Apparently Mother Teresa had a prolonged crisis of faith and had an ongoing struggle with depression. Some of her private correspondence with her confessor is now being published as part of a book called Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light. At one point she says to her confessor, “[But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak…”
This is turning out to be a story that is getting a lot of attention and generating a lot of conversation (see here, here, here and here). Some see this as part of the ‘dark night of the soul’ that some (many?) Christians experience. Others (notably atheist crusader Christopher Hitchens) see this as evidence that Mother Teresa was a fraud.
I find myself wondering why this story is proving such a popular one. Mother Teresa is not the first Christian to admit to having doubts; many biblical characters used language even stronger than hers to articulate their sense of God’s absence and many of the giants of church history have witnessed to similar experiences.
Yet this story seems to be having a polarizing effect. It’s as if people on one side feel the need to defend Mother Teresa and prove that she didn’t really mean the things she said while people on the other side can’t resist taking some triumphalist cheap shots (as if the fact that Mother Teresa doubted somehow disproves the Christian faith).
For me this is an interesting story because it raises the ever-present question of what exactly it is that we are expecting when it comes the the presence of God. After all, if Mother Teresa couldn’t experience God, what hope is there for the rest of us? And what, after all, do we mean by ‘experiencing the presence of God’?
As for Mother Teresa herself, it’s hard for me to believe that part of her reward will not be a deep understanding that in giving her life to the poor and the dying she experienced God in a way that defies explanation.
i think the most remarkable part of the story is that she continued to do such amazing work despite her doubts. most would say that she did her work because of the strength of her beliefs that she was doing it for God. with the strength of her belief now seeming somewhat weaker it’s even more amazing that she continued to live the life that she did.
“There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in - that we do it to God, to Christ, and that’s why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.” -Mother Teresa
Who invented the idea that Christians should never question what they believe? If I pour everything I have into something and give my life up for it, doubt would be the first thing I would expect to struggle with…I think you nailed it, Gil - many biblical authors use much stronger language to convey their sense of God’s absence from time to time - and for good reason. Not really sure what i’m trying to say, but I feel like we run from doubt as Christians as if it’s some terrible evil, when in reality we can learn through it; it can refine our experience and bring us closer to God.
The temptation to analyze our experience with God as if we had the tools to assess how well or how poorly we were performing spiuritually seems too great to resist. If love and commitment can exist in human relationships even when feelings may wane, then certainly my relationship with God is still a relationship when my experience is less than what I hoped for. Every relationship in life has dry seasons if you stick with someone long enough.
I’ll weigh in with words from another Catholic I admire, even with his flaws. Henri Nouwen, “Can we only speak when we are fully living what we are saying? If all our words had to cover all our actions, we would be doomed to permanent silence! Sometimes we are called to procalim God’s love even when we are not yet fully able to live it. Does that mean we are hypocrites?
Only when our own words no longer call us to conversion. Nobody completely lives up to his or her own ideals and visions. But by proclaiming our ideals and visions with great conviction and great humility, we may gradually grow into the truth we speak. As long as we know that our lives always speak louder than our words, we can trust that our words will remain humble.”
I really like that quote thanks Rick!
Relatedly, another figure of contemporary adulation, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, evidently struggled with suicidal thoughts and temptations. Like Nick, I’m amazed at his drive and his perseverance–despite the dark side of his psyche. I have a hunch that most of us don’t see nearly as much light (nor darkness) as these figures.
–See the footnotes at the end of Bonhoeffer’s thoughts on Suicide (”Self-murder”) in “Ethics” for the reference.