Mother Teresa's Mystical Experiences[her letters to Archbishop Perier]

From last September strange thoughts and desires have been filling my heart. They got stronger and clearer during the 8 days retreat I made in Darjeeling. On coming here I told Fr. Van Exem everything. I showed him the few notes I had written during the retreat. He told me he thought it was God’s inspiration but to pray and remain silent over it. I kept on telling him whatever passed in my soul in thoughts and desires. Then yesterday he wrote this, “I cannot prevent you from talking or writing to His Grace. You will write to His Grace as a daughter to her father, in perfect trust and sincerity, without any fear or anxiety, telling him how it all went, adding that you talked to me and that now I think I cannot in conscience prevent you from exposing everything to him.”

Before I begin I want to tell you that at one word that Your Grace would say I am ready never to consider again any of those strange thoughts which have been coming continually.

During the year very often I have been longing to be all for Jesus and to make other souls, especially Indian, come and love Him fervently, to identify myself with Indian girls completely and so love Him as He has never been loved before. I thought [this] was one of my many mad desires. I read the life of St. M. Cabrini. She did so much for the Americans because she became one of them. Why can’t I do in India what she did for America? She did not wait for souls to come to her. She went to them with her zealous workers. Why can’t I do the same for Him here? There are so many souls – pure, holy - who are longing to give themselves only to God. European orders are too rich for them; they get more than they give.

“Wouldst Thou not help.” [8] How can I? I have been and am very happy as a Loreto Nun. To leave that what I love and expose myself to new labours and sufferings which will be great, to be the laughing stock of so many, especially religious, to cling and choose deliberately the hard things of an Indian life, to loneliness and ignominy, to uncertainty - and all because Jesus wants it, because something is calling me to leave all and gather the few to live His life, to do His work in India. These thoughts were a cause of much suffering, but the voice kept on saying, “Wilt Thou refuse?”

One day at Holy Communion I heard the same voice very distinctly: “I want Indian nuns, victims of my love, who would be Mary and Martha, who would be so very united to me as to radiate my love on souls. I want free nuns covered with my poverty of the Cross. I want obedient nuns covered with my obedience of the Cross. I want full of love nuns covered with the charity of the Cross. Wilt thou refuse to do this for me?”

On another day: “You have become my Spouse for my Love. You have come to India for Me. The thirst you had for souls brought you so far. Are you afraid to take one more step for your Spouse, for me, for souls? Is your generosity grown cold? Am I a second to you? You did not die for souls. That is why you don’t care what happens to them. Your heart was never drowned in sorrow as it was My Mother’s. We both gave our all for souls and you? You are afraid that you will lose your vocation, you will become secular, you will be wanting in perseverance. Nay - your vocation is to love and suffer and save souls and by taking this step you will fulfill my Heart’s desire for you. That is your vocation. You will dress in simple Indian clothes or rather like My Mother dressed, simple and poor. Your present habit is holy because it is my symbol - your sari will become holy because it will be my symbol.”

I tried to persuade Our Lord that I would try to become a very fervent holy Loreto Nun, a real Victim here in this vocation - but the answer came very clear again. “I want Indian Missionary Sisters of Charity, who would be My fire of love amongst the very poor - the sick, the dying, the little street children. The poor I want you to bring to me and the sisters that would offer their lives as victims of my love would bring these souls to Me. You are, I know, the most incapable person, weak and sinful, but just because you are that, I want to use you for my Glory! Wilt Thou refuse!”

These words, or rather, this voice frightened me. The thought of eating, sleeping, living like the Indians filled me with fear. I prayed long -I prayed so much - I asked Our Mother Mary to ask Jesus to remove all this from me. The more I prayed, the clearer grew the voice in my heart and so I prayed that He would do with me whatever He wanted. He asked again and again.

Then once more the voice was very clear: “You have been always saying, ‘Do with me whatever you wish.’ Now I want to act. Let me do it, My little Spouse, My own little one. Do not fear. I shall be with you always. You will suffer and you suffer now, but if you are my own little Spouse, the Spouse of the Crucified Jesus, you will have to bear these torments on your heart. Let me act. Refuse me not. Trust me lovingly, trust me blindly.”

