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Mother Teresa of Calcutta came to “love the darkness”
Father Kolodiejchuk at the presentation of “The Private Letters”

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Mother Teresa’s private correspondence allows us to reconstruct «the most spiritual» and less known side of the work that made this humble Albanian famous, as explained by the postulator of her cause, who was able to access the letters that are now published at the beginning of her process of beatification.

One of the surprises that this documentation held was hidden from most people behind Mother Teresa’s permanent smile, and yet it was essential in her vocation. It is about the inner darkness that she experienced especially from the 60s onwards, but that she began to feel much earlier, around 1937, when she was still a missionary of Loreto, before founding her own Congregation (Missionaries of Charity ).

However, Mother Teresa was able to harmonize the «joy of doing day after day what God asked of her» with «heartbreak and loneliness.» According to Father Kolodiejchuk, «smiling» was her choice. In one of her letters, Mother Teresa writes: «When I see someone sad, I always think that she is denying something to Jesus.»

Furthermore, the nun came to «love the darkness», as she confesses in a letter to Father Neuner: «For the first time in these eleven years – I have come to love the darkness. – Well now I believe that it is a part, a very, very small part of the darkness and pain of Jesus on earth. You have taught me to accept it as a «spiritual side of «his work»» (…) Today I really felt a deep joy-because Jesus can no longer suffer from agony again-but He wants to suffer it in me-More than ever I surrender to Him.-Yes-more than ever I will be at his disposal.»

Father Kolodiejchuk confessed that he had to read the letters «several times» to understand what her «darkness» was truly about; Even many sisters who lived near her «had no idea what was happening inside her.»

Seeing the enormous work that Mother Teresa accomplished (especially after her «inspiration» in 1946, when she received «the call within the call» to work among the poorest of the poor) the easiest thing is to think that she did it supported in the comfort he experienced in God. However, according to the postulator of her cause, what made her life «heroic» was precisely her fidelity to God despite this lack of consolation.

For Mother Teresa,

«the greatest poverty in the world today» was «not feeling loved,» which is why she understood that experiencing the abandonment of her Beloved as something real brought her closer to her poor and identified her with the suffering of Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the Cross, when he asks the Father: «Why have you abandoned me?»

According to Father Kolodiejchuk, Mother Teresa’s experience is similar to that of other saints and more than a «crisis» of faith (which refers to something «more existential and intellectual»), what the Mother went through was a «test of faith » until reaching, as one of his confessors said, «a pure and naked faith, without feeling anything.»

Furthermore, the postulator of the Cause of Mother Teresa sees in this attitude an example for believers, who must know that «faith is not always easy» and «we have to fight.»

Despite Mother Teresa’s wish that her writings be destroyed, they have finally seen the light, because the Church considers that although it was a «personal» experience, it was not a «private» experience, because it was not just for her. . The Missionaries of Charity inherited the «charisma» of Mother Teresa, which consists not only of sharing material poverty, but also «spiritual poverty.»
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