Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith

[Sailor_Kenshin]

Here is the New York Times’ view of Mother Teresa, based on the new book of her letters.

New York Times
September 5, 2007
Editorial

** A Saint of Darkness **

           To the extent people ever tried to project themselves into the mind of Mother Teresa, they might have pictured a Gothic vault washed in dazzling beams of saintly conviction. How startling to discover that it was a dark and dispirited place, littered with doubts.

A new book of her letters, “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light,” published by Doubleday, show her struggling for decades against disbelief. “If I ever become a saint,” she wrote in one letter, “I will surely be one of ‘darkness.’ ” And in another: “If there be no God — there can be no soul. If there is no soul then Jesus — You also are not true. Heaven, what emptiness.”
That may rattle some believers, but it is a welcome reminder that saints, too, are only human, and that stories of dauntless piety tend to be false. The letters — which Mother Teresa wanted destroyed — may help chip away at the lacquer of myth that has been adhering to her since well before her death in 1997.
They reveal, too, a cannily willful nun, who tested the limits of her vow of strict obedience in her campaign to win permission to leave her order, the Loreto Sisters, to found the Missionaries of Charity, with the radical goal of going outside convent walls to live among the poor of Calcutta’s slums. “Please let me go,” she wrote in one of many insistent letters to her archbishop. “If the work be all human, it will die with me, if it be all His it will live for ages to come. Souls are being lost in the meantime.”
When the archbishop relented, the rest became history, until the revelation of the pain that haunted her down the decades.
“I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe,” wrote Flannery O’Connor, the Roman Catholic author whose stories traverse the landscape of 20th-century unbelief. “What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe.”
O’Connor suffered from isolation and debilitating illness, Mother Teresa from decades of spiritual emptiness. But — and here is the exemplary part, inspiring even by the standards of a secular age — they both shut up about it and got on with their work. Mother Teresa, sick with longing for a sense of the divine, kept faith with the sick of Calcutta. And now, dead for 10 years, she is poised to reach those who can at last recognize, in her, something of their own doubting, conflicted selves.

[

](http://www.nytimes.com/)

Meh. It’s the New York Slimes, to be taken with a grain of salt----but at least they had that semi-kinda-sorta positive last graf.

 

[didymus]

Not directly on topic, but I found this interesting, the impressions of an NPR commentator from Calcutta who met Mother Teresa (or at least saw her in action) when he & classmates from a Jesuit school brought donations to orphanages run by the Sisters of Charity.

 

[Publisher]

I plan on reading her book of letters after reading the articles about this remarkable woman. I respect her now more deeply than I did before…she spoke with a candor and honesty many in the religious life are not able to vocalize.

She lived the “Incarnation”…she truly took upon herself the suffering of the poor. She looked for God’s face and only saw it in the poorest of the poor…she bound up the wounded Christ every time she ministered to one of the dying.

I do believe that anyone so moved to compassion for the outcasts of this world lived in “lock-step” with Christ.

Her “eucharist” that fed her soul was the suffering of others.

Her doubts and pleas reminded me of some of the Psalms…she saw this world in all of it’s filthiness…and still chose to serve…chose to love even though this God she wanted so desparately to believe in seemed so far away from her…she had no ‘pie in the sky’ illusions…she wrestled with the darkness most of us who write on this board will never face…“love” isn’t something you feel…“love” is something you do…and she did love even though she had no “rewards” of frilly ecstatic visions of lacy angels or shinning emmisaries from God…she had dirt, filth, blood, scabs, puss and feces which made up her day…

I don’t believe in “saints”…or I didn’t until I read this article about her struggles…she was a saint…to be sure…I am humbled living in this country of plenty trying to portray a belief in the goodness of God, when I have so much and give so little. She saw the horror of life…and doubted…yet chose to live in such a way to portray the “faith” she wanted so much to “feel”…but faith isn’t about “feeling” as much as it’s about “doing.”

In her “lostness” she found something the rest of us can only hope to know.

 

[FCEGM]

Have you actually read the entire Times article? I have and it conveys a woman who was truly spiritually lost. I don’t see how we can just discount that because of her extraordinary Christian work. She is a woman who simply did not feel God in her life at all for over 50 years. Which yes does shock me. She doubted God and felt abandoned by God for over 50 years while publically conveying a relationship with God that didn’t exist. Yes it’s shocking and calling it Dark Night o the Soul like St. John of The Cross had doesn’t appear to be analogous.

