In a controversial story that broke in Time in 2007, Mother Teresa’s secret letters confess an emptiness that troubled her in her last years:
The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever
Author Christopher Hitchens, an atheist and a long-time critic of Mother Teresa, described the revelation as eye-opening both to non-believers and believers alike. In this video, Hitchen’s jousts with Christian pastor Bill Donohue about Mother Teresa’s secret confessions:
(Thanks to Daniel’s site for bringing this video to my attention).
This undestandably raises a lot of controversial faith questions like is faith necessary to do good works? Mother Teresa actively sought for faith her entire life and decorated her life with charitable works, and yet despite this self-confesses to have not found God in her life. Against this benchmark, how do people evaluate their own faith (or claim to faith)?
Here’s some soundbites in reaction to the article:
Albert Mohler: The recent revelations of Mother Teresa’s spiritual struggle should remind all believing Christians that our faith is in Christ — not in our feelings.
Rene Bas: Why does God allow the dark night of the soul to visit His most faithful children? Because they are being deified! They are being engoddened! They must lose all feeling of self-love. They must learn to will to love God even if the senses get no joy out of it.
Simply put: if your feelings can’t feel God, don’t trust them?
What do you think?
*** edit add: Mother Teresa’s spiritual emptiness was cause for an exorcism performed on her, which we featured sometime back.
“Author Christopher Hitchens, an atheist and a long-time critic of Mother Teresa”
Wow, of all of the evil people who inhabit this world why would anyone pick Mother Teresa as a focus for criticism?
The lesson for me is God does not always show up like I might think she should or in the manner and form that most pleases me. Not intending to discount the perspective and doubt Mother Teresa wrote about, my evolving experience and perspective shows me there is no time or place that I and God are not One.
Feelings should always be trusted. To be clear however, only TRUE feelings are to be relied upon. Thoughts masquerading as feelings can and often do limit our experience and put us out of touch with what is true for us in an experiential universe. Those inner sensations, that is to say feelings that come with a deep sense of certainty, knowing, peace, simplicity, purity, ease and other such Godly attributes are our most reliable guide. Feelings are God’s most common means of communication. It is in our most deep and genuine feelings that we hear the voice of the eternal.
Again, not to criticize or diminish Mother Teresa, her life’s work, or her personal musings about God’s silence, I wonder if it is possible the insistence on austerity, service to the point of exhaustion and unyielding discipline to a dogmatic construct robbed her of the awareness of God’s presence as joy, awe, lightness, love and an infinite whisper in her soul? I can not say why she felt separated from her maker. I can say however my dark night of the soul experiences have only served to make me more aware and certain of my unity in God.
Mike,
Being a good person does not exempt you from criticism. None of us are beyond reproach, and I think Mother Teresa would be the first to say that.
everyone should read Feelings and Faith by Dr. Brian Borgman. It is a fantastic book that gives the biblical foundation of our feelings. Check it out!