Ten years after her death an extensive correspondence between Mother Teresa and her half-dozen spiritual advisers has come to light which indicates that she struggled, for the better part of half a century, with a sense of God’s absence. Only twice, apparently, in the correspondence does she openly state that she doubted God’s existence, but the sense of His absence was persistent.
What are the possible explanations?
1. Many, most, Christians have, at times, sensed something of God’s absence; it is endemic to the human experience. And the Catholic mystics were notoriously so afflicted, i.e., “Brother Saul,” “St. John of the Cross,” et al.
2. It is possible that she was suffering under a teaching that we are saved, or made acceptable to God, by means of our good deeds; if that was so, or to the extent that it was so, one cannot be surprised that she had difficulty sensing that she had pleased God.
3. Several psychotherapists, of various stripe, have suggested that she was so passionate to live a perfect life, in total communion with God, that she set her sights too high, and thus, found them unattainable.
4. She, confessedly, was worried about her pride; it may be that she was desperate to fight it and that her reaction was overdone.
5. It is possible that her commitment to poverty produced an unhealthy state, physically, which produced psychological or spiritual ramifications of a negative sort.
6. It must be remembered that Christians are called upon to suffer with Christ, not in order to help the true Messiah in His own role, or to play–in any sense–a messianic role, but in identity with Him in His life and sufferings. Perhaps an extreme devotion to Christ–either proper or improper–on her part explains her experience. (Some expressions of Catholicism come dangerously near to the position that we can, indeed, suffer salvifically–for the salvation of–others.)
7. It must be remembered that Mother Teresa was living in one of the most spiritually depraved cultures on the planet–a culture given over to demon-worshipping idolatry. That, alone, would impose immense pressures on the spirit of a genuinely committed Christian. (If it be asked why her assistant nuns did not have her experience, it may be (a) they did but did not report it, (b) they experienced it but to a lesser extent, (c) they did not possess the depth of her passion for Christ and His work, or (d) different psychological and/or spiritual dynamics were operating in them.)