“Little one, give me souls. Give me the souls of the poor little street children. How it hurts, if you only knew, to see these poor children soiled with sin. I long for the purity of their love. If you would only answer my call and bring me these souls. Draw them away from the hands of the evil one. If you only knew how many little ones fall into sin every day. There are convents with number of nuns caring for the rich and able to do people, but for my very poor there is absolutely none. For them I long, them I love. Wilt Thou refuse?”

“Ask His Grace to give me this in thanksgiving of the twenty-five years of Grace I have given him.”

This is what went on between Him and me during the days of much prayer. [10] Now the whole thing stands clear before my eyes as follows:

To be an Indian: to live with them, like them, so as to get at the people’s heart. The order would start outside Calcutta – Cossipore - open, lonely place - or St. John’s Sealdah where the Sisters could have a real contemplative life in their noviciate, where they would complete one full year of true interior life and one in action. The Sisters are to cling to perfect poverty - Poverty of the Cross - nothing but God. So as not to have riches enter their heart, they would have nothing of the outside but they will keep up themselves with the labour of their hands - Franciscan poverty, Benedict’s labour.

In the order girls of any nationality should be taken but they must become Indian-minded, dress in simple clothes: a long, white, long-sleeved habit, light blue sari and a white veil, sandals, no stockings, a crucifix, girdle and rosary.

The Sisters should get a very full knowledge of the interior life from holy priests who would help them to become so united to God so as to radiate Him when they join the mission field. They should become true Victims - no words - but in every sense of the word, Indian victims for India. Love should be the word, the fire, that will make them live the life to its full. If the nuns are very poor they will be free to love only God, to serve Him only, to be only His. The two years in perfect solitude should make them think of the interior while they will be in the midst of the exterior.

So as to renew and keep up the spirit, the sisters should spend one day in every week in the house, the Mother house of the city when they are in the mission.

The Sisters’ work would be to go to the people - no boarding schools, but plenty of schools, free, up to class two only. In each parish two Sisters would go - one for the sick and the dying, one for the school. If the number requires, the pairs can increase. The Sisters would teach the little ones, help them have pure recreations and so keep them from the street and sin. The school should be only in the very poor places of the parish to get the children from the streets, to keep them for the poor parents who have to work. The one who will take care of the sick, she will assist the dying, do all the work for the sick, just as much if not more [than] what a person gets in a hospital, wash them and prepare the place for His coming. At the appointed time the Sisters will all meet at the same place from the different parishes and go home, where they would have the complete separation from the world. This in the cities where the number of the poor is great. In the villages, the same thing, only there they could leave the said village once their work of instruction and service ends.

To move about with great ease and fast, each nun should learn how to ride a bicycle, some how to drive a bus. This is a little too up to date, but souls are dying for want of care, for want of love. These Sisters, these true victims, should do the work that is wanting in Christ’s Apostolate in India. They should also have a hospital for little children with bad diseases. The nuns of this order will be Missionaries of Charity or Missionary Sisters of Charity.

God is calling me, unworthy and sinful that I am. I am longing to give all for souls. They will all think me mad, after so many years, to begin a thing which will bring me for the most part only suffering but He calls me also to join the few to start the work, to fight the devil and deprive him of the thousand little souls who he is destroying every day.

This is rather long, but I have told you everything as I would have told my mother. I long to be really only His, to burn myself completely for Him and souls. I want Him to be loved tenderly by many. So if you think, if you wish - I am ready to do His Will. Count not my feelings. Count not the cost I would have to pay. I am ready for I have already given my all to Him. And if you think all this a deception, that too I would accept and sacrifice myself completely. I am sending this through Fr. Van Exem. I have given him full permission to use anything I have told him which is in connection with me and Him in this work. My change to Asansol [11] seems to me a part of His plan. There I will have more time to pray and prepare myself for His coming. In this matter I leave myself completely in your hands.

Evidently, a desire to do something for the poor was stirring in Mother Teresa’s heart before 10 September. Light and conviction came when Jesus intervened powerfully to make His desires known. But if until now it appeared that on “Inspiration Day” Jesus asked Mother Teresa to take on a new mission and that she simply accepted His proposal, only waiting for the Church’s permission to begin, we have just seen that this was not the case. In fact, Mother Teresa experienced a real interior struggle between the love inspiring her determination to give God everything He was asking and the fears and doubts arising from her sense of her own unworthiness and weakness.

