Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light
August 28, 2007
While I was sitting in the waiting room at Safelite Autoglass today, I picked up the newest TIME Magazine and read the cover story, “Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith.” I was drawn to pick up TIME because of the unusual photo of Mother Teresa on the cover. I think I’m used to seeing a sweet smile on Mother Teresa’s face, and her face on the cover photo just looked devoid of any emotion. The article talks about a new book coming out, entitled Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light”, which I hope to get and do a review of in the future. The book is a collection of Mother Teresa’s private correspondence with her confessors and superiors over the course of 66 years. What the reader finds out is a glimpse into Mother Teresa’s “dark night of the soul” that lasted for over 50 years, and which began almost at the exact same time she began her work in Calcutta.
“Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.”
— Mother Teresa to the Rev. Michael Van Der Peet, September 1979
It is a very interesting article and I am looking forward to reading the book. What an amazing glimpse into the life of a woman blessed, revered and lifted up as a spiritual mother to millions. And to see that she struggled with doubts and feelings of anguish, despair, loneliness and loss for much of her ministry.
Tags: Catholics, Doubt, Mother-Teresa
Posted in Books
Adam Walker Cleaveland: I am a 28 yr old 
August 28th, 2007 at 8:27 am
When I first heard about this book I at first thought, “If she didn’t feel God, then what hope is there for the rest of us?” But now looking at it I see how a book like this can actually help aid people in their own crisis of faith. If you ever get the chance read “Diary of a City Priest” by father John Mcnamee.
August 28th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
I saw the article as well… I wonder if it will help make or break people’s faith. It’s definitely encouraging to me, and I’ll definitely be reading the book…
August 28th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Our office administrator and I had a long talk about this “crisis of faith” today, and decided that it was hardly a shock or scandal. She put herself in an environment filled with despairing people. She became one with them. And who could blame for throwing up her hands sometimes? It deepens my respect for her.
August 29th, 2007 at 12:11 am
I too find great hope in this story. Here is a woman beloved by millions who had given of herself in such a way that she is on the road to sainthood. She is a person who apparently had ecstatic experiences of God’s presence and believed herself called to ministry. And yet at the moment she made that choice and became one with the people of Calcutta, that intimate connection ended. But, she continued to faithfully carry out her ministry and pursue the Christ she loved and served. That is, to me, a story of inspiration.
August 29th, 2007 at 8:44 am
I was encouraged by her doubts and questions. It’s one thing to serve the poor on a spiritual high; it’s another thing to serve the poor while struggling with God for decades. I’m glad her letters weren’t destroyed as she requested.
August 29th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
No one else get the icky voyeuristic feel from this? If she requested that they be destroyed, perhaps we shouldn’t read them.
August 30th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
A link at SARX sent me here and I enjoyed reading your reflections on Illumined Heart and then on Mother Teresa. I think her book may be very important for an emergent/renewing movement that is stirring in so many different Christian communities and traditions. I’m looking forward to reading the book and also to hearing what you have to say about it here. Faithfulness that touched so many people and a suffering that shared the darkness of so many looks like holiness to me.
August 30th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
I am also looking forward to reading the book. My initial reaction to Times Mag. was one of personal torment. Where was Jesus in her (my) life? Why had he disappeared? (God seems so distant a lot of the time, but at times Jesus seems to be right there.) As, I digested the article, I began to sense that Mother Teresa was longing for the extraordinary gift of Jesus’ presence prior to beginning her work in Calcutta. (Jesus was right there for her in her younger years) In many ways she experienced an abandonment similar to what Jesus felt at the Crucifiction: “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me.” Mother Teresa had her prayer to experience Jesus’ sufferings answered, and indeed suffered the agony of Jesus Crucified. Why? Something to do with the power of evil, human suffering (the untold human misery in the world), who Jesus was, what he did, and who we are called to be, as we accept Jesus in our hearts and confront the power of darkness. That’s my answer-thought before I read the book and seriously reflect on the spiritual life and journey of this wonderful woman - the ’saint of the gutters of Calcutta’.
