I just read a very profound article on Mother Teresa in regard to a new book that is to be publsihed based upon a compiltaion of letters she wrote during the course of her life to various confessors. The link is here if anyone is interested:

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1655415,00.html

It really creates a whole new image of Mother; one that I think makes her canonization even more probable. As many other great saints in the past experienced, Mother clearly went through an extended period of the "dark night of the soul". In fact, it appears perhaps her entire adult life during which she accomplsihed so much happened within this dark night. Yet she responded with faith. She longed for the closeness with Jesus yet did not have it. Rather than throw her faith and mission away, she continued because she knew it was God's wish and will for her. Despite not "feeling" the bond with her Lord, she still knew it was there and continued.

I think we all have doubts at times and perhaps Mother's greatest legacy will be not her work with the poor but her inner struggle. I cannot wait to read the book.

Thanks for directing us to the article.

A preliminary and not well considered thought: Just maybe Mother Theresa' torture stems from a certain type of her own spiritulal hubris. This constant, decades old pinning for more union, wanting more to be in His Presence, shooting for a consumate mystical experience is, at bottom, a species of spiritual sensuality. Catherine Siena alludes to this.

The Lord had given her a beautiful albeit very difficult vocation. Christ was being made present to the world by her ministry. So, what is this constant refrain of His absence? She didn't feel what? A mystical union or just what precidely was her desire being unmet?

Is this darkness - which was so pervasive over time, shocking to read, and very real - as the article suggested, really just a divine " gift abetting her call."?

 Or are we beholding in Mother the heavy spiritual dross accompanying a self-centered and exaggereated need to transcend what God has given, to reach beyond to heights of union intended for the human clothed in this very finite tent? 

Is there a very profound lesson and spiritual warning in her darkness for us?

lwall - The world will do what the world will do. As far as her actually becoming a saint in the eyes of the Church, I believe this to be more for you and me that we may have the assurance of someone special to bring our intentions and desires before the Lord as most of us often feel unworthy of His mercy and attention. I, for one, upon hearing, have sent my request that she assist me in my doubts and troubles.

Jesus is both man and God and to have a relationship with Him is not only possible but assured of. An interesting thing that Mother stated was that she stopped praying. Sure, she would say the prayers but she stopped conversing because she felt it was fruitless. The prayers of her labors say otherwise.

I agree. Must await the book.

But what I have heard from media is disturbing...sounds very like so many priests who have lost their faith but remain in their vocation. Some however ultimately drop out.

I have known some personally. They were saying things similar to Mother. Some just gradually began to doubt the truth of Jesus in toto, that is, they came to mistrust the veracity of Scripture and Tradition for various reasons. Some had come to despise the Church, lose faith in Eucharist, became Protestants, humanisst, etc...got married.

Is it is popssible that Mother carried out this massive work without genuine faith? She mentions, I may be wrong, that she was doubting God's existence and that she lacked lacked faith.Was she referring to faith as the contents of our creedal and doctrinal beliefs, or the more subjective side of faith - feeling His presence and knowing Him in her inmost subjectivity?

The letters reveal a inwardly tortured person forever pinning away for more contact, more contact...closer union.. and she was lamenting in her soul at a void! 

It is all quite unsettling at this point for me. Frankly, at this point I feel a little betrayed by her.

Her crisis of faith doesn't look to me so easily "explained" as just one of many instances of  dark nights that saints experience which I am afraid will be the official take by the Church. I say this preliminarily, but would ask whether a typical dark night of the soul stretches the entire width of a saints life's vocation as these letters seem to show of her.

lwall - Is it possible..? I guess anything is possible, but probably unlikely. God calls all of us for He desires that no one be lost. Responding to His call is faith. Mother responded to Jesus' call and then describes hearing and seeing Him no more for a time and a time. Is it possible that Mother continued her work without love? Deus est caritas!

Love has been discussed in these pages. Is it something to be felt or a decision to be made or a combination of both?

I suppose it's normal to be dissapointed in someone who has been put on such a lofty plateau, but in the words of Christpoher West, "do not place your coat on a hook that can not bear the weight." The only One capable of sustaining that scrutiny is God, for us Catholics, the Triune God. Mother is a fine example of servitude if nothing else. Even if her "dark night" lasted her entire life or a priest or religious chooses another, it does not, will not, can not change Christ.  

