Christian Leaders Weigh in on Mother Teresa's 'Crisis of Faith'

Letters revealing Mother Teresa’s half-century-long “crisis of faith” have many pondering what to make of the secret life of one of the most revered figures in modern history.

Yet as theologians and psychologists offer interpretations for her deep “darkness,” a preeminent American theologian used Mother Teresa’s struggle to remind believers to trust Christ and not their feelings.

Whether it be an average Christian or a saint, doubts on the existence of God and turmoil over the inability to feel His presence is something every Christian has wrestled with.

Yet more important than dwelling on human emotions is securing one’s faith in Christ, according to Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and is one of the largest seminaries in the world.

“Salvation comes to those who believe in Christ – it is by grace we are saved through faith,” wrote Mohler in an online column Thursday in “On Faith” – a project of The Washington Post and Newsweek magazine.

“But the faith that saves is not faith in faith, nor faith in our ability [to] maintain faith, but faith in Christ,” he emphasized. “Our confidence is in Christ, not in ourselves.”

Mohler was responding to this week’s TIME cover story which explores Mother Teresa’s inner struggles in light of a new book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, which was made public for the first time letters covering a period of 66 years in which she questioned her beliefs and God.

In correspondents to her spiritual confidants, Mother Teresa laments on the “dryness,” “darkness,” “loneliness,” and “torture” she suffers with her inability to feel God’s presence.

A letter to Archbishop Ferdinand Perier in 1953, according to TIME, read: "Please pray specially for me that I may not spoil His work and that Our Lord may show Himself — for there is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead. It has been like this more or less from the time I started 'the work.'"

Another letter in 1956 read: “Such deep longing for God – and…repulsed – empty – no faith – no love – no zeal. – [The saving of] Souls holds no attraction – Heaven means nothing – pray for me please that I keep smiling at Him in spite of everything.”

Mother Teresa also painfully shared her inability to pray saying she just “utter words” of Community prayers– a confession that came from a woman who once said the Christmas holiday should remind the world “that radiating joy is real” because Christ is everywhere.

Yet despite the “pain and darkness” in her soul, Mother Teresa served tirelessly among the outcasts, the dying and the most abject poor in India. She brought countless sick Indians to her center from slums and gutters to be treated and cared for under the banner of Christ’s love.

“The very essence of faith, you see, is believing even in the absence of evidence,” said Chuck Colson, founder and chairman of Prison Fellowship, in a column Wednesday in response to the TIME article. “And it is the only way we can know Christ.

Colson shared that he experienced his own darkness of soul when a few years back two of his three children were diagnosed with cancer.

“We can conclude rationally that God exists, that His Word is true, and that He has revealed Himself” Colson said. “But without that leap of faith, we will never know God personally or accept His will in Christ.”

It was in the late 1950s when Mother Teresa met a well-known theologian, the Rev. Joseph Neuner, who helped her accept the “darkness” she felt.

Neuner gave her three pieces of counsel – first, there was no human cure for what she had, so she shouldn’t feel personally guilty about it; second, feeling Jesus is not the only evidence of His presence, and the fact that she longed for God is a “sure sign” of his “hidden presence” in her life; and last, the feeling of absence was part of the “spiritual side” of her work for Jesus.

Mother Teresa responded to Neuner in 1961: “I can’t express in words – the gratitude I owe you for your kindness to me – for the first time in ….years – I have come to love the darkness – for I believe now that it is part of a very, very small part of Jesus’ darkness & pain on earth.”

She later wrote to Neuner, “I accept not in my feelings – but with my will, the Will of God – I accept his will,” according to TIME.

“So what do the letters of Mother Teresa reveal? For one, they reveal the true cost of discipleship,” commented Colson. “To follow Christ is to embrace suffering and the Cross. And, at times, to say with Jesus, ‘My God, my God, why did you abandon me?’”

Baptist seminary head Mohler said that although he would not “presume to read Mother Teresa’s heart or soul,” he concluded from her story that faith should not be placed on volatile emotions but rather solely in the unchanging God.

“There is a sweet and genuine emotional aspect to the Christian faith, and God made us emotional and feeling creations,” wrote Mohler. “But we cannot trust our feelings. Our faith is not anchored in our feelings, but in the facts of the Gospel.

