The following comes from an October 20 University of Chicago Divinity School article by Michael J. Lichens:
On September 4th the world witnessed a Holy Mass said by Pope Francis as Mother Teresa was elevated to sainthood. She is now known to the faithful as St. Teresa of Calcutta. While Mother Teresa was rightly celebrated for her care of the poor in the blighted areas of India, her letters and journals revealed a great surprise: this same woman who was, to many, the very embodiment of Christian charity had suffered a decades-long depression and a dark night of the soul.
This celebrity saint—a paragon of Christian virtue whose smile has been on the cover of books and magazines—suffered for decades in a living hell. For many in the Western world, that truth seemed almost scandalous.
While Mother Teresa worked amidst heart-breaking poverty, she found her own heart beaten down by interior struggles of doubt, pain, loneliness, and anxiety. “I am told God lives in me,” she wrote to her spiritual director in 1957, “and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.” While these words may shock some, Mother Teresa is far from the first Catholic saint or spiritual model who has had to endure such intense struggles. St. John of the Cross and Dorothy Day would certainly find a friend in the small nun who struggled as she showed kindness to those who needed it the most.
Paradoxically, the holy men and women admired by religious believers were not held back from their good work by an inner darkness; rather, they were able to touch the hearts of countless people because of it. “If my separation from you brings others to you,” Mother Teresa wrote in her spiritual canticle to God, “I am willing with all my heart to suffer all that I suffer.”
Those who suffer from their own dark nights of the soul often feel as if they are doing something wrong—as if their faith were somehow weak because of these interior struggles. Mother Teresa, like her patrons St. Teresa of Avila and St. Thérèse of Lisieux, is an example to the countless souls who pursue a spiritual life of charity but are frustrated by feelings of doubt, loneliness, and depression. They now have a contemporary champion, someone who shows the way to a faithful selflessness, who could work for the good of others despite, or because of, her own struggles.
Te Catholic Faith is so good because it gives one consolation when all doors seem closed. Many do not understand the value the Catholic Faith brings to the individual. It does not matter whether St. Mother Teresa might be depressed in her chosen field of work. She did her duty in the imitation on Christ and that is the highers achievement any of us could aspire to. Our religion is about doing good for your neighbor in remembersnce of Christ. Never forget.
I have thought it would be wonderful, if an expert could effectively explain just what St. Mother Teresa was experiencing, in simple , easy-to-understand terms! It is obvious to me, that she was a gifted Saint– but it would be wonderful, to have some clarity, on this subject! Her painful suffering just seems too sad! Yet still, I know she was not an ordinary person– she was a real Saint! What on earth must she have experienced? I wonder!
Sorry, but the computer goofed-up– this post, above, was mine– Linda Maria’s!
I’ve noted elsewhere the peripatetic journeys of Srs. Julia Walsh and Priscilla Torres, “The Hope Rock”. Mother Teresa should have just kicked up her heels and started flying all over, protesting, to escape her spiritual trials, like them, carrying a “hope rock” and giant butterfly banner:
https://globalsistersreport.org/column/horizons/migration/hope-rock-42821?utm_source=Horizons_Oct%2021%2C%202016_mobile&utm_campaign=Email%20Horizons%2010-21-16&utm_medium=email
The two good sisters on their “journey”,are protesting the INS Eloy,AZ detention center for incarcerating illegals who may be a danger to themselves or others. . No explanation why, really. No matter. Carry a “hope rock”.