The book. As Paul Harvey says, "...and now the rest of the story."

Dear Royal- I agree with what you have said about our relationships with our children. I often try and remind myself that while I am my children's biologic and eartly father, their and mine real father is in Heaven. Therefore, my children are really my brothers and sisters in Christ. When I think of my children thsi way, it does help me define my realtionship with them in a different and hoepfully better way. Believe me there are times when the earthly father takes over, but I try to remeber that we are all on the same journey-to know God and to be with Him and Wosrhip Him for all eternity

Well after reading these posts, still I am appalled at her "confessions." She must have felt she was living a duplicitous life. I had above - in my original post - wondered whether her the persistent longing for a deeper union with Christ, this long faced pinning for a mystical union with Him was not a form of spiritual hubris. This woman was given the high, holy privilege of ambassadorship over Chritst's care of the downtrodden, forgotten, and the abandoned dying of the world in a startling fashion unlike the world had ever seen. And she feels dry and doubts the faith because she lacks a "closer unuon" with Him! All of what she has been given is not enough? She begins to doubt about God's existence, Christ, the conrtents of  the faith...ad nauseum.

All the good she did could have served as a massive  witness to Christ and the Church for centuries. So I pretty upset that her life's work now runs the risk of becoming fodder for loud- mouth anti-Catholic sound bites and literature, deflating much of what would have been an effective witnessing. These confessions will scoundalize many I am afraid. 

Let's of course read her letters or whatever when published.

Again, I am at this point bracing to see whether or not the Church will somehow  "spin" her apparent loss of faith as another  species of Dark Night. If the Church does this ...well just wait for the ridicule to follow!

In his book, A Revolution of Love: The Meaning of Mother Teresa, David Scott writes that Mother Teresa lived much of her life in an anguished dark night of the soul.  We know that to whom much is given much is expected.  It wasn’t easy but Mother Teresa remained steadfast in her faith.

In his book, Something Beautiful for God, Malcolm Muggeridge interviewed Mother Teresa.

Malcolm: (p. 112)

Mother Teresa, after I met you in London, the only thing I wanted to do was to come and see you and your work here and now I’ve seen it.  It’s a shining light.  But behind the work, which is wonderful and needed, as you keep saying and I’m sure you’re right, there’s something else, which is your faith.  Tell me about that because I think you will agree with me it’s something that’s rather lacking in the world today.

Mother Teresa:

Faith is a gift of God.  Without it there would be no life.  And our work, to be fruitful and to be all for God, and beautiful, has to be built on faith.  Faith is Christ who has said, “I was hungry, I was naked, I was sick, and I was homeless and you did that to me.’  On these words of His all our work is based.

Malcolm:

How are people to have this faith that is lacking in the world today?

Mother Teresa:

It is lacking because there is so much selfishness and so much gain only for self.  But faith to be true has to be a giving love.  Love and faith go together.  They complete each other.

This book offers Mother Teresa’s reflections:

On Love of God…On Prayer…On Silence…On Holiness…On Humility…On Submission…On Suffering…On Joy…On Kindness…On Our Lady…On Thoughtfulness…On Leaving Loretto…Peace…Apostle of the Unwanted…Holy Communion…Daily Prayer

Who of us here don't feel we live a duplicitous life?

I often feel like a fraud on a daily basis.

I call myself Catholic (and that I am).  I receive Christ on an almost daily basis.  I pray, I struggle, I fall.  After all the love and help God has given to me by grace, I still am worthless (without him). 

I know I am not worthy to receive anything from Him, yet he still gives.

I feel I live a double life.  So did St. Paul when he knew that he wanted to do one thing, but instead did the other.

 royal osiodhachain - can man reach union with God in this life?

Jesus said "be perfect as my father in heaven is perfect"

Did he give us a command we cannot carry out?

John of the cross believed it was possible

Teresa of avila belived it was possible

many have belived, some few may have suceeded.

At what? Taking communion perfectly?

being infused with christ and not of yourself.