Mother Teresa: Saint of Darkness

Chapter Eight: Saint of Darkness

• Mother Teresa feared she or her Sisters/Brothers would cause scandal or detract from the Missionaries of Charity's mission.
• She was reluctant to publicly discuss interior locutions experienced for 7-8 months post "call within a call" on a Darjeeling train.

Scandal After Death

• Scandalous revelations emerged a decade after Teresa's death, with the 2007 publication of "Come Be My Light."
• The book, a collection of personal letters, revealed a deep sense of God's absence for half a century, except for a short period.
• Her dedication to God's work masked this spiritual darkness from the world.
• The revelations confused Christians, raising questions about depression and loss of faith.
• Her closest companions were bewildered as she never referenced the darkness, except to confessors.
• Four years before death, she warned Sisters of "the Devil" making them feel unloved and that Jesus is not cleaving to them.
• Detractors like Christopher Hitchens saw it as evidence of hypocrisy, labeling her a "confused old lady" whose service was an effort to quell inner misery.
• Hitchens criticized the Catholic Church's interpretation as marketing despair as faith.

The Wilderness

• Mother Teresa's 50-year spiritual wilderness is disconcerting, questioning God's accessibility even to saints.
• Teresa felt psychologically depressed or burnt out given her work with the poor.
• Her darkness had a spiritual significance, not merely depression.
• Depression is self-centered, Teresa's gaze was outward to God.
• Depression causes listlessness, Teresa continued the work.
• Dark periods are Christian tradition, which allow for spiritual insight and prepare for a closer relationship with the Divine.
• St. John of the Cross's writings on darkness resonated with Teresa, expressing her "hunger for God" and feeling unwanted.

Noche Oscura

• "Noche oscura" or "dark night of the soul" is a feeling of being abandoned by God.
• The soul undergoes agony & pain with the conviction God has rejected it.
• Feeling rejected by God purges senses/spirit, preparing for an "inflow of God into the soul."
• There's no set time limit for a dark night, doubts can arise.
• Teresa writes about feeling the loss of God and that He doesn't want her.
• Feeling that God turned away was her primary torment.
• St. Thérèse de Lisieux wrote that "God hides, is wrapped in darkness," explaining that Christ's love is overwhelming and that its fullness has to be withheld to cause suffering.

Loneliness

• Teresa's private letters convey loneliness from God's absence.
• Longing for God is painful, and the darkness increased.
• The place of God in her soul feels blank.
• After the train trip to Darjeeling, the darkness descended in 1949 when she thought she was doing God's work.

Approval

• Her loss of God's presence coincided with permission to found the Missionaries of Charity.
• The Vatican's approval felt contradictory
• Pius XII gave permission to found her order.
• After he died in 1958, she went to a Mass, Teresa wrote that God is pleased with the Society.
• She says the long darkness, pain of loss, and the suffering disappeared.
• Shortly after, God "thought it better for me to be in the tunnel," and is gone again for four decades.
• She saw the darkness as an essential part of her Missionary of Charity vocation.

Dedication

• Teresa dedicated her life to the poor, sick, lonely, and dying, taking on their poverty.
• She believed Christ demanded it, seeing Christ in the people she served.
• She discerned her inner poverty as sharing in Christ's suffering.
• Her oath of 1942 meant not denying God anything and embracing God's withdrawal.
• Saying yes to God involves total surrender without counting the cost, accepting what God gives/takes.

Insight

• Her darkness was "a part, a very, very small part of Jesus' darkness & pain on earth."
• Teresa's last years mirrored St. Therese's.
• She suffered from heart failure and pneumonia, unable to speak.
• She wanted Mass in her hospital room and was able to take communion.

God's Will

• Requesting Jesus meant she wanted the Eucharist and the darkness of God's withdrawal to end.
• In 1962, she wrote about her vocation to suffer Christ's passion and said that if she becomes a saint, she would be one of darkness to light the light of those in darkness.
• She accepts relinquishing heaven's joy to serve Christ's followers.
• Teresa's dedication was only an apprenticeship for her real work after death.