'Peter's faith--and lack thereof--helps guide my writing and my life.'

One challenge for readers of Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, the collection of Blessed Teresa of Calcuttas letters, is to distinguish among the terms darkness, dryness, desolation, doubt, disbelief, depression and despair - the seven Ds.

John Langan, S.J., preached the homily at the funeral of Robert Drinan, S.J., on Feb. 1, 2007. The full text of his homily is below.

At the time of his violent death, Charles de Foucauld had had founded no congregation nor attracted any followers. And yet his witness endured.

Balthasar seemed to know just what I was feeling: Christians, he said, often feel like a foreigner forced to speak in a language whose rules they have never learned, or a stuttering child who wants to say something but cannot.