Throughout her life, Mother Teresa struggled with negative feelings of doubt and faithlessness in her religious beliefs. Her struggle lasted for 50 years, and this pained her a lot and left her with feelings of heavy loneliness. In her letters, she wrote of how she did not feel God’s presence in her life in heart (David 107-113). Critics, atheists and secularists, usually think that her letter proved that she was just an hypocrite with no real relationship with God, and subsequently no faith in him and have even gone ahead to call her just but a celebrity (Brian 24-29). However, I am of the opinion that her encounter with the feelings of abandonment and darkness made her a better saint. By caring for the needy, she shared in their problems, and her doubts teach us all that even saints struggle with their spiritual lives and this makes her more relatable to all.
For the book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, which had in it her private letters, it is learned that Mother Teresa struggled with feelings of spiritual dryness and always felt like God had left her. She called this “darkness” referring to the abandonment by God that she felt. Even if she struggled with interior darkness, her love for people especially the needy never ended or even reduced. Her devotion was still strong (David 107-113). This only goes to prove that the letters were not proving of lack of faith, but of her concurring when her faith got tested.
Despite her struggles, she did not tell others except her spiritual guardians about her experiences and never wished for her experiences to be of public knowledge (Brian 24-29). She even asked that the “letters or anything she had written” be destroyed by Archbishop Picachy in 1959. Maybe Mother Teresa was fearful that people of less faith, atheist, the secular society, or still some Catholics would misinterpret her problems and get discouraged in their spiritual journey (Livermore 45-49).
In the Catholic history, there are other saints who have had the same experience of facing spiritual darkness and dryness, spiritual tests for purification, divine darkness. For example, St. John of the Cross of the 16th Century also struggled with the darkness of her soul as he put it and often saw it as God’s expression of love to him (Livermore 45-49). St. Therese of Lisieux, who entered service at the tender age of 15 years, and died only after nine years, also described her spiritual dryness as a “night of nothingness” and she was scared of losing her faith. St. Paul of the Cross, experiences the darkness for 45 years in the 18th Century. St. Catherine of Siena also struggled with doubt and feelings of abandonment (Brian 24-29).
Many have had negative opinions about saints having spiritual dryness. People of the secular world translate this as hypocrites and attack the saint’s virtues, personalities and character. This is because many do not get that this suffering is brought by the zealous love for God (David 107-113).
In conclusion, although Mother Teresa and other saints faced spiritual darkness, and negative feeling of being abandoned by God, it is evident that they did not truly lack faith. These negative feelings helped them to know what the needy people they helped felt like and made it easier for them to understand them.
Works cited
David Scott. "Mother Teresa's Long Dark Night." chapter 17 in The Love That Made Mother Teresa. Manchester. NH: Sophia Institute Press: 107-113. 2013.Print.
Brian Kolodiejchuk. Teresa, Mother, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the "Saint of Calcutta". New York: Doubleday, 2007. Print.
Livermore, Colette, Hope Endures: Leaving Mother Teresa, Losing Faith, and Searching for Meaning. Free Press 2008.Print.