“Our confidence is in Christ, not in ourselves. We are weak; He is strong. We fluctuate; He is constant. We cannot trust our feelings nor our emotional state. We trust in Christ. Those who come to Christ by faith are not kept unto Him by our faith, but by his faithfulness,” wrote Mohler.

The Catholic Church is considering whether or not to make Mother Teresa a saint and the letters were collected as supporting materials for the process.

Mother Teresa died in 1997, nearly two decades after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

Stanzas of the soul that suffers with longing to see God.

I live, but not in myself,
and I have such hope
that I die because I do not die.

1. I no longer live within myself
and I cannot live without God,
for having neither him nor myself
what will life be?
It will be a thousand deaths,
longing for my true life
and dying because I do not die.

2. This life that I live
is no life at all,
and so I die continually
until I live with you;
hear me, my God:
I do not desire this life,
I am dying because I do not die.

3. When I am away from you
what life can I have
except to endure
the bitterest death known?
I pity myself,
for I go on and on living,
dying because I do not die.

4. A fish that leaves the water
has this relief:
the dying it endures
ends at last in death.
What death can equal my pitiable life?
For the longer I live, the more drawn out is my dying.

5. When I try to find relief
seeing you in the Sacrament,
I find this greater sorrow:
I cannot enjoy you wholly.
All things are affliction
since I do not see you as I desire,
and I die because I do not die.

6. And if I rejoice, Lord,
in the hope of seeing you,
yet seeing I can lose you
doubles my sorrow.
Living in such fear
and hoping as I hope,
I die because I do not die.

7. Lift me from this death,
my God, and give me life;
do not hold me bound
with these bonds so strong;
see how I long to see you;
my wretchedness is so complete
that I die because I do not die.

8. I will cry out for death
and mourn my living
while I am held here
for my sins.
O my God, when will it be
that I can truly say:
now I live because I do not die?

- St. John of the Cross

Mother Teresa Persevered Through Doubt

A Light in the 21st Century's "Dark Night"

By Elizabeth Lev

ROME, AUG. 30, 2007 (Zenit.org).- As a respected Boston lawyer once remarked of recent biographies, "It's tough times for the dead." A case in point was the cover of last week's Time magazine. Splashed across the front page ran the headline "The Secret Life of Mother Teresa," accompanied by the gloomiest picture you ever saw of the saintly nun.

With its sensationalist title, Time magazine not only descended to the level of tabloid journalism, but betrayed a woeful ignorance of the meaning of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta's spiritual journey.

Capitulating to the fad of finding the sordid behind the glitter, where titles like "Britney's Breakdown" or "Lindsay in Crisis" are guaranteed to boost sales, the article itself feeds into the mentality that things are never as pretty as they seem. In our age of masking our own shortcomings by pointing out the flaws in others, it suggests that Mother Teresa's joyous love of the poor hid a darker, almost sinister side.

Recent interest in the extraordinary founder of the Missionaries of Charity stemmed from the recently published book "Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light." Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, postulator for the cause of canonization of the saintly nun who died in 1997, compiled her letters and writings, including a number that revealed Teresa's spiritual trials.

By releasing these documents, Father Kolodiejchuk sought to grant readers a window into the intimate spiritual life of Mother Teresa, and to offer inspiration and hope by recounting her challenges in following Christ.

Instead, some have twisted her doubts about her faith, which she confided in letters to her spiritual director, into an indictment of her sincerity and personal holiness. Time author David Van Biema writes, "Perpetually cheery in public, the Teresa of the letters lived in a state of deep and abiding spiritual pain."

These terms relate Mother Teresa's life to that of a comic actor, suggesting that her professional persona and her private self were separate. Yet Teresa did more than just smile for cameras; she demonstrated joyous love, through her every action, gesture and expression.

The predatory glee with which news services leapt upon word of Mother Teresa's "dark night of the soul" resembled the same relish with which they report celebrity arrests. Questions such as, "Can she still be made a saint?" demonstrated an utter lack of knowledge regarding the Church's idea of sanctity while attempting to sow division by casting doubts on her holiness.

As a side note, Mother Teresa of Calcutta is blessed, which means that she is officially recognized by the Church as being in heaven. When she becomes a saint, worldwide devotion to Mother Teresa will be permitted, i.e. church dedication, invocation during the liturgy etc.