August 31st, 2007 at 2:41 am
I read an interesting article about this that is worth sharing.
http://www.reformation21.org/Reformation_21_Blog/Reformation_21_Blog/58/pm__114/vobId__6471/
Here are some excerpts:
The result of this seems to be that Mother Teresa thought of her salvation primarily in terms of mystical experiences. Her mission to Calcutta was reportedly received in a most striking vision in which Jesus Himself charged her: “Come, Come, carry Me into the holes of the poor. Come be My Light.” The rest of her life seems to have been spent in pursuit of a repitition of this ecstatic high. Most evangelicals probably read her complaints about Christ’s absence as merely reflecting some kind of spiritual depression. But it is clear from Mother Teresa’s correspondence that what she was looking for was another ecstatic visionary experience. Her idea of salvation was to participate mystically in deity itself. To have such an experience was to have Christ. To fail to achieve this mystic height was to be without Christ.
[...]
Why was her faith so dry and dead, as she lamented for over sixty years? One key answer seems to be that her faith was not rooted in the Word of God, but in experiential ecstacy. In this, parallels can be seen between Mother Teresa and Christians of many stripes — many of them evangelicals — whose faith is driven by spiritual experiences instead of by the truth of God’s Word.
September 7th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Brandon is judging Mother Teresa in a very wrong way because if her faith was not driven and rooted in God’s word, she could not achieve all that we have witnessed for more than 45 years.
Her complains is not because of the lack of ecstasy but because she was so united with God that her human senses could not perceive this very fact; however, we all could see God in her words and in her actions. This remind of the writing of the Simone Weil, the Jewish philosopher who wrote:
When from the depth of our being, we need, we seek a sound
which does mean something: when we cry out for an answer, and it is not granted, then we touch the silence of God—-
Some begin to talk to themselves, as do the mad; some give their hearts to silence.
September 9th, 2007 at 11:29 am
I believe this woman was very wise,she was trying to tell people that She was not with God that is why she did not feel His presence,a good look in the bible would explain this,her church was wrong but she really wanted to be near Christ,but her church drove her away from Him,she noticed something was not right, she was right but I wonder why she did not change.
September 9th, 2007 at 11:42 am
I know that you all love her and her work,I do not hate her I actually pity her.She never saw Jesus as she claims she did,what happened to her is what happenned to the children at Fatima and also to Simon Stock(the scapula guy).The Jesus she saw had long hair because she said he looked like his statues in the church.Please read 1corinthians 11(the whole chapter) to believe me.If she had seen christ she would have attacked the roman catholic .WHY? Simple the real Jesus never had and does not have long hair.She didn’t attack the church or comment about the statues in the but kept on using the long haired Jesus statues she had seen,if you read 1corinthians 11(the whole chapter) you will know she never saw Jesus.She did good works but I believe God himself does not approve of such hypocrites.
September 9th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Pretty strong statements from ‘lover of truth’. Not sure what to say. It seems to me that love, mercy, and compassions which were hallmarks of Jesus’life, and of Mother Theresa’s life are missing in ‘the lover of truths’s statements. Without love, St. Paul says, we have nothing at all. Please try to show your true Christian heart when you make statements - I for one would appreciate it, and so would others, I am sure. How we say things, is just as important (and maybe even more so) that the truth that we are attmepting to say.
September 13th, 2007 at 6:23 am
mother shows how genuine her love to god was.It is wonderful that she promises to help those on earth in darkness.Let us pray for those who go through the same experience on earth.That they may be brought to true light soon
September 20th, 2007 at 2:15 am
Mother Teresa was and is the light to the world. With out fear I can say, She is very clearly one best masanger of God. She is very good example to the all world. Though we Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim or Hindu etc. teach us the real life, how can we live with peace and harmony. She is the Light of my life as well as all the religion too.