Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who may be canonised as a saint by the
Vatican later this year, had a deep crisis of faith in God for the last
40 years of her life, according to a new set of her letters.
The
correspondence, which spans most of Mother Teresa's life, shows that
she felt alone and in a state of spiritual pain from around 1949,
roughly the time when she started taking care of the poor and dying in
Calcutta.
Mother Teresa, who is likely to be canonised, admitted that she had begun to doubt God
Although she publicly proclaimed that her heart belonged "entirely to
the Heart of Jesus", she wrote to the Rev Michael Van Der Peet, a
spiritual confidant, in September 1979 that "Jesus has a very special
love for you. As for me, the silence and emptiness is so great that I
look and do not see, listen and do not hear. The tongue moves [in
prayer] but does not speak."
The letter was written just a few weeks before she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her charitable work.
More than 40 other letters, many of which she had asked to be destroyed
in her will, show her fighting off feelings of "darkness" and "torture".
The letters are published for the first time in a new book, Mother
Teresa: Come Be My Light, and are edited by the Rev Brian Kolodiejchuk,
a close friend.
He wrote that during that period, Mother Teresa did not feel God "in her heart or in the eucharist".
Mr Kolodiejchuk gathered the letters as part of the process to make
Mother Teresa a saint, and is responsible for arguing in her favour. He
said the letters would show people another side of her life, and said
that the fact that she was able to continue her work during such
torment was a sign of her spiritual heroism. Mother Teresa has been
beatified, and is awaiting canonisation.
The Vatican has insisted that the revelations will not obstruct her path to sainthood.
"Lord, my God, you have thrown [me] away as unwanted - unloved," she
wrote in one missive. "I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to
answer, no, no one. Alone. Where is my faith? even deep down right in
there is nothing. I have no faith. I dare not utter the words and
thoughts that crowd in my heart."
She added: "I am told God loves me, and yet the reality of the darkness
and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.
Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred
Heart?"
She even compared her problems to hell and admitted that she had begun to doubt the existence of heaven and God.
"The smile," she wrote, "is a mask or a cloak that covers everything. I
spoke as if my very heart was in love with God, a tender personal love.
If you were there you would have said, 'What hypocrisy'."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/24/wteresa124.xml
Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who may be canonised as a saint by the
Vatican later this year, had a deep crisis of faith in God for the last
40 years of her life, according to a new set of her letters.
Mother Teresa's crisis of faith won't prevent her canonisation, says Vatican
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=T5ATF2NJTRSSDQFIQMFCFFOAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/08/24/wteresa224.xml
correspondence, which spans most of Mother Teresa's life, shows that
she felt alone and in a state of spiritual pain from around 1949,
roughly the time when she started taking care of the poor and dying in
Calcutta.
Mother Teresa, who is likely to be canonised, admitted that she had begun to doubt God
Although she publicly proclaimed that her heart belonged "entirely to
the Heart of Jesus", she wrote to the Rev Michael Van Der Peet, a
spiritual confidant, in September 1979 that "Jesus has a very special
love for you. As for me, the silence and emptiness is so great that I
look and do not see, listen and do not hear. The tongue moves [in
prayer] but does not speak."
The letter was written just a few weeks before she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her charitable work.
More than 40 other letters, many of which she had asked to be destroyed
in her will, show her fighting off feelings of "darkness" and "torture".
The letters are published for the first time in a new book, Mother
Teresa: Come Be My Light, and are edited by the Rev Brian Kolodiejchuk,
a close friend.
He wrote that during that period, Mother Teresa did not feel God "in her heart or in the eucharist".
Mr Kolodiejchuk gathered the letters as part of the process to make
Mother Teresa a saint, and is responsible for arguing in her favour. He
said the letters would show people another side of her life, and said
that the fact that she was able to continue her work during such
torment was a sign of her spiritual heroism. Mother Teresa has been
beatified, and is awaiting canonisation.
The Vatican has insisted that the revelations will not obstruct her path to sainthood.
"Lord, my God, you have thrown [me] away as unwanted - unloved," she
wrote in one missive. "I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to
answer, no, no one. Alone. Where is my faith? even deep down right in
there is nothing. I have no faith. I dare not utter the words and
thoughts that crowd in my heart."
She added: "I am told God loves me, and yet the reality of the darkness
and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.
Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred
Heart?"
She even compared her problems to hell and admitted that she had begun to doubt the existence of heaven and God.
"The smile," she wrote, "is a mask or a cloak that covers everything. I
spoke as if my very heart was in love with God, a tender personal love.
If you were there you would have said, 'What hypocrisy'."
RELATED: "Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith" by TIME Magazine
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1655415,00.html
I don't go to mythical places with strange men.
-- Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.