Mother Theresa is probably the most outstanding modern era saint of the Roman Catholic Church. And so it became “news” that a biographer printed letters she wrote to various confessors over her career that point to a “dark ‘life’ of the soul.”
History contains saints who often had the “dark ‘night’ of the soul” experience. John Wesley who founded Methodism, for example, within days after his Aldersgate experience when he felt even his heart strangely warmed and his sins were forgiven, wrote in his journal that he never felt further from God.
Martin Luther had terrible periods of depression. One vignette tells of his being particularly depressed and his wife wanting to do something about it. While he was stewing in his office one day, she scrounged up every piece of black clothing she could find and put it on, completely covering herself. She then went upstairs. When he became aware of the silence of the house, he called for his wife. No answer. That surprised him. And worried him. He called again. This time he heard a sound from upstairs. He ran up to where he thought the sound came from and heard quiet sobbing coming from the bedroom. He burst in the door and found Katherine, his wife, sitting in the middle of the bed, dressed with black dress, black stockings, long black gloves, and heavy black veil, crying into a black kerchief.
“What’s the matter?” he yelled, rushing to her side.
“God is dead!” she cried.
Luther howled with laughter, and that period of depression came to an end.
There are many more such stories of how the inner lives of the saints were tormented. Psychotherapists point to the fact that many suffered from clinical mental illnesses, particularly bi-polar disorder and depression.
These kinds of illnesses often become grounds for removing pastors from ministry even if they have been brought under control by therapy and medication. Thank God the church did not put all its mentally ill on disability but allowed them to struggle through to sainthood. - There are some sociopaths many wish had not been allowed to take positions of authority in the church but that requires a separate treatment.
Since the focus of the letters chosen for the recent book on Mother Theresa were from her descriptions of her darkest times described for her counselors, it is hard to tell if she suffered from debilitating disorders that sometimes overwhelmed Luther and Wesley. We do not see anything of the moments she may have felt otherwise, if those even exist.
From what I gather, given quotes from her letters, I want to offer another view on the reason for her suffering.
There is a pietist movement in Christianity that encourages us to look for assurance, to believe that “He’ll come to you if you ask Him; He’s only a prayer away.”
The more committed one is to that piety, as many monastics tend to be, the more difficult their faith becomes for them if, by chance, they do not feel God’s presence.
The Early Church, as reflected in the New Testament, gives a good deal of attention to the issue. Without going into the nature of the differences among people, those writers offered alternatives to the pietist notion of personal assurance.
Two passages best provide the argument: “By their fruits ye shall know them,” says Matthew 7:16. Matthew 25 says, “If you have done it unto the least of my brethren, you have done it unto me.”
Matthew 25:31-46 describes the final judgment. In this story, all the nations are gathered and the Lord separates them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He points out that the “sheep” have served him. Many of them say, “But when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and gave you drink, or a stranger and welcomed you, naked and clothed you, sick or in prison and came unto you?” And the “goats” ask the same question from the other side, “When did we not see you hungry . . . .?
The real power in Mother Theresa’s life was how the poor, “the least of these my brethren,” motivated her to do her ministry.
The fruit of her efforts have certainly been honored by the “World,” most notably by the Nobel Prize. Her work continues even after her death, though her charisma is certainly missed.
Yet she suffered in anguish over the feeling of emptiness and loneliness confessed in her letters, feelings which lasted the larger number of decades of her ministry.
My first impulse when I read of her pain was to offer assurance from these other Bible texts which are not traditionally pietist. I wanted her to know that assurance comes through the eyes of the Christ in the poor she so urgently served, and that not all people can have the sense of Christ’s presence emanating from the great beyond or even from their own hearts.
But to God, Who made us each to receive Him/Her in our own way, it is the good that we do, no matter how it is motivated, that is what finally counts, is what separates the “sheep” from the “goats.”
When I decided to go into the ministry, I remember on two occasions seeking a sense of God’s presence. I was on my knees at a church altar rail in both situations. And nothing happened. I don’t even remember the moment or how it came about that I decided not to worry about it. I was majoring in anthropology at the time. I must have figured out that God wasn’t going to come to me that way. Blessed were those who had that experience, I guess. But more blessed are those who seek to do God’s will without some kind of pay off.
I wish I could have met Mother Theresa, given her a hug she seems to have needed very desperately, and reminded her of Matthew 25.
