Mother Teresa and the Crisis of Faith

There has been a lot made of the new book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, that features letters from Mother Teresa exhibiting serious doubts about her faith. There is a recent TIME Magazine article about the book here. She apparently went through long stretches of her ministry in Calcutta feeling an absence of God's presence and even doubting whether God was real. I read one story that said she wanted her letters burned upon her death, a wish that was (obviously) not granted. But I, for one, think that such doubt by a saintly woman is a helpful thing for the rest of us. It shows that "dark nights of the soul" (an experience common to some of the most saintly people in Christian history) can afflict everyone. And what is more, they need not derail us from walking the path of Christian discipleship.

Faith is a deep and mutivalent concept. It consists of emotions, of course, but the emotional aspect of faith may be the shallowest level of all. It also consists of intellectual apprehension of spiritual truths, the conformity of the will to God, the embodiment of a certain kind of virtue (what Wesley called holiness of heart and life), and the sustained commitment to Christian action in the world. Allan Bevere has posted about the different ways we come to know God, specifically in response to the Mother Teresa story. It is a very good post.

Mother Teresa certainly had tremendous faith, despite whatever doubts she may have experienced. I have no doubt myself that there were demons constantly tempting her to lose all faith and hope. Who else would Satan go after than one who inspired millions by her utter devotion to Christ? But regardless of how she felt in an interior sense, she exhibited the conformity of her will to God through the faithful ministry she performed over decades. And that is faith. Perhaps it is not the fullness of faith that she desired, but it is faith nonetheless.

Let us also not forget that our Savior himself, in the Gospel of Mark, dies feeling utterly abandoned by God. Through his suffering, he knows our suffering and has taken that suffering unto himself. And that in itself is a great reason for comfort, no matter what doubts we may face in this life.