Christ the Cornerstone

Mother Teresa calls us to love God, others even in our doubts

Tomorrow, Saturday, September 5, is the Memorial of St. Teresa of Calcutta.

This woman, whom we revere as a modern-day saint, was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on August 26, 1910, in North Macedonia. She entered the Sisters of Loreto and took the religious name “Teresa.”

In 1946, she experienced a “call within a call” and began a radical new life in service of “the poorest of the poor,” initially in India and eventually through the Religious Congregation she founded (the Missionaries of Charity) that serves the poor in many diverse regions of the world.

Mother Teresa was a holy woman who knew both intense sorrow and great joy. She described the source of her joy as an intimate contact with Jesus both in the faces of the destitute and dying people she served, and in the Eucharist, the sacrament of his Body and Blood.

Mother Teresa was a powerful example of Christian compassion expressed through concrete service. She was recognized internationally as a model of Christian charity, and her example inspired many others to move beyond self-centered concerns toward empathy, joyful service, and love for the suffering. Her life reflected in very practical ways Jesus’ teaching that compassion and care for the needy belong at the heart of Christian discipleship, particularly Jesus’ identification of himself with “the least of his sisters and brothers” in Matthew 25:31–46:18.

Mother Teresa understood the poor as persons possessing profound dignity and as people whom Christians are called to love because they are loved by God. She saw in the faces of the people she served the face of Jesus Christ, and she found immense joy in serving her Lord through the poor and needy. Her example helped many people understand that service to others in need (whether material or spiritual) can transform the person who serves as well as benefit those who receive their assistance.

But Mother Teresa was also a person who experienced anxiety, doubt and spiritual darkness. The Church presents her as an example of perseverance in faith amid spiritual suffering. Her own journals reveal her as enduring a prolonged “dark night of the soul”—a period of profound interior dryness and apparent distance from God—while continuing to serve with trust and fidelity. Near the end of her life, witnesses reported that this darkness lifted and that she appeared joyful and radiant, rejoicing in what God had accomplished through her, especially in the ministry of the Missionaries of Charity.

How is it that a person of great faith and charity such as Mother Teresa could find herself wrestling with doubt, anxiety and the fear that she has been abandoned by God? Why do we recognize in her suffering the marks of holiness?

Every saint is an icon (image) of Jesus Christ. Every holy woman and man—whether officially declared a saint by the Church (canonization) or living a life of hidden sanctity and goodness—demonstrate one or more facets of the personality of Jesus. No saint mirrors the life of Jesus perfectly, but every saint reflects several aspects of the Divine Light which is Christ.

Mother Teresa certainly reflected our Lord’s love and care for the poor. Her public life and ministry mirrored brilliantly the healing power and the loving kindness of Jesus.

But in her personal life, she also provided us with a heart-wrenching image of those moments, such as the agony in the garden, when Jesus wrestled with doubt and despair. “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” is the prayer from Psalm 22 that Jesus prayed on the Cross. It is a feeling of abandonment also expressed by Mother Teresa during the dark moments recorded in her journals.

Through St. Teresa of Calcutta, we can see Jesus. We can experience something of his healing power, his compassionate care for the sick and dying, his readiness to forgive sins, and to welcome sinners into the joy of his heavenly home.

And, yes, in this deeply spiritual woman we can also gain an insight into how much Jesus suffered—mentally as well as physically. His anguished sense of abandonment was shared by her, and the intense suffering that she witnessed in the dying and destitute people on the streets of Calcutta, in whose faces she saw the face of Jesus, affected her deeply.

We honor St. Teresa of Calcutta because she helps us to understand what it means to take up our crosses and follow Jesus Christ. Pray for us, Mother. Help us to find joy in service to those who are spiritually and materially poor. Teach us to endure our suffering, as you did, confident that the joy of Christ always overcomes our sorrow. †