A new book about Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta's writings on feeling abandoned by God has created a flurry of interest and media speculation.
Missionaries of Charity Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, author of "Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light," the book that has caused the recent buzz, told Catholic News Service in 2002 about her writings and her concerns about "interior darkness" and spiritual emptiness. He said he was surprised about how much Mother Teresa accomplished despite feeling for years that God had abandoned her.
Father Kolodiejchuk examined the writings on which his book is based because he is the promoter of Mother Teresa's cause for sainthood. The Indian nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, was beatified in 2003.
The 416-page book published by Doubleday will be released Sept. 4, to mark the 10th anniversary of Mother Teresa's death Sept. 5, 1997.
Several of the letters and diary entries were published in 2001 in the "Journal of Theological Reflection" of the Jesuit-run Vidyajyoti School of Theology in New Delhi.
In a letter to her spiritual director in a 1959-60 spiritual diary, Mother Teresa said, "In my soul, I feel just the terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing."
In another letter she wrote that she wanted to love God "like he has not been loved," and yet she felt her love was not reciprocated.
In the context of Mother Teresa's life, the thoughts are not heresy, but signs of holiness, Father Kolodiejchuk told CNS in 2002. Mother Teresa was convinced God existed and had a plan for her life, even if she did not feel his presence, the priest said.
"Everyone wants to share, to talk about things, to be encouraged by others," he said, but Mother Teresa, "hurting on the inside, kept smiling, kept working, kept being joyful."
At one point, a former archbishop of Calcutta, India, wanted to share some of her letters with the struggling founder of another religious congregation, Father Kolodiejchuk said. Mother Teresa begged him not to and asked that all her letters be destroyed.
When asked if he worried that he was betraying her wishes by publicizing the information, Father Kolodiejchuk told CNS, "I think her perspective is very different now."
While some people may be surprised or even shocked by Mother Teresa's spiritual struggles, he told CNS he hoped they would help people come to "a fuller and deeper appreciation of holiness, which Mother Teresa lived in a way both simple and profound: She took what Jesus gave with a smile and stayed faithful even in the smallest things."
Father Kolodiejchuk, a Canadian ordained in the Ukrainian-Byzantine rite, was among the first members of the Missionaries of Charity Fathers.
---CNS |