There has been much written about Mother Teresa's long, long dark night of the soul recently (see the Time article here). A new book containing correspondence between Mother Teresa and her confessors reveal, according to Time, "that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever — or, as the book's compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, 'neither in her heart or in the eucharist.'" I think the key word here is "felt." More on that in a moment.
Some see it as a scandal and some (such as Christopher Hitchens) see it as proof that, "She was no more exempt from the realization that religion is a human fabrication than any other person, and that her attempted cure was more and more professions of faith could only have deepened the pit that she had dug for herself."
I see it as perhaps the opportunity for someone like me, who professes a deep faith, but who understands there can be a wrestling match contained in that faith – between a sometimes reasoned choice to believe and a sometimes unreasonable emotional drive toward skepticism – to finally find a true patron saint. "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief." It is possible to believe in God with one's reason, and to feel abandoned in a godless universe with one's emotions; just as it is possible to know on a rational level that you have family and friends who care about you, and yet succumb to the blackest existential depression nevertheless.
As C.S. Lewis pointed out: "Feeling come and go, and when they come a good use can be made of them: they cannot be our regular spiritual diet."
Mother Teresa, with none of the happy, contented "spiritual feelings" that people hope for and that carry some through where their reason and will might fail them, carried on. Even on such a meager diet she maintained. This seems to me to be less a scandal than a tremendous test, and one that she underwent and passed as an example for all of us who wake up some mornings wondering where God is in the world today and holding onto our faith nonetheless.
