Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith

I came across an article at Time.com with the same title as this entry.

The article cites the upcoming publication of a book of her correspondence with spiritual directors and confessors. According to the article, Mother Teresa wrote the letters expecting them to be destroyed. The disregard for her wishes makes me cringe. Communication between a spiritual director/confessor and the receiver of direction/penitent should be held in confidence. As a priest of the Church, I take these confidences very seriously and would never willingly breech a confidence.

Conceptually, faith is one of the most misunderstood words in the life of the Church. Some view the word faith as a synonym for belief. In this realm, there is an anti- intellectual hue. It usually is taken to mean believing in something in an absence of tangible evidence.

Particular groups of Christians espouse this vision of faith. Although, the anti-intellectual crowd often does appeal to the Bible as a kind of evidence. That is why the literal truth of the scriptures is very important for Christians of this persuasion. Their adherence to the “plain meaning” of the text is the foundation of belief/faith. If that is compromised, the whole thing threatens to unravel.

I would say something more like, I believe through faith. I believe in God, because I look at the world with an eye toward meaning and purpose. The story of the Christian Gospel offers me a lens to view reality and engage the meaning and purpose, I believe, exists through the self-revelation of God.

Faith (in a Christian sense) is the perspective of being open to the purpose and meaning available through the transcendent reality of God, and expressed most fully in the person of Jesus. Faith is about living into openness to God. It happens through commitment to the relationship.

On the one hand, relating to Mother Teresa, I dislike the notion of her situation as a crisis of faith. Most will take that to mean she had was having second thoughts about belief, which appears not to be the case. On the other hand, it was a crisis of faith, in that she struggled with the perceived absence of God. In the pursuit of God, experiences of presence and absence are simply part of faith.

Mother Teresa was a person of incredible faith. Despite her pervasive experience of the absence of Jesus, she persisted. Faith is about being grateful in abundance, and vigilant in the lean times. We all wait to see God, face to face.