypocrisy. "While her widely publicized but little understood darkness was indeed a challenge, it never placed her in crisis. Her darkness was a crucible of faith, hope, and love in which Mother Teresa became Saint Teresa."
In all the musings of recent weeks, we have failed to learn about the key element in Mother Teresa's inner life -- the one constant that overshadowed all the other shadows in her life -- the person and presence of Mary, the Mother of the world's Redeemer. The remarkable spiritual bond between Mother Teresa and Our Lady, noted by all who lived with her, was not a peripheral devotion in her inner world, but an integral part of her spirituality and mission. Says Fr. Langford, "It was Our Lady who taught her to see in the darkness, Our Lady who had seen through it first, and at its worst, as her Son struggled for his last breath. It was Our Lady whose faith bolstered and directed Mother Teresa's faith, and brought her to stand and not waver, despite the darkness, at the cross planted in her own soul."
Through thirty years of knowing Mother Teresa, Fr. Langford delivers to readers what he describes as the "lights and lessons learned from the pages of her life". Mother Teresa: In the Shadow of Our Lady will make right any false depictions of Mother Teresa's spiritual life and beliefs, but ultimately it will bring readers closer to Mary, the Mother of us all.
To schedule an interview with Fr. Langford, contact Schicker (404) 610-8871 or Walker at (678) 990-9032.
