Mother Teresa’s crisis of faith

Reading about Mother Teresa's crisis of faith in TIME magazine left me with a (slim) hope that sainthood could be in the works for me someday.

Why not? I was baptized Catholic. I help the poor. (Once in a while, at least, when it isn't too much trouble.) And I've got lots of doubts about God, like Teresa did.

Until I read the article I didn't know that someone who felt divorced from God could be on the road to sainthood. But this was Mother Teresa's condition for nearly the entire last fifty years of her life.

In previously unpublished letters that are included in a recent book about her, she said:

Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love — and now become as the most hated one — the one — You have thrown away as unwanted — unloved. I call, I cling, I want — and there is no One to answer — no One on Whom I can cling — no, No One. — Alone ... Where is my Faith — even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness — My God — how painful is this unknown pain — I have no Faith — I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart — & make me suffer untold agony.

So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them — because of the blasphemy — If there be God — please forgive me — When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven — there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. — I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?
addressed to Jesus, at the suggestion of a confessor, undated

This shows: (1) You can do good works without feeling any connection with God, and (2) Supposedly saintly people can have two spiritual selves, an outer holy persona that is presented to other people and a more honest inner self that is filled with doubt, lack of faith, and darkness of the soul.

Naturally Christian apologists will look upon Teresa's divine dryness as part of God's plan for her, the cross she had to bear. However, I look upon her situation more in line with this passage from the TIME article:

But to the U.S.'s increasingly assertive cadre of atheists, that argument [God's absence is a divine gift] will seem absurd. They will see the book's Teresa more like the woman in the archetypal country and western song who holds a torch for her husband 30 years after he left to buy a pack of cigarettes and never returned.

My wife enjoyed reading about Teresa because she is distinctly skeptical that any human being can rise above the imperfections that are the hallmark of humanity.

When I mention a guru-figure who is considered to be God in human form, Laurel likes to say, "I sure would like to be able to observe them through every moment of the day, not just when they're on a public podium."

Good point. These newly discovered letters of Mother Teresa point to the above-mentioned duality (some would call it hypocrisy) in which the outer message of revered religious men and women turns out to be at odds with their inner realization.

Christopher Hitchens calls Teresa a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud. Maybe so. But I also resonate with the perspective of another atheist, Nica Lalli, who focuses on Teresa's doubts.

Anne Lamott has a quote which has become one of my favorites. She says, "The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty." Mother Teresa proves this point in a lovely and very human way. In having her letters published there has been something new to see about her and about the notion of faith. She has become very human. The work she did, even as she doubted even as she feared that there was no ultimate reward, no invisible friend to guide her through life, showed that she was a humanist at heart. She helped people for the sake of helping. Not for convictions that were ironclad and unexamined.

The notion of faith is more and more narrowly defined, and the "true believers" think that they own the word. But they don't. And as an atheist I resent being told I am a person of no faith. I have lots of faith, even as I have doubts. I doubt the Yankees will make it, but I have faith that they will get the pitching staff in shape and will get to the playoffs. It isn't really a contradiction, it is just two sides of the same coin. I have faith in humanity, in gravity, in medicine and in many other things. I just don't have faith in the big guy in the sky.

I thank Mother Teresa for the example she gives me, not only as a humanitarian but as a human. And I hope that the people who think that they know for sure that there is a god can allow for some doubt. Even a wisp of doubt will erase the arrogance and ultimately allow for more faith in more things. This will especially help if we are going to start to bridge the gap between "them" and "us" which will only happen if we can sit down and have a conversation.

Nica, I don't follow baseball very closely. But since I live in Oregon I'm aware that the Yankees are three games ahead of the Mariners (the northwest's only major league team) in the race for a playoff spot. So it looks like your faith is well-founded.

Jesus may not be alive in your heart, but Alex Rodriquez surely is.

Comments

[william]

“She helped people for the sake of helping.” A quote from an atheist.

These are just some random thoughts I have this late night.

In this one simple very simple sentence may be the very essence of “god”. The words “for the sake of helping” if this sake is based in compassion for others and one’s motivation is not to get some type of reward in this world or on the other side then this compassion (sake of helping) may very well be this “god within us” expressing its/our isness within us and through us.

This god within us is an “essence” which most call spirit, not an entity and I think mother Theresa may have been looking outside herself, which we all do to some degree, some just admit it more than others. Feeling forsaken in this physical world may be a common theme for saint and sinner alike and everyone in between.