Yet, by the time she wrote to Archbishop Périer, she was ready to “burn herself completely” so that Jesus could be known and loved through her service to the poor. It is also evident, as can be ascertained by the clarity and concreteness of the sections on “The Call” and “The Work,” that by January Mother Teresa had already given a good deal of thought to the life and work of the religious community she hoped to begin. What stands out is her emphasis on a deep spiritual life as the foundation of active service and her marked spirit of innovation.[12]

From the time he received Mother Teresa’s first letter in January, Archbishop Périer showed himself to be a wise and prudent pastor. He did not rush to approve or reject Mother Teresa’s proposal. He realized that her departure from Loreto and the founding of a new religious congregation was a decision on which rested the future lives of many people. Consequently, he repeatedly told Mother Teresa that before giving his approval, “I must be able to say that I have prayed much and long, that I have studied carefully, that I have consulted different experts in these matters, that I have placed myself in a state of complete indifference as regards the acceptance or refusal and that my judgment is based solely on the merits or demerits of the case. … I shall do the will of God; but that must be clear to me.” During 1947 the Archbishop followed this course of discernment.

Meanwhile, the desire to answer Jesus’ call increased in Mother Teresa as the months passed. Throughout 1947, she communicated with Archbishop Périer through letters and through Fr. Van Exem, who continued to advise her. Finally, Mother Teresa’s conviction that the inspiration was from God and her burning desire to answer His call without delay culminated in her letter of 3 December 1947 to Fr. Van Exem and Archbishop Périer. Here she recounts once more her original inspiration of September 1946, repeating the words of the voice verbatim from her letter of January. This time, however, she reveals more of her intimacy with Jesus by including her actual words in response to His. In the second section of the letter regarding the year 1947, Mother Teresa informs the Archbishop of the locutions and visions that climax the mystical phenomena surrounding the inspiration.

During the year very often I had that longing to be all for Jesus and to make other souls, Indian especially, come and love Him fervently, but as I thought this to be one of my desires I put it off again and again. To identify myself so much with Indian girls would be out of the question. After reading the life of St. Cabrini, the thought kept on coming, why can’t I do for Him in India what she did for Him in America. Why was she able to identify herself so much with the Americans as to become one of them? She did not wait for souls to come to her; she went in search of them and brought with her zealous workers. Why can’t I do the same for Him here?

How could I? I have been and am very happy as a Loreto Nun. To leave that what I love and expose myself to new labours and suffering, which will be great, to be the laughing stock of so many, especially religious, to cling and choose deliberately the hard things of an Indian life, to loneliness and ignominy, to uncertainty - and all because Jesus wants it, because something is calling me to leave all and gather the few to live His life, to do His work in India.

In all my prayers and Holy Communions He is continually asking, “Wilt Thou refuse? When there was a question of Thy soul I did not think of Myself but gave myself freely for Thee on the Cross and now what about Thee? Wilt Thou refuse?

I want Indian Nuns, victims of my love, who would be Mary and Martha, who would be so very united to me as to radiate My love on souls. I want free Nuns covered with My poverty of the cross. I want obedient Nuns covered with my obedience on the cross. I want full of love Nuns covered with My Charity of the cross. Wilt Thou refuse to do this for Me?”

My own Jesus, what you ask it is beyond me. I can hardly understand half of the things you want. I am unworthy. I am sinful. I am weak. Go, Jesus, and find a more worthy soul, a more generous one.

?“You have become My Spouse for my love. You have come to India for Me. The thirst you had for souls brought you so far. Are you afraid now to take one more step for Your Spouse, for Me, for souls? Is your generosity grown cold? Am I a second to you? You did not die for souls. That is why you don’t care what happens to them. Your heart was never drowned in sorrow as was My Mother’s. We both gave our all for souls - and you? You are afraid that you will lose your vocation, you will become a secular, you will be wanting in perseverance. No - your vocation is to love and suffer and save souls and by taking the step you will fulfil My Heart’s desire for you. You will dress in simple Indian clothes or rather like My Mother dressed, simple and poor. Your present habit is holy because it is My symbol. Your sari will become holy because it will be My symbol.”

