Think of Her

"Who would have thought that the person who was considered the most faithful woman in the world struggled like that with her faith?" Rev. James Martin, editor at the Jesuit magazine America comments.

The world was stunned when Mother Teresa's secret letters to her confessors and superiors were recently revealed, showing that she spent almost 50 years without sensing the presence of God in her life. Her "dark night of the soul" started almost immediately after she embarked on her God-given ministry among "the poorest of the poor" on the streets of Calcutta and lasted until she left the world. This is one of her confessions addressed to Jesus which clearly reflected her agony:

Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love - and now become as the most hated one - the one - You have thrown away as unwanted - unloved. I call, I cling, I want - and there is no One to answer - no One on Whom I can cling - no, No One. - Alone... Where is my Faith - even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness - My God - how painful is this unknown pain - I have no Faith - I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart - & make me suffer untold agony.

So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them - because of the blasphemy - If there be God - please forgive me - When i try to raise my thoughts to Heaven - there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. - I am told God loves me - and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?

The amazing story of her faithfulness in spite of God's absence serves as a powerful antithesis to the modern Christian, who focuses on personal feelings to determine God's presence and love. Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, compiler and editor of Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light makes his point:

The tendency in our spiritual life but also in our more general attitude toward love is that our feelings are all that is going on...And so to us the totality of love is what we feel. But to really love someone requires commitment, fidelity and vulnerability. Mother Teresa wasn't 'feeling' Christ's love, and she could have shut down. But she was up at 4:30 every morning for Jesus, and still writing to him, 'Your happiness is all I want.' That's a powerful example even if you are not talking in exclusively religious terms.

More importantly, Mother Teresa's story gives great courage and comfort to those who experience the absence and silence of God. When we begin to doubt the existence of God, when we begin to think of throwing the towel; think of Mother Teresa, think of her agony, think of her faithfulness.

Quotes taken from Biema, David V. "Her Agony" in TIME. September 3, 2007.