The “spiritual darkness” that Mother Teresa describes in her writings can be difficult to comprehend, but this feeling of emptiness was not caused by depression or a loss of faith, according to a lecturer at an academic conference organised by the Mother Teresa Institute. Source: CNA.
St Teresa of Kolkata’s “dark night of the soul” was a distinct charism that helped her build her faith and serve others rather than a mere chemical imbalance that induces depression or an abandonment of the Catholic faith, said Loyola University Maryland philosophy professor Derek McAllister at a September 6 symposium held at The Catholic University of America in Washington DC, one day after the saint’s feast day.
“If it’s a mental emotional problem, they do not of themselves promote virtue or increase depth of relationship with God,” Professor McAllister said.
“Whereas we know with the dark night, the nights do of themselves greatly increase love, humility, patience, and the like. And they decidedly prepare one for deeper prayer.”
The lecture focused on some of St Teresa’s letters, which describe an emptiness and a spiritual darkness — essentially an inability to feel the presence of God.
St Teresa, who founded the Missionaries of Charity, was an Albanian sister who spent most of her life serving the poor in Kolkata, India. She was canonised in 2016.
“The darkness is so dark, and I am alone,” St Teresa wrote. “Unwanted, forsaken. The loneliness of the heart that wants love is unbearable. Where is my faith? Even deep down, there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. My God, how painful is this unknown pain? It pains without ceasing.”
St. Teresa wrote that “the place of God in my soul is blank, there is no God in me” and “I just long and long for God and then it is that I feel he does not want me – he is not there.”
Professor McAllister noted that other saints have had such feelings and referenced St John of the Cross’ 16th-century poem Dark Night of the Soul and his subsequent commentaries on that poem.
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Mother Teresa’s ‘spiritual darkness’ was not depression or loss of faith, scholar explains (By Tyler Arnold, CNA)
