Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith
By Rory on Aug 24, 2007
This topic deserves a more prominent notice than our sideblog. TIME magazine just published an article that details a new book about the private correspondence of Mother Teresa over a period of 66 years. It is interesting to see the two different faces - the public, faithful, resolute Mother Teresa masking her private, doubting, deep spiritual pain.
From the article:
Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.
— Mother Teresa to the Rev. Michael Van Der Peet, September 1979
And:
[Her correspondence over the years suggest that] one of the great human icons of the past 100 years, whose remarkable deeds seemed inextricably connected to her closeness to God and who was routinely observed in silent and seemingly peaceful prayer by her associates as well as the television camera, was living out a very different spiritual reality privately, an arid landscape from which the deity had disappeared.
The article can be found by following this link.
The book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, will be released on September 4, 2007. I’m looking forward to learning more about her “dark night of the soul,” and learning how this very public woman reconciled her doubt with her religion.
I had breakfast with Jane Hirschfield a few years ago. She’s a poet to edited a book called, “Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women.” And this was one thing she pointed out to me: that many of the poems she collected for this book were much like Teresa’s confessions. Most of them grew up from the absence of God from their lives.
Comment # 1 by Stephen Carter | Aug 24, 2007 | Reply
What is amazing to me is the great spiritual light Theresa received before her ministry. How wonderful that she was able to be sustained in the memory of that moment and not lose faith, despite the absence of contiuing moments. I am certain in the grand scheme of things, she will always be more a saint than ever I can aspire to be.
Comment # 2 by Matt W. | Aug 24, 2007 | Reply
I thought this statement in the article was beautiful:
For all that she had expected and even craved to share in Christ’s Passion, she had not anticipated that she might recapitulate the particular moment on the Cross when he asks, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” The idea that rather than a nihilistic vacuum, his felt absence might be the ordeal she had prayed for, that her perseverance in its face might echo his faith unto death on the Cross, that it might indeed be a grace, enhancing the efficacy of her calling, made sense of her pain.
Sometimes I think our sometimes simplistic LDS theology makes us overlook these kinds of insights.
Comment # 3 by Ann | Aug 25, 2007 | Reply
I’ve always thought of Mother Teresa as a mountain mover of sorts - able to do so much good in the world. It is inspiring that even though she didn’t seem to have the warm fuzzies, burning in the bosem, or spiritual feelings that we tend to associate with a relationship with God, her faith even through her self-described darkness was able to move mountains.
I liked this:
It sheds light on the more complex nature of the way she spent her life.
Comment # 4 by Elise | Aug 25, 2007 | Reply
Ann says: “Sometimes I think our sometimes simplistic LDS theology makes us overlook these kinds of insights.”
About “saints”: We modern Mormons have become so used to that word that it has become clichĂ© and virtually meaningless. Yes, there it is in those last three letters of institutions founded by Joseph Smith, Jr. Nevertheless, I am impressed that the RLDS have understood this and have transformed themselves into a community of Christ that is humble and confident enough to insert “CoC” instead of “RLDS” into their institutional identity.
It seems clear to me that this original post about the inner struggles of Mother Teresa, despite her candiacy for sainthood, has struck a resonant chord in many thoughtful “LDS” with similar struggles. Can anyone out there think of any true saint who has not struggled?
In my own struggle (not to imply any such candidacy) I have recently discovered my father’s forgotten tradition–the Russian Orthodox. They, as do the Roman Catholics, have a long list of saints, whom they revere and learn from. In growing up in my mother’s Mormon tradition, I simply disregarded that there was anything to learn from their or any other tradition’s experience. But within the past several months I have learned about “Father Arseny”, a Russian Orthodox priest who spent most of his life suffering (without complaint) and loving every soul he encountered in the Soviet gulags. His astounding influence on the worst of that “Evil Empire”, whether criminal, ecclesiastic or guard surely puts him in the ranks of true saints. I am humbled by reading stories about him by those who survived the gulags. His life is a shining example to any earnest seeker that Christ is alive and well in the hearts and minds of far more people than our self-preoccupied LDS society might ever admit.
Thank you, Ann, for making us more aware of other realities, including the New Order Mormon or NOM.
ENK
Comment # 5 by Eugene Kovalenko | Aug 26, 2007 | Reply
The most interesting aspect of this new information about Mother Teresa is that it never stopped her from fighting poverty and comforting the needy. I’m sure her charitable feelings were linked to her belief, but they didn’t rely on it. Her doubt didn’t stop her from doing what was right and needed.
Comment # 6 by chosha | Aug 27, 2007 | Reply
A big spiritual stumbling block for me was my early inability to see a difference between god and religion. So many people think god and religion are the same thing, in fact they are not even close to the same thing and in some cases extreme opposites. Mother Theresas’ very close association with a powerful religious institution could have been a problem. Finding god in all of the silk robes and golden chalices can be difficult. I am told she was a huge money center for the Catholic Church. The image of Mother Theresa created by the media is, I’m sure, very different than the reality. Gordon
Comment # 7 by Gordon Hill | Aug 31, 2007 | Reply