1. Criticisms Following her Death
Mother Teresa was accused of hypocrisy following the discovery of her private writings after her death. Her writings were later compiled in a book entitled Mother Teresa: Come be my light, which was published in 2009. Even though Mother Teresa had wanted her letters to be destroyed to prevent them from ever becoming public, her wishes were overruled. Mother Teresa’s letters detailed an inner struggle with her faith which lasted for almost fifty years and which led her to doubt the existence of Heaven and even God.
Mother Teresa’s crisis of faith began in 1948, only a couple of years after she believed she had received her “call within a call” to help the poorest people of Calcutta. She wrote of a strong feeling of God’s “absence” in her life. In a letter to Reverand Michael Van Der Peet in September 1979, Mother Teresa wrote, “Jesus has a very special love for you. [But] as for me – the silence and the emptiness is so great – that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.”
In another letter, Mother Teresa describes the feeling of “emptiness” when “I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. I am told that God loves me, and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.”
She describes the inner torture she is feeling as Hell on Earth. She writes of the pain being caused by her doubts, “Where is my faith, even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness…I have no Faith…I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart & make me suffer untold agony.”
She also writes about the façade of the public image she puts on and describes her smile as a “mask” or “a cloak that covers everything.” Mother Teresa herself acknowledged the hypocrisy of her public persona: “I spoke as though my heart was in love with God, tender, personal love, but if you were (there) you would have said, what hypocrisy!”
Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading
Biography Of Mother Teresa, ‘The Saint Of The Gutters’ – Thoughtco
A Brief History Of Mother Teresa’s Complicated Faith – Time Magazine
Loreto Sisters Are Proud Of Mother Teresa – Loreto Australia
The Fanatic, Fraudulent Mother Teresa – Slate
Mother Teresa And Me – Vanity Fair
As Mother Teresa Is Canonised, The Debate Remains About How Saintly She Really Was – The Independent
Mother Teresa’s Altruism And Generosity Claimed To Be A ‘Myth’
Mother Teresa Calls Abortion Greatest Threat To Peace – Los Angeles Times
The Footsteps Of Saints: Mother Teresa And John Paul II – The Catholic Thing
The Happiest Day Of Mother Teresa’s Life – Catholic News Agency
Mother Teresa ‘Miracle’ Patient Accuses Nuns – The Telegraph
Can Mother Teresa’s ‘Cult Of Suffering’ Teach Us Anything? – Huff Post
“The Turning”: The Dark Side of Mother Teresa’s Order, According to Nuns Who Left – Salon
The Cult Of Mother Teresa Had To Obviously Culminate In This Horror – Medium
Mother Teresa Was No Saint – HuffPost
Mother Teresa: The Miracles That Made Her A Saint – Biography