Way of Darkness

THE past week, Christians and non-Christians alike have been e-mailing me about the meaning of Mother Teresa’s nearly half a century of inner emptiness, as revealed by her own words in confidential writings to her spiritual directors, now gathered together as evidence in the process of canonization. Many of my correspondents had not known of Mother Teresa’s long inability to sense the presence of God, and the inner agony in which this left her. All they had seen was her huge, broken smile, as if God’s love filled her heart, when in fact her heart felt empty. Still she forged on, to bring tenderness to abandoned persons dying in the streets of Calcutta. If she couldn’t find God, why did she go on believing in him? Why did she go on bringing love to the abandoned, when she herself felt so abandoned?

Some atheists, such as my friend Christopher Hitchens, now gloat that Mother Teresa was just an unbeliever like the rest of “us.” But few atheists – and, alas, not many believers – understand the depths of the interior life of Jewish and Christian faith. They don’t understand that one must fight an inner battle. Biblical faith demands putting childhood behind, and adolescence, and the busy-ness of young adulthood. It demands an appetite for bravery – for going into unknown territories alone, to wrestle inner demons, and a willingness to experience darkness, if darkness comes. Faith is not for those who seek only man-made pleasures.

About the Author

Michael Novak

Michael Novak was a Catholic philosopher, journalist, novelist, and diplomat.

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THE past week, Christians and non-Christians alike have been e-mailing me about the meaning of Mother Teresa’s nearly half a century of inner emptiness, as revealed by her own words in confidential writings to her spiritual directors, now gathered together as evidence in the process of canonization. Many of my correspondents had not known of Mother Teresa’s long inability to sense the presence of God, and the inner agony in which this left her. All they had seen was her huge, broken smile, as if God’s love filled her heart, when in fact her heart felt empty. Still she forged on, to bring tenderness to abandoned persons dying in the streets of Calcutta. If she couldn’t find God, why did she go on believing in him? Why did she go on bringing love to the abandoned, when she herself felt so abandoned?

Some atheists, such as my friend Christopher Hitchens, now gloat that Mother Teresa was just an unbeliever like the rest of “us.” But few atheists – and, alas, not many believers – understand the depths of the interior life of Jewish and Christian faith. They don’t understand that one must fight an inner battle. Biblical faith demands putting childhood behind, and adolescence, and the busy-ness of young adulthood. It demands an appetite for bravery – for going into unknown territories alone, to wrestle inner demons, and a willingness to experience darkness, if darkness comes. Faith is not for those who seek only man-made pleasures.