The current press conniption over Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta amounts to a tempest in a teapot, although one that illustrates the media's ignorance about the spiritual lives of saints far more than it does the life and struggles of Mother Teresa.
That the diminutive Albanian nun and Nobel Peace Prize winner had, for decades, experienced a sense of living in a spiritual desert had been well known to those paying attention, ever since excerpts from the "positio," the critical biography prepared on behalf of her beatification cause, were published before her beatification by Pope John Paul II in October 2003; those interested may wish to consult Carol Zaleski's insightful and sensitive article, "Mother Teresa's Dark Night," in the May 2003 issue of First Things. So there is, in fact, no news here (except, perhaps, the "news" that religion reporters an editors should put www.firstthings.com into their computers).
The current flurry does, however, help underscore an old point: there is no contradiction between faith and questioning, or between faith and a sense of spiritual aridness. Everyone who tries to lead a serious life of prayer experiences the desert from time to time; the challenge is to keep walking, as Mother Teresa did, in the conviction that God's grace will, eventually, lead us to the spring water. Even the most brilliant theologians have experienced intellectual difficulties about this or that aspect of Christian faith; the challenge here is to think again, to re-examine, to "think with the Church" (as the ancient theological maxim has it), and to consider the possibility that ancient wisdom may have more to it than we might think -- to consider the possibility that the Creed stands in judgment on our understanding, so to speak, rather than the other way around. As the great John Henry Newman famously observed, ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.
Mother Teresa displayed personal and spiritual courage of a sort that might make even Christopher Hitchens reconsider his views of her work -- that's the lesson to be drawn from this latest burst of media interest in someone whom millions of people, all over the world, invoke through intercessory prayer every day.
Please e-mail On Faith if you'd like to receive an email notification when On Faith sends out a new question.
Email Me | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook
