A Not-So-Simple Woman

I was deeply moved to learn that Mother Theresa was plagued by doubt, that her faith was not so simple as that sweet face led us to believe. A new book, “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light” will be released tomorrow. It is a collection of letters written to colleagues and superiors over 66 years. It’s a revealing glimpse into her soul.

In a 1953 letter she says

Please pray specially for me that I may not spoil His work and that Our Lord may show Himself — for there is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead. It has been like this more or less from the time I started the work.

Her doubt spanned decades. This is from 1979:

Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.

There is so much going on with this complex woman, so many avenues to pursue. Was she willing herself to faith? Is that even possible? Was her charitable work a result of religious belief, or was some other force guiding her?

I am no philosopher, and cannot deal in such abstractions as the existence of a Supreme Being. I come from a religious background, but abandoned it in my 38th year. I am not plagued by doubt, as she was. Nor do I bask in certainty. I simply accept that I cannot know some things, and that is enough. If I was meant to believe in God, at some point he would have revealed something to me indicating that he is there in the shadows. But he either very cagey or he isn’t there or he simply doesn’t care. Pick ‘em.

I have two older brothers who are deeply religious – one is a Catholic priest, the other a devout practitioner. I came from the same household of the same parents, who did not change in the years between our births. I went to Catholic schools, and as a very young child believed as I was taught. I remember one Christmas Eve as I sat in church for midnight mass. I had been fasting, as we were taught to do, and my stomach hurt. But I believed with childish innocence that when I went to communion Jesus would enter my stomach and make the pain go away. I had no doubt.

But it did not happen. Here I am 57 years old, and I remember that night as a boy of seven years sitting there with a tummy ache that did not go away. It was likely the origin of doubt.

Doubt is a powerful motivating force, more useful to us perhaps than religion itself. New science comes about because of Young Turks who doubt their elders. Doubt frees us from oppressive authority, whether it is Holy Mother Church, or the United States of America. Doubt leads the way towards true freedom, a feeling so profoundly moving as to rival romantic love itself.

Those brief snippets evidencing Mother Theresa’s doubt speak of a travesty – a woman imprisoned not by belief, but by a need to believe. She could not be free. But maybe that doesn’t matter – maybe we function better as slaves, maybe we were not meant to be free. Without the slavery of the mind we could have no ideologies, armies, or countries. (♫And no religion too.♫)

It would be a different world. Maybe a better one. Who really knows?