Yes, I have read the entire article and found nothing at all shocking about Mother Teresa’s experience of abandonment by God. From my years of reading and studying St. John of the Cross, I see her experience falling exactly in line with the Dark Night that he describes. Mother Teresa most definitely had a relationship with God, a more profound one than most people experience, precisely because of the darkness (from her side) of that experience through which He molded her into a true image of the abandoned Christ - the same Christ who suffered in the unwanted souls of those for whom she so tenderly cared.

What happened in her life also happened in the life of the Saint we call “the Little Flower”, St. Therese of Lisieux, who is often naively presented as all sweetness and light, but who in reality was forged in the same furnace of darkness as Mother Teresa - though, obviously, for a shorter period of time. (The article mentions St. Paul of the Cross who was as long in darkness as Mother Teresa). Not only did St. Therese experience the darkness of faith, but did so while suffering the agonizing physical pains of death by tuberculosis, the combination of which made her understand the urge to commit suicide.

This article reflects further on Mother Teresa and her dark night:

firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=486

We may prefer to think that she spent her days in a state of ecstatic mystical union with God, because that would get us ordinary worldlings off the hook. How else could this unremarkable woman, no different from the rest of us, bear to throw her lot in with the poorest of the poor, sharing their meager diet and rough clothing, wiping leprous sores and enduring the agonies of the dying, for so many years without respite, unless she were somehow lifted above it all, shielded by spiritual endorphins? Yet we have her own testimony that what made her self-negating work possible was not a subjective experience of ecstasy but an objective relationship to God shorn of the sensible awareness of God’s presence.

 

[FCEGM]

I plan on reading her book of letters after reading the articles about this remarkable woman. I respect her now more deeply than I did before…she spoke with a candor and honesty many in the religious life are not able to vocalize.

She lived the “Incarnation”…she truly took upon herself the suffering of the poor. She looked for God’s face and only saw it in the poorest of the poor…she bound up the wounded Christ every time she ministered to one of the dying.

I do believe that anyone so moved to compassion for the outcasts of this world lived in “lock-step” with Christ.

Her “eucharist” that fed her soul was the suffering of others.

Her doubts and pleas reminded me of some of the Psalms…she saw this world in all of it’s filthiness…and still chose to serve…chose to love even though this God she wanted so desparately to believe in seemed so far away from her…she had no ‘pie in the sky’ illusions…she wrestled with the darkness most of us who write on this board will never face…“love” isn’t something you feel…“love” is something you do…and she did love even though she had no “rewards” of frilly ecstatic visions of lacy angels or shinning emmisaries from God…she had dirt, filth, blood, scabs, puss and feces which made up her day…

I don’t believe in “saints”…or I didn’t until I read this article about her struggles…she was a saint…to be sure…I am humbled living in this country of plenty trying to portray a belief in the goodness of God, when I have so much and give so little. She saw the horror of life…and doubted…yet chose to live in such a way to portray the “faith” she wanted so much to “feel”…but faith isn’t about “feeling” as much as it’s about “doing.”

In her “lostness” she found something the rest of us can only hope to know.

Beautifully stated, Publisher.

 

[exiled]

Have you actually read the entire Times article? I have and it conveys a woman who was truly spiritually lost. I don’t see how we can just discount that because of her extraordinary Christian work. She is a woman who simply did not feel God in her life at all for over 50 years. Which yes does shock me. She doubted God and felt abandoned by God for over 50 years while publically conveying a relationship with God that didn’t exist. Yes it’s shocking and calling it Dark Night o the Soul like St. John of The Cross had doesn’t appear to be analogous.

She did not convey a relationship that did not exist! Her relationship with God was based on His total self giving to her on the Cross, and she reciprocated with every ounce of strength she had in this life. Sacrifice of self for the good of others is the definiton of Christian love. Would you also suggest that Jesus Christ did not love the Father during that moment of *feeling *abandonment?
The love she had for Jesus Christ is not the foolishness that defines love in America today, the kind promoted by the media of people jumping on couches.
If everyone had the kind of love Mother Theresa had, both as giver and receiver of that love, what a wonderful world this would be!

 

[PaulDupre]

What I think this thread has illustrated rather dramatically is the primary difference between the Catholic and non-Catholic view of what faith is. To the Catholic, faith is something you do. To the non-Catholic (especially the Mormon and Evangelical), faith is something you feel.

Very interesting,
Paul

 

[lukewarm]

She did not convey a relationship that did not exist!

She most certainly did by her own admission… The article and quote in reference has been quoted numerous times in this topic. There was certainly a HUGE difference between what she felt from God and the relationship she was converying publically.

