“This is a figure who
had moments of uncertainty and discouragement, experiencing the classic dark
night that God gives to chosen people in order to forge them on the road to
holiness,” said Spanish Cardinal Julian Herranz, a
member of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes.
“These moments of crisis felt by great
saints are normal and in line with the church’s tradition,” Cardinal Herranz said Aug. 26. Even Christ experienced a similar
spiritual trial in the
Such moments of “weakness” are in fact “the
proof of the greatness of faith of Blessed Mother Teresa and take nothing away
from her holiness,” he said.
Cardinal Herranz,
who spoke in an interview with the
Vatican and other church officials were
already familiar with the letters because many were first published in 2002,
and in fact formed part of the documentation reviewed before she was beatified
in 2003, six years after her death.
The letters are being published in English
in the upcoming book, “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light,” edited by Father Brian
Kolodiejchuk, a member of the Missionaries of Charity
order founded by Mother Teresa and the postulator of her sainthood cause.
Time magazine recently ran a cover story
about the book under the title, “The Secret Life of Mother Teresa.” In letters
written over several decades, she spoke of a lack of faith, a “terrible
darkness within me” and a sense of being abandoned by Jesus.
Sister Nirmala
Joshi, head of the Missionaries of Charity, said the letters reveal that
sainthood does not come easily, but they do not show a failure of faith.
“Mother (Teresa) did not doubt God, she
continued to love him. If you doubt someone, sooner or later you stop following
him. But she continued right up to her death to love him and to put into
practice her devotion,” Sister Nirmala told La Repubblica.
Capuchin Father Raniero
Cantalamessa, the preacher of the papal household,
told Vatican Radio that what distinguished Mother Teresa’s “dark night” was
that it apparently continued throughout her life and was not a preparation for
a new spiritual stage as with other saints.
He said her inner suffering should not be
seen as a denial of God, however. She knew God was there, but suffered because
she could not feel him, he said.
Noting that Mother Teresa would kneel
before the Eucharist for hours at a time, Father Cantalamessa
said it must have been a form of “martyrdom” not to feel Christ’s presence.
“For me, this makes the figure of Mother
Teresa much bigger, not smaller,” he said.
Italian Cardinal Angelo Scola
of
“The first is that Mother Teresa is one of
us, that she went through all the trials just as we do, no more and no less,”
he said.
Another important
element in her letters is that Mother Teresa, when she no longer felt she could
feel God’s presence, asked him to reveal himself, he said.
Joaquin Navarro-Valls,
the former Vatican spokesman, said Mother Teresa’s letters showed that she
experienced real spiritual suffering. That is not surprising, he said, since
she was notoriously “immune” to the banal and the superficial.
“But all this is not
the expression of a lack of faith, but rather of the normal -- perhaps in this
case heroic -- sacrifice that people discover when they try to live a
commitment and a choice coherently and completely,” he said.
Navarro-Valls
said it would be wrong to conclude on the basis of these letters that Mother
Teresa’s trademark smile was fake or that her public
persona was hypocritical.
Instead, the letters
illustrate that spiritual progress often must overcome obstacles that seem
impassable, he said.