The veil of materialism is very thick. Plus we have made this isness (god) in man’s image so we may end up looking for god in all the wrong places. I once read that god hides its isness in a very secret place: within us.

My belief at this time is that this action for the sake of helping is not due to chance or random variation or genetics or natural selection, but something that has caused us to look upon another with compassion not sympathy but compassion, which might be defined as love in action.

Why would we not look upon another with compassion? When we look upon another we are looking into a mirror as they are us and we are them. Only ignorance makes us appear separate.

We often talk of love as an emotion but in my mind love affects our emotions and emotions are but a physical response to that essence we call love.

Have no idea if these comments made any sense just some random thoughts.

[Cyfer]

She tried to do it the wrong way. I don't think that's the right way to separate from the super organism even if that's possible. If she would have got married and had kids, she would of had something to love and she wouldn't have felt so lonely and empty and depressed. She didn't have a good method of meditation either. 3hrs. a day of meditation or whatever is more that enough. Probably 1 hr a day is best for most people. Then you don't end up like Theresa.

Sychronisticly, I got the RSSB news letter this week. It discribes how to become a stone buddha. Ha, ha.. it reminded me of what one Zen master was saying "If God wanted to create stone buddhas, then a stone will work just as well!"

It shows that some people like to do that kind of stuff to themselves. Maybe it's guilt born out of blindness.

[william]

Mother Theresa’s response to a question years ago was misleading. A journalist asked her if her work with the poor and dying was bringing her joy. Her response was something to the effect that her work brought her unimaginable joy beyond belief. It appears I misinterpreted that response.

Her work was certainty needed as the prevailing belief in India is to my knowledge if you are suffering and alone that may well be your karma from this life or a past life.

Finding that god within us appears to be something that the mystics have achieved even if for brief periods of time and for most religious people faith appears to be their way of coping with their “spiritual needs” and the harshness of physical life and their fear of death.

For myself I have relied on research but my Christian friends faith appears to give them much comfort. Much of their beliefs are not supported by my research but for the most part they are not that interested in my research that does not support their beliefs.

It should be noted that some of my research does support some of their Christian beliefs but to be honest much of these Christian beliefs seem to be more about man’s beliefs and need to control than the teachings of their prophet. In fact most religions have turned their prophets into gods or even thee god. Even many Buddhists call the Buddha the perfect one even when he warned them against doing that.

[Chris]

According to many religions, philosophers and spiritual teachers, Teresa will get a great reward after her death for her service. Despite how she felt and regardless of the doubts she may have had, she just may receive something special after she dies. The work she did may have been well worth it for her at the end of her life. It might be a good idea to go with what the spiritual greats have said and written. I think she will be just fine.

[Matt]

I hope what is not lost in this is the enormous amount of good work that Mother Teresa did for other people. I always had enormous respect for the woman, living in the same conditions as the poorest of the poor she wanted to help. That she did so -- day in and day out, decade after decade for no material, or apparently spiritual, reward -- while struggling with questions of faith makes her a more remarkable person to me, not less. I hope we don't lose sight of the good she did and let these intimate letters become nothing more than fodder in the disgusting war between one side screaming "There is a God and you must believe" and the other screaming back "There isn't and you must not". Believer, atheist or agnostic we should all be touched by her dedication to her fellow human beings.

[Tucson Bob]

About Mother T. I think these inclinations come naturally to some people and are not for them as self-sacrificing as it would be for someone like me. It was "her thing" so to speak.

I used to do a lot of distance running. It was strenuous, but I enjoyed it. One woman saw me sweating away and said, "That looks like too much hard work. I could never do that." I said, "Not for me. It's fun."

So, I'm not comparing the value of running to the altruism of Mother T, it's just that what she did may not have been perceived as sacrifice. Maybe for her it was natural.

[SHAINA HULBERT]

DEAR WRITER;ID LIKE TO SAY I PERSONALLY THINK THAT MOTHER TERESA WAS NOTHING MORE THAN A GLORY HUNGRY, SICK , AND VERY SICK. THE DIARIES WHICH WERE RECENTLY RECOVERED CONTAINING HER PERSONAL LACK OF FAITH SIMPLY PROVES SHE WAS NOT ALL SHE APPEARED TO BE. REMEMBER! THERES NOTHING HIDDEN THAT WONT BE REVEALED.