More to the point, many on this thread -- not to mention media commentators -- would do well to read them! Since Mother Teresa, in choosing her name in religion, specifically had in mind both Teresa of Avila and the Little Flower (who also suffered the Dark Night of the Soul), I would assume she was familiar with their writings. Personally, I've never found that reading the experiences of someone else who "went through the same thing" helped very much.
I'm somewhat bemused by the image of your priest relaxing with a friend and a scotch commenting on how Mother Teresa should have handled her Dark Night of the Soul, as if it were a minor condition, like dandruff or indigestion, that will respond to the right patent remedy! ;-)
I can't help but wonder, too, in view of her earlier mystical experiences that set her on her work with the poorest of the poor, whether what she experienced as terrible spiritual dryness might not be what most of us feel like most of the time, i.e., not ecstatic union with God. But she was so aware of what that union was that she felt the lack of it acutely -- that it's the contrast that made it so painful.
“I’m somewhat bemused by the image of your priest relaxing with a friend and a scotch commenting on how Mother Teresa should have handled her Dark Night of the Soul, as if it were a minor condition, like dandruff or indigestion, that will respond to the right patent remedy! ;-)”
It is quite an image isn’t it! I will assure you, however, that she is a great spiritual hero for my priest. He also commented that he found it bizarre that anyone would find her crisis of faith odd or a sign that she wasn’t a saint. The fact of the matter is, M, that the spiritual struggles of those who are advanced in theosis are far, far greater than those experienced by the likes of the rest of us. Holiness attracts evil, greater holiness, greater evil. The Desert Fathers struggled with spiritual dryness on a daily basis and for years at a stretch. While this dark night of the soul is not anything approaching a “minor” condition, it is a common one among saints.