Citizen Columns

Citizen Columns >> Answer (September 7th, 2007)

Question

Documents in the Vatican's files on Mother Teresa indicate she began to struggle with her belief in God at about the same time she began to care for the downtrodden in Calcutta. A new book by Mother Teresa's postulator reveals many letters she reportedly wanted to destroy. "Lord, my God, you have thrown (me) away as unwanted -- unloved," she wrote. "I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to answer, no, no one." How do you react to the crisis of faith experienced by Mother Teresa?

Answer

This new revelation about Mother Teresa is a gift to everyone who struggles to be faithful even when there are long periods of spiritual drought. Her words are eerily like those of Psalm 22: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest" (Psalm 22:1-2). These are the same words that come to Jesus when he hangs on the cross. Is it a surprise, then, that someone who gave her life totally to serve Christ should experience something of his own inner crucifixion? Indeed, it has also been reported that one of her few moments of consolation came when Mother Teresa realized that her sense of abandonment was a way to enter more fully into union with her crucified Lord.

I had the privilege of meeting Mother Teresa in 1992. I had been working as a volunteer in a soup kitchen run by her nuns in Newark, New Jersey. One day the nuns asked if I could drive them to Harlem early the next morning to meet Mother at the Mass. We arrived before dawn, and I was led into the small chapel where Mother Teresa and two or three other nuns were already kneeling in prayer. We spent about twenty minutes there in silence before the service began. Later we had a chance to speak briefly and she told me about the work of her nuns in Russia. She was tiny, and had that famous wizened face, but what impressed me was her firm handshake and determined gaze. She was tough, as were the nuns I'd been working with. Gentle and tough at the same time. We now know that it was that toughness and determination that kept her faithful to Christ, even while feeling so alone.

Father John Jillions