 

[lukewarm]

What I think this thread has illustrated rather dramatically is the primary difference between the Catholic and non-Catholic view of what faith is. To the Catholic, faith is something you do. To the non-Catholic (especially the Mormon and Evangelical), faith is something you feel.

Very interesting,
Paul

That’s interesting because frankly the Apostles most certainly did feel the Holy Ghost in a physical way, as did the early Christians, why is it that as a Catholic, even a fervent one I never felt either?

Am I to plod along and feel nothing and simply assume I’m still right by my own what? Stuborness? Shouldn’t faith give you some sort of feeling or acknolwedgement that God is with you? If not how can you even have an inkling that you are practicing the right faith and not simply ignroed/abandoned by God?

 

[Publisher]

She most certainly did by her own admission… The article and quote in reference has been quoted numerous times in this topic. There was certainly a HUGE difference between what she felt from God and the relationship she was converying publically.

I’m not a Catholic, so I don’t know what constitutes true “faith” in Catholic belief…is it “feeling” or is it “action”?

From reading many posts on this forum, I see quite a stark contrast between “feeling” and “living”…we have people from many different religious traditions…all claiming to be “right”.

As I’ve stated before…I can’t say with certainty that my tradition is 100% correct…I’ve never had God confirm it to me in vision or voice or miracle…but I do know that the things I do are more important than the “beliefs” I hold…the way I act is more important than my “feelings”…those I would serve are more concerned with “right action” instead of “right belief”…“right action” will offer food to the hungry, clothes to the needy…visitation to the lonely…“right belief” might make me “feel good and holy”…“right action” usually is a pain in my back side and if I were to measure “reward” and “service” with the measuring stick of this world…“right action” really isn’t worth my time if the goal is “right feeling” or “right belief”.

What I see in Friend Teresa is a woman who lived in the Light…who sought to do the ‘right things’ and “to hell with” the “rewards” of “feeling good”…she completed the “suffering of Christ” among the ones whom those with “right beliefs” had cast aside. She took upon her their doubt and “unbelief” and identified so closely with it…she embraced it and transformed it into “right action”. She “became Jesus” for them…she knew what she was to do in spite of her doubts and fears…I wish to God those who claim to be “Christians” could doubt like she doubted and displayed the “love of God” to such a degree that she “lost herself in the abyss of Love”, she didn’t “feel” the gooshy nice warm fuzzies…she just held the hands of dying people and loved them…regardless of how she felt…regardless of her doubts…she simply “did”.

 

[zerinus]

What I think this thread has illustrated rather dramatically is the primary difference between the Catholic and non-Catholic view of what faith is. To the Catholic, faith is something you do. To the non-Catholic (especially the Mormon and Evangelical), faith is something you feel.

Very interesting,
Paul

Faith is neither “something you do,” nor “something you feel”. It is something that you hope for. Paul defined faith as follows:

Hebrews 11:

1 Now faith is the substance [assurance] of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

If you want a more purely “Mormon” description of faith, the Book of Mormon expresses it in these words:

Alma 32:

17 Yea, there are many who do say: If thou wilt show unto us a sign from heaven, then we shall know of a surety; then we shall believe.

18 Now I ask, is this faith? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for if a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to believe, for he knoweth it.

---

21 And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.

Ether 12:

3 For he did cry from the morning, even until the going down of the sun, exhorting the people to believe in God unto repentance lest they should be destroyed, saying unto them that by faith all things are fulfilled—

4 Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.

5 And it came to pass that Ether did prophesy great and marvelous things unto the people, which they did not believe, because they saw them not.

6 And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.

---

9 Wherefore, ye may also have hope, and be partakers of the gift, if ye will but have faith.

Moroni 7:

40 And again, my beloved brethren, I would speak unto you concerning hope. How is it that you can attain unto faith, save ye shall have hope?

41 And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.

42 Wherefore, if a man have faith he must needs have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope.

43 And again, behold I say unto you that he cannot have faith and hope, save he shall be meek, and lowly of heart.

Moroni 10:

20 Wherefore, there must be faith; and if there must be faith there must also be hope; and if there must be hope there must also be charity.

21 And except ye have charity ye can in nowise be saved in the kingdom of God; neither can ye be saved in the kingdom of God if ye have not faith; neither can ye if ye have no hope.

