The Real Mother Teresa is Even Better

Until recently, it was too easy to admire Mother Teresa from a distance.

She was so steadfast in her sacrifice, so certain of her God, that she could not possibly be one of us. Swathed in a blue-and-white sari, she cared for the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta for more than 40 years.

We were grateful for her example, and the absolution it granted us. How could we mere mortals possibly emulate this living saint?

Quite an excuse we had, to keep on keeping on.

Until now.

The recent publication of her private letters, which she had asked be destroyed after her death, reveal a woman who suffered from a profound spiritual struggle. They force her admirers to reconsider the depth and breadth of her faith — and their own.

And that is a good thing.

Time magazine broke the story last week, excerpting an upcoming book titled "Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light," by the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, who is overseeing her cause for sainthood. The book depicts her as a young mystic who felt called by Jesus to devote her life to the poor but then mostly felt Christ's absence for the rest of her life.

"Jesus has a very special love for you," she confided to the Rev. Michael Van der Peet in 1979. "(But) as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves (in prayer) but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have (a) free hand."

She wrote the letter three months before accepting the Nobel Peace Prize.

In another letter, she acknowledged the contradiction between her private anguish and her public persona of piety, "a cloak that covers everything."

Religious scholars have rushed to her defense. Dark nights of the soul are common to saints, as they are to anyone who believes in a God we cannot see. What matters, they insist, is that Mother Teresa persevered in the face of doubts so similar to our own.

It is heartening, is it not, to learn that not even Mother Teresa got the private audience most of us long for?

Predictably, atheists have rolled out the happy-feet dance, insisting that Mother Teresa saw the light even as she chose to cloak herself in darkness.

Father Andrew Greeley, a Chicago author and columnist, was outraged that ABC News gave airtime to an atheist who called Mother Teresa a hypocrite: "Could not someone at a local chancery call ABC and say, hey, you idiots, that feeling of abandonment is one more proof that she was a saint?"

I understand Father Greeley's outrage. It's hard to listen to anyone gleefully celebrating another's suffering. But he missed an opportunity to lead by example when he opposed airing the atheist's comments and resorted to calling the news programmers "idiots." We look to religious leaders to yank us up to the high road, particularly when the low road is such an easy detour.

He might have cast a wider net, too, when championing those of faith.

"Catholics know that doubt and fear are part of the human condition," Greeley wrote, "and absolute certainty is rarely, if ever, granted, and merits skepticism if it's offered."

Yes, Catholics know this. So do Protestants like me, and Jews, Muslims and Hindus — people from all kinds of religious and spiritual practices understand that one of the hallmarks of faith is the courage to believe without evidence.

We also know the danger in the self-righteous who claim unshakeable certainty.

Amid all the hand wringing and analysis, it is heartening to hear from those who knew Mother Teresa well and understood her struggle. Jeanette Petrie co-produced two films about Mother Teresa and traveled a great deal with her, and the letters don't worry her.

"She had an expression. … 'Give God permission to use you without consulting you,'" Petrie told the Associated Press. "I think she must have truly lived that."

After all this time, we find out Mother Teresa was just as human as the rest of us.

Thank God.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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