A different standard

The standards of the media are not those of saints. While Teresa herself feared falling into a sort of spiritual hypocrisy, the fact was that she, like many saints, possessed an especially keen sensitivity to how she fell short of Christ's example.

Celebrated atheists leapt to recruit the nun to their cause. Christopher Hitchens, who penned a vicious biography of Mother Teresa, was quoted extensively in the article. Seizing the opportunity to reach millions, Hitchens eagerly made his bid to turn Teresa into a poster child for nihilism.

Time also consulted psychologists to posthumously analyze Mother Teresa from her letters. It seems strange that so many people who do not believe in the soul felt themselves qualified to probe that of Mother Teresa's.

Although many have already rushed to quell these sparks, Mother Teresa obviously needs no defense. Happily situated in heaven along with other doubters like, well, St. Thomas, she is probably beseeching Jesus with her characteristic compassion to forgive Hitchens and the others "for they know not what they do."

Paradoxically, the divisive aspect of the stories has done what many Church synods couldn't. Liberal and traditional Catholics have joined forces to correct the record and to recognize Mother Teresa as an example for all people who suffer spiritual loneliness.

Her doubts and suffering, far from being a source of shame for those who love and admire this great woman, should make us proud to discover that she is an even greater hero than we thought.

For anyone seriously interested in the cause of Teresa, her spiritual difficulties come as no surprise. They were made known after her beatification in 2003. Discussing the subject at Roman dinner tables at the time, people spoke with awe of Mother Teresa's exceptional perseverance in the face of what would have crumbled anyone less attuned to God's grace.

Mother Teresa's experiences are not scandal, but a mirror of our own lonely age. While people today try to dispel feelings of loneliness with analysts, medications or pop spirituality, Teresa embraced her loneliness and clung to her faith in Jesus, which, though often devoid of feelings, was solid and profound. What many have failed to notice, in fact, is that a good number of her expressions of solitude are addressed to Jesus himself.

"Feeling it"

Carole Zaleski in "First Things" wrote that Teresa converted "her feeling of abandonment by God into an act of abandonment to God."

In many ways, her own sense of marginalization from God helped Mother Teresa to recognize loneliness in others. She proclaimed that there was "more hunger in the world for love and appreciation than for bread." She realized that rejection and abandonment was not only the province of lepers, but present even in the inner life of those who appear to be successful and privileged.

How many times have we gone to Mass, not "feeling it," as modern speak would put it. Our lips moving, our gestures mechanical, but we remain distant from the reality of God and his love for us. In that emptiness, temptation raises its head, suggesting that rather than practice this "hypocrisy," we should forego Mass and go out for a round of golf instead.

Mother Teresa lived her doubts, not for an hour on Sunday, but every day as she tended the poor and dying in utter, relentless squalor. Her example reaches across from Christians to non-Christians.

Benedict XVI, as Father Joseph Ratzinger, made the interesting point in his 1963 "Introduction to Christianity" that "both the believer and the unbeliever share each in his own way, doubt and belief." That led him to notice that doubt could be a possible "avenue of communication" between the two.

Time and time again, saints show us that when they suffer, the solution is to look outside oneself, not further within. St. Alfonso Liguori and St. John of the Cross both overcame their own troubles by focusing on their calling. As one religious sister acutely observed, when Teresa couldn't find Jesus in her prayer life, she found him in the faces of her fellow human beings.

Teresa eventually came to give a meaning to her trials. She saw them as a privilege, the gift of sharing in Christ's loneliness on the cross.

In his film "The Passion," Mel Gibson painted a wrenching image of Christ's agony in the garden of Gethsemane. Amid oppressive darkness, the sight of Jesus, abandoned by his apostles, struggling to continue with his mission, confronts viewers with the sense of desolation that accompanied his sacrifice.

Saints like Blessed Teresa, who faced loneliness in their self-sacrifice, experienced a unique sharing in the mystery of Christ's passion. Like the purest gold, they have been forged in hotter fires.

Particularly in our era that gives more weight to feelings than facts and to sensation rather than sense, Mother Teresa teaches the world to persevere through doubt, pain and loneliness. In the dark spiritual night of the 21st-century, Mother Teresa of Calcutta's example is a shining beacon to us all.

* * *

Elizabeth Lev teaches Christian Art and Architecture at Duquesne University's Italian campus. She can be reached at lizlev@zenit.org

© Innovative Media, Inc.

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