Give me light. Send me Thy own Spirit, which will teach me Thy own Will, which will give me strength to do the things that are pleasing to Thee. Jesus, My Jesus, don’t let me be deceived. If it is You who want this, give proof of it; if not, let it leave my soul. I trust you blindly. Will you let my soul be lost? I am so afraid, Jesus. I am so terribly afraid. Let me not be deceived. I am so afraid. This fear shows me how much I love myself. I am afraid of the suffering that will come through leading that Indian life - clothing like them, eating like them, sleeping like them, living with them and never having anything my way. How much comfort has taken possession of my heart.

“You have been always saying, ‘Do with me whatever you wish.’ Now I want to act. Let me do it, My little Spouse, My own little one. Do not fear. I shall be with you always. You will suffer and you suffer now, but if you are my own little Spouse, the Spouse of the crucified Jesus, you will have to bear these torments in your heart. Let me act. Refuse me not. Trust me lovingly, trust me blindly.”

Jesus, my own Jesus, I am only Thine. I am so stupid. I do not know what to say, but do with me whatever you wish, as you wish, as long as you wish. I love you not for what you give, but for what You take. Jesus, why can’t I be a perfect Loreto Nun, a real victim of Your love, here? Why can’t I be like everybody else? Look at the hundreds of Loreto Nuns who have served You perfectly, who are now with you. Why can’t I walk the same path and come to you?

“I want Indian Nuns, Missionaries of Charity, who would be my fire of love amongst the poor, the sick, the dying, and the little children. The poor I want you to bring to me and the Sisters that would offer their lives as victims of My love will bring these souls to Me. You are, I know, the most incapable person, weak and sinful, but just because you are that, I want to use you for My glory. Will Thou refuse?”

“Little one, give me souls. Give me the souls of the poor little street children. How it hurts, if you only knew, to see these poor children soiled with sin. I long for the purity of their love. If you would only answer and bring me these souls. Draw them away from the hands of the evil one. If you only knew how many little ones fall into sin every day. There are plenty of Nuns to look after the rich and well to do people, but for my very poor, there are absolutely None. For them I long, them I love. Wilt Thou refuse?”

“My little one, come, come, carry me into the holes of the poor. Come, be My light. I cannot go alone. They don’t know Me so they don’t want me. You come, go amongst them. Carry Me with you into them. How I long to enter their holes, their dark, unhappy homes. Come, be their victim. In your immolation, in your love for Me, they will see Me, know Me, want Me. Offer more Sacrifices, smile more tenderly, pray more fervently and all the difficulties will disappear.”

“You are afraid; how your fear hurts me. Fear not. It is I who am asking you to do this for me. Fear not. Even if the whole world is against you, laughs at you, your companions and Superiors look down on you, fear not. It is I in you, with you, for you.”

“You will suffer, suffer very much, but remember I am with you. Even if the whole world rejects you, remember you are My own and I am yours only. Fear not, it is I. Only obey - obey very cheerfully and promptly and without any questions. Just only obey. I shall never leave you if you obey.”

1) I saw a very big crowd - all kinds of people - very poor, and children were there also. They all had their hands lifted towards me standing in their midst. They called out, “Come, come, save us. Bring us to Jesus.”

2) Again that great crowd - I could see great sorrow and suffering in their faces. I was kneeling near Our Lady who was facing them. I did not see her face but I heard Her say, “Take care of them. They are mine. Bring them to Jesus. Carry Jesus to them. Fear not. Teach them to say the Rosary, the family Rosary, and all will be well. Fear not. Jesus and I will be with you and your children.”

3) The same great crowd - they were covered in darkness yet I could see them. Our Lord on the Cross. Our Lady at a little distance from the Cross - and myself as a little child in front of Her. Her left hand was on my left shoulder and her right hand was holding my right arm. We were both facing the Cross. Our Lord said, “I have asked you. They have asked you and she, My Mother, has asked you. Will you refuse to do this for me, to take care of them, to bring them to me?”

Since -[14] I have heard nothing, nor seen anything, but I know that whatever I have written, it is true. As I told you, I do not build on this, but I know it is true. If I did not speak of this, if I tried to kill these desires in my heart, I would be guilty before Our Lord. Why has all this come to me, the most unworthy of His creatures? I do not know, and I have tried so often to persuade Our Lord to go and seek another Soul, a more generous, a stronger one, but He seems to take pleasure in my confusion, in my weakness. These desires to satiate the longing of Our Lord for souls of the poor, for pure victims of His love, go on increasing with every Mass and Holy Communion. All my prayers and the whole day, in a word, are full of this desire. Please do not delay longer. Ask Our Lady to give us this Grace on her feast day on the 8th.[15]

If there are any other things, which I have told you[16] but I do not remember now, please, tell His Grace that also. I told him that I wanted only to obey and do God’s Holy Will. Now I do not fear. I leave myself completely in His Hands. He can dispose of me as He wishes.

