WASHINGTON (RNS)—Ten years after her death, a new book of Mother Teresa's personal letters illustrates a profound and private spiritual struggle—much of it unknown to the world that would come to admire her for her work with the poor and outcast lepers in Calcutta, India.
Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, released Sept. 4, is a collection of Teresa's personal letters to her spiritual advisers. For the most part, they are letters she never intended to become public and—in fact—had asked to be destroyed.
RNS photo
Pope John Paul II meets with Mother Teresa in 1987.
“If I ever become a saint—I will surely be one of ‘darkness,' ” she wrote. “I will continually be absent from heaven—to (light) the light of those in darkness on earth.”
The book will likely challenge the characterization many people had of Teresa as a simple, pious woman, said James Martin, a Jesuit priest who wrote the best-selling My Life With the Saints.
“I think that this is a real treasure for not only believers, but even doubters and skeptics,” Martin said. “It shows that even the saints struggle in their spiritual lives and that they don't have it easier than we do. They sometimes have it harder than we do.”
Brian Kolodiejchuk, who directs the Mother Teresa Center from Tijuana, Mexico, edited the book.
Kolodiejchuk read through 6,000 of Teresa's letters. For the book, he included letters pertaining to three aspects of her life: her vow to God, what she called “the inspiration” and also “the darkness.”
In 1942, Mother Teresa made a vow not to refuse Jesus anything. Starting in 1946, she experienced several mystical encounters with Jesus, whom she called “the Voice,” asking her to serve “the poorest of the poor.” The “darkness” was her term for feelings of loneliness and abandonment when her communion with Jesus ended.
RNS photo
Prior to 1946, Kolodiejchuk said little was known about Teresa's spiritual life. “She says in a letter, ‘I came to India with the desire to love Jesus as he has never been loved before,'” he said. “She was a woman passionately in love with Jesus.”
But no sooner did Teresa start her work in the slums of Calcutta than she began to feel the intense absence of Jesus—a state that lasted until her death, according to her letters. In a letter estimated to be from 1961, Teresa wrote: “Darkness is such that I really do not see—neither with my mind nor with my reason—the place of God in my soul is blank—There is no God in me—when the pain of longing is so great—I just long & long for God … The torture and pain I can't explain.”
Over time, Joseph Neuner, a spiritual adviser, helped Teresa realize her feelings of abandonment only increased her understanding of the people she helped, Kolodiejchuk said. Ultimately, she identified her suffering with that of Jesus, which helped her accept it.
Catholic saints typically experience a “dark night of the soul” in the words of 16th-century priest St. John of the Cross, Martin said, but never as long as the “whole working life” Teresa experienced.
But Martin stressed Teresa's belief in God never wavered—just her feeling of connection to Jesus, especially after her intense mystical experiences.
“It's one thing to feel that God is not with you. It's another thing to believe that God doesn't exist,” he said. “Doubt is a natural part of the human condition. … You could say that she went through 50 years of Good Friday, and that we are able to enjoy the Easter Sunday of her book.”