22 And if ye have no hope ye must needs be in despair; and despair cometh because of iniquity.

23 And Christ truly said unto our fathers: If ye have faith ye can do all things which are expedient unto me.

For those who want to pursue the scriptural analysis of the subject more deeply, the following scriptures will be helpful: 2 Corinthians 10:15; Galatians 5:5; 1 Peter 1:21; Jacob 4:6; Jacob 4:11; Alma 13:29; Alma 25:16; Alma 58:11.

zerinus

 

[tundramom]

Hey, I missed that! That is a jibe at Mormonism! There is an answer to it though. Mother Teresa was indeed a great and saintly woman, and the acts of charity and kindness that she performed will without doubt earn her a great reward in heaven. The Protestants would tell you that it doesn’t matter what works you do; all you have to do is to believe, and you are saved! Don’t you believe it. It don’t work that way. What works you do matters an awful lot. However, the prolonged “night of darkness” that she experienced is very telling. That spiritual witness, assurance, or testimony that she sought, that dispels all doubt and darkness, and fills the soul with light, joy, and great hope, is a precious gift of the Holy Spirit that can only come to one who is, or seeks to become a member of the true Church of Christ, which currently is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It cannot come in any other way. That is what she was yearning for in her innermost soul, not knowing where to find it. She will I am convinced find it in the next life.

zerinus

zerinus,
you really don’t know what true Faith requires do you.
Hebrews 11:8-10

8By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

Faith is not SEEING or FEELING. Faith is present even when there is no internal feeling to support it. It is in spite of our feelings…

Leave Mormonism and become a member of His Church!

in Christ
Steph

 

[FCEGM]

She most certainly did by her own admission… The article and quote in reference has been quoted numerous times in this topic. There was certainly a HUGE difference between what she felt from God and the relationship she was converying publically.

What would you have had her do? Abandon her mission? Go off to a monastery and pray for enlightenment? Go on Oprah and tell the world of the depth of her seeming abandonment by God? (The world would have had her go the route of the latest celebrity who has fallen from the grace of the mob and put out a “mea culpa” for the sin of letting them down.) Or did she do just what God wanted her to do by continuing the mission He gave to her despite the immense interior suffering she endured? One just had to look at her face to see the pain etched in each line or listen to her voice and hear the echoes of sorrow; a brave smile to the world couldn’t hide that.

 

[Curious]

Faking it? Are you kidding me?

So, when a wife is angry with her husband, or having marital difficulties, but still plows through the problems, taking the burnt biscuit for herself at breakfast and giving him the good biscuit, putting aside her frustrated feelings and still giving him some sweet lovin’ at night, feeling like crud and trying to make the marriage is work - she’s “faking” it? She’s “faking” the marriage? “Faking” love? As others have said, real love and devotion lasts long after the warm and fuzzies are gone. Warm and fuzzies come and go. Real love is action. Real love never fails.

I am no judge of intentions of anyone’s heart or mind or soul or whatever, but I can’t imagine Mother Teresa “faking” it. The things she did would be hard enough to do if she had experiences with angels every day, and everything else was wonderful, and a bright shiny light surrounded every day and the Voice of God told her exactly what to do - she was still surrounded by horror. Can you imagine going through that every single day, feeling all dark and depressed and hopeless, and still do it? Hell, how could you NOT feel dark and depressed and hopeless with all that around you?

Sorry, but when I consider Mother Theresa, the words “faking it” are the farthest from my mind.

 

[PaulDupre]

That’s interesting because frankly the Apostles most certainly did feel the Holy Ghost in a physical way, as did the early Christians

As have I and the other Catholics I know. It is a normal part of being a Christian, but not the sole indicator of what is true and false.

, why is it that as a Catholic, even a fervent one I never felt either?

That’s between you and God. Feelings are not faith, but are rather one of the little perks that often comes with faith, but not always. God is not a vending machine - put in some belief, automatically get some warm fuzzies. Our Lord tests and blesses each of us in different ways. Mormons get this all mixed up. If you joined the Mormons because you were looking for emotion, that’s really pathetic.

Am I to plod along and feel nothing and simply assume I’m still right by my own what? Stuborness? Shouldn’t faith give you some sort of feeling or acknolwedgement that God is with you? If not how can you even have an inkling that you are practicing the right faith and not simply ignroed/abandoned by God?

That would be living by faith. St. Paul wrote that faith is hope in things unseen (and unfelt?). If you need constant positive reinforcement to keep you faithful, then you have a very immature substitute for faith. I believe God will fulfill His promises because the scriptures tell me so and the Church, as it has lived the gospel through the last 2000 years, has a wealth of experience and evidence to draw upon. That experience and the scriptures also tell me that there will be times of great trial and pain in the life of every Christian (“whom the Father loves, he also chastens”). Those times test our faith. Some fail, some don’t.

