David Van Biema published a story this week in Time magazine describing the doubts of Mother Teresa and her long struggle with "spiritual darkness"--her personal experience of a "dark night of the soul."
The story points to a collection of her letters published in the new book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday 2007), edited and compiled by Brian Kolodiejchuk.
The letters draw readers into the long (66 years) and terrible struggle the founder of the Daughters of Charity experienced in her personal faith and spirituality.
As she performed her amazing and often heroic work that gained her international acclaim, she struggled with deep and profound loneliness, doubt, darkness and silence. She confesses that her trademark smile was simply her "mask" or "a cloak that covers everything."
The story points to a collection of her letters published in the new book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday 2007), edited and compiled by Brian Kolodiejchuk.
The letters draw readers into the long (66 years) and terrible struggle the founder of the Daughters of Charity experienced in her personal faith and spirituality.
As she performed her amazing and often heroic work that gained her international acclaim, she struggled with deep and profound loneliness, doubt, darkness and silence. She confesses that her trademark smile was simply her "mask" or "a cloak that covers everything."
Not surprisingly, at least to me, the darkness settled into her life shortly after she began her life's mission among the poorest of the poor. Her story will be surprising to many and a relief to many others. Sadly, in my view, far too many will have no clue what she is describing in her letters and journals.In the end, with the help of one of her confessors, she was able to reframe the silence of God and of her beloved Jesus as a participation in the darkness Jesus experienced in his own death and suffering--the dark silence of the Passion.
I am eager to read the book.
The enigma of Christ can be very daunting to understand... He speaks through silence... He came as a king, but in the form of a poor man... He died to bring eternal life.
ReplyDeleteThe greatest love we can show God is not to forge on without doubt, but to question Him and struggle with the answers we see. To struggle with faith is to be honest with our selves and the limitations of our souls; to be content in our understanding of God is to limit His greatness to our finite minds, and I can imagine few things worse that to confine His splendor to my meager capacity to understand beauty and love.
Thank you for sharing Mother Teresa's story with us. Please pray for her canonization, as she is the sort of saint that we need: someone entirely human and yet angelic in her ministry, someone who is in this world yet not of it.
JG
I have learned much about the experience of the dark night of the soul in my own life. I had never really understood it until I read Brennan Manning's book, "The Signature of Jesus," this year.
ReplyDeleteI truly believe it is God's work in our hearts. It is a grace that is given to some, if not all, to draw us into deeper relationship with Him.
Thank you for your post.
There is no doubt in my mind that her experience of the darkness of the experience of faith is related in some way to her very personal proximity to the extremely poor and suffering friends she knew and loved so well. In reality, is there anything but darkness on "this side" of which one can be certain?
ReplyDeleteI think doubt is part of the human condition--at least of those of us who are still sane. I instinctively distrust those who are always positive, because I worry about the reality of their world view.
ReplyDeleteI read a psychiatric study that compared the perceptions of optimists and pessimists. It turned out that the perceptions of pessimists were always closer to objective reality than those of optimists.
When you see reality, however dark it may be, and continue on with your work, then I think you approach the heroic.
More now, than ever, I can see Mother Teresa as heroic.
I wrote about this exact thing on my blog today- it really caught my attention. I want to read the book also.
ReplyDeleteI saw the article in the DMN a few days ago about Mother Teresa's letters which expressed her doubts (which letters she had asked to be destroyed upon her death) and was very moved by it also.
ReplyDeleteIn an early biography I have of her written by a man who knew her and her family, I'd read that the Vatican would never let her return home to see her own mother and sister after she began her work. She and her family were heartbroken over this. She requested permission to travel to see them even after the Sisters of Charity was well-established, but it was denied, and they died without ever reuniting.
I couldn't help wondering if this wasn't quite discouraging to her. I am a member of the 'established church,' but sometimes the machinations of church hierarchy are really hard to fathom.
I agree with SeriousSummer...
'When you see reality, however dark it may be, and continue on with your work, then I think you approach the heroic.'