Please tell His Grace about the two Yugoslav girls in Rome. Then there are six Bengali girls, the Belgium girl in the South, the one also you know in Belgium. Vocations would come. I do not fear about this, though everybody thinks me very optimistic, but I know how much love and generosity there [is] in Bengali hearts if they are given the means to reach the highest. Self-denial and abnegation will be the means to our end. There will be disappointment but the good God wants just only our Love and our trust in Him.

P.S. Please explain to H. G. what I meant when I said, I don’t build or believe in visions. I meant that even if the things did not come, my desires were just as strong and the readiness to do His Holy Will just as fervent.

When Archbishop Périer received Mother Teresa’s letter, his consultation with experts was still underway. By the beginning of January, however, he had become “deeply convinced that by withholding my consent, I would hamper the realization, through her, of the will of God. I do not think I could do anything more to enlighten myself.” Thus, on the morning of 6 January 1948, after celebrating Mass in the convent chapel, he called for Mother Teresa and told her, “You may go ahead.”

Four days later Mother Teresa wrote a letter to her Superior General explaining her desires and asking permission to begin the steps that would lead her out of the Loreto convent and into the streets and slums of Calcutta.

After receiving permission from her superior, Mother Teresa then petitioned the Sacred Congregation for Religious at the Vatican. She received formal approval with an indult of exclaustration and was granted the privilege to live outside the convent while still remaining a Loreto nun with vows. Although the indult was granted in April, the letter from Rome confirming this never reached Mother in Calcutta until August.

With this permission, Mother Teresa dressed in a sari and departed for Patna on 17 August, to begin medical training with the Medical Mission Sisters. She finished this successfully and quickly returned to Calcutta by December. Thanks to arrangements made by Fr. Van Exem, she was provided temporary lodging with the Little Sisters of the Poor. It was from there, on 21 December 1948, that Mother Teresa went out to the slums for the first time to begin “the work,” that would define her life and great mission of charity for the poorest of the poor.

She was soon to discover how prophetic were Jesus’ words foretelling the sufferings she would bear in her heart.

[1] Unless otherwise noted, quotations are taken from letters of Mother M. Teresa, M.C., and Archbishop Ferdinand Périer, S.J.

[2] Mother Teresa joined the Irish Branch of the Loreto Nuns whose formal name is the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

[3] Jordan Aumann, O.P., Spiritual Theology (London: Sheed and Ward, 1980) 365-366.

[4] Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Christian State of Life, trans. Sr. Mary Frances McCarthy (Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1983) 59-60.

[5] While Mother Teresa always spoke of receiving the inspiration on the train ride to Darjeeling, it is not known with certainty at what time or place on the journey the locution(s) occurred.

[6] Locutions or supernatural words are “manifestations of God’s thought” which may come through words heard externally (exterior or auricular locutions) or in the imagination (interior imaginative locutions) or immediately without any words (interior intellectual locutions). See Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Three Ages of the Spiritual Life: Prelude of Eternal Life, Vol. 2, (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1948; reprint, Rockford, Ill.: Tan Books and Publishers, 1989), pp. 589-90 and Augustin Poulain, S.J., Revelations and Visions: Discerning the True and Certain from the False or the Doubtful, trans. L. L. Yorke Smith, (1910; reprint, New York: Alba House, 1998), pp. 1-18. Mother Teresa received interior imaginative locutions and then sometime in 1947 at least three interior imaginative visions, that is, “visions of material objects, seen without the assistance of the eyes” (Poulain, ibid., p. 3).

[7] The common mode of address to a bishop, who in the third person is referred to as “His Grace.”

I'm not sure if this has been posted or not.I thought I saw something last week or the week before last on Mother Teresa.I did a search in this section but I didn't see if.I'm sorry if this thread is a duplicate.

I was very surprised to read this because I had never heard that Mother Teresa was a mystic,of course,the Church would keep this quiet until after her death(probably,at her wishes).

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