Paul

 

[Zooey]

I am no judge of intentions of anyone’s heart or mind or soul or whatever, but I can’t imagine Mother Teresa “faking” it. The things she did would be hard enough to do if she had experiences with angels every day, and everything else was wonderful, and a bright shiny light surrounded every day and the Voice of God told her exactly what to do - she was still surrounded by horror. Can you imagine going through that every single day, feeling all dark and depressed and hopeless, and still do it? Hell, how could you NOT feel dark and depressed and hopeless with all that around you?

Sorry, but when I consider Mother Theresa, the words “faking it” are the farthest from my mind.

Exactly…
You know, I hate to put my own experiences up against hers for comparisons, because no one is ever going to mistake me for a saint, but I did spend the larger part of a decade caring for my elderly & ailing mother & stepfather, & I can certainly understand how completely draining it is, to care for people, to the point of exhaustion.
I didn’t have the energy to even try to feel some warm fuzzy feeling. I didn’t have the energy to get out of bed, even when I was out of bed, tending to someone who was violently ill, in the middle of the night. Believe me, that if you are looking for some great, wild, mystical joyful feeling, you are not going to find it taking care of the sick & dying.
Mother Teresa spent 50 years doing among strangers, what is near impossible, humanly speaking, to do even with family. She had to have been stretched to the point of snapping, a million times over…and she went right on, volunteering to do these things. Nobody was forcing her, after all; she had no ties of blood or friendship to these people she was caring for. She had volunteered, & she went right on, as an act of the will, & of obedience to God.
She amazes me. I would have bailed. God knows, I know, I would have thrown up my hands, & retired to a nice comfy place where somebody could take care of me, for a change. But no, despite not even having the satisfaction of “feeling God”, she went right on serving Him anyway.
Anybody who can’t see that:shrug: …That’s very, very sad. It’s heartbreaking, that you would think that faith is supposed to be something that you feel. No; faith is something you do.

 

[LittleDeb]

That’s interesting because frankly the Apostles most certainly did feel the Holy Ghost in a physical way, as did the early Christians, why is it that as a Catholic, even a fervent one I never felt either?

Am I to plod along and feel nothing and simply assume I’m still right by my own what? Stuborness? Shouldn’t faith give you some sort of feeling or acknolwedgement that God is with you? If not how can you even have an inkling that you are practicing the right faith and not simply ignroed/abandoned by God?

I remember during those times I felt “lukewarm” too. I have always been a person who relied heavily on feelings.

In reading about Mother Teresa and her words I have been able to let go of that need more and more. I was not surprised in the least when her private papers said she struggled this much. I saw it in every word she spoke.

The wonderful quote from her, referenced earlier, says much more than many people see. I put it in my wedding invitation:

The fruit of silence is prayer
The fruit of prayer is faith
The fruit of faith is love
The fruit of love is service
The fruit of service is peace.
Mother Teresa

She is saying, “these are the steps you take when you don’t ‘feel’ God.” For decades of my life I believed if I had doubts or didn’t ‘feel’ God right then, that I really was abandoned. In my life-long health crisis I felt alone and abandoned every day. It was in reading Mother Teresa’s words that I found that my darkness came from my end and not from God’s end.

He is the light. If I sit in miserable darkness and do nothing then I have no one to blame but myself for my misery. But, if I explore my darkness surrounding me and strive to live as if I see Light, then the room does get brighter. It isn’t “faking it” to live in darkness hoping for Light.

The plain fact is the Light is there whether I acknowledge it or not. Wanting to feel Light while I dwelt in darkness was my problem. God still meets me where I am. Some days the pain is nearly unbearable. All I can feel is pain. But when I really examine what I ‘feel’ I find that I am not abandoned by God, I am instead being cushioned by Him. He is protecting me from pain, so sometimes I ‘feel’ nothing.

My God bless you through knowing of Mother Teresa. May He warm you with his Light to awaken a new fire in your soul.

 

[R2D2]

Mother Teresa, the patron saint of Atheists.

…must be the comic relief…but not funny.

 

[Publisher]

…must be the comic relief…but not funny.

Not “funny”, but very…very profound…if atheists were to ever have a “Patron Saint”, perhaps Teresa would qualify, given the things she struggled with, who better to understand the struggles of “unbelief”?

 

[Contarini]

Not “funny”, but very…very profound…if atheists were to ever have a “Patron Saint”, perhaps Teresa would qualify, given the things she struggled with, who better to understand the struggles of “unbelief”?

]

Maybe we should pray to Mother Teresa for Christopher Hitchens. If he was converted through her prayers, wouldn’t that count as a sufficient miracle for canonization?

Edwin