People praying at an altar for Mother Teresa (Raghu Rai/Magnum Photos)
Saints, however, are so rare in our experience, and so often relegated to the past, that we no longer realize what sainthood means, nor what the saints might have to do with our lives. And so, before examining Mother Teresa’s light, we first need to understand the source of her light, the state of “being light” that Jesus called her to, which is sanctity.
God’s purpose in sending the saints lies well beyond our usual supposition that the saints are merely distant moral beacons, standard-bearers to which the rest of humanity can never quite measure up. The mystery of the saints is something deeper and far more attractive — more than austere asceticism and images on holy cards, stained-glass windows, or statues. In sending us saints, God indicates his yearning, and his ability, to participate fully in our world. The saints reflect the beauty of God and his plan for us, a beauty they make concrete and tangible — and inviting. In the words of Thomas Merton, a saint is “a window through which God’s mercy shines on the world. And for this reason, he strives to be holy in order that the goodness of God may never be obscured by any selfish act.”
The saints illumine us with the Creator’s own light, granting us a glimpse of who both he and we truly are. They are a mirror of our God-given dignity, of what we were created to be, and of what we can yet become.
Primordial Light
The story of Mother Teresa, and of all the saints, does not begin with their conversion, nor even with their birth. The real history of the saints reaches back to the beginning of all things, as described in the book of Genesis, when, on the first day of creation, God said, “Let there be light” (Gen 1:3). This first step in creation does not refer to the light of the sun, which was not created until the fourth day, but to God’s own light — a divine light destined to dispel the darkness and bring order out of chaos, from before the dawn of time until time is no more. Before there was anything else, there was light, as the atmosphere and foundation of all.
Adam and Eve were created to inhabit and embody that first light, as the crown of God’s creation. According to Jewish tradition, after the Fall, God left a trace of original glory on the body of Adam and Eve. At the tip of their hands and feet, God left slivers of flesh dipped in light, translucent tokens of that first light that is still our dignity and destiny. Something as humble as fingernails would be God’s reminder to us of the transparency that once was ours, and of the light from which, and for which, we were made.
The saints still serve this same evocative and ultimately practical purpose. They are that small sliver of humanity, dipped in God, that still shines with his light. Their lives serve to beckon us back, to call us to our senses and our source, as God called out to Adam after the Fall, “Where are you?” (Gen 3:9). Despite the variety of their lives, their backgrounds, and their stories, the saints all embody this one sweeping truth: that with the coming of Christ as New Adam, the prophesied times of restoration are here. In him, and in those transformed by him, the glory of the first Adam is once again restored. But the saints are not only heralds of this promised restoration; they are its living proof. They reflect here and now, for every generation and culture — mirrored in the joy, the innocence, and the goodness suffusing their countenance — the luminous faces of our first parents, coming forth fresh from the hand of God.
But there is something more. The saints show us not only how good we can be, but more importantly, they show us how supremely good God is. The saints are the living reflections of God’s goodness in our midst. In their role as mirrors of God, each saint is unique, for God’s goodness and beauty are infinitely rich. Like precious stones in a great mosaic, each saint reveals some facet, some special attribute of God’s boundless being, some unique hue of the divine splendor.
The saints not only reflect God’s light, they also echo his voice, calling humanity back into the divine embrace. The saints are God’s reminders, his memos to mankind, re-enacting the message and the beauty of the gospel before the eyes of each era. Like the ancient prophets before them, the saints reverberate with that particular Word of God most necessary to each age.
What Word of God was Mother Teresa’s life echoing? Why did he send her, rather than another, into our night? To fathom God’s purpose in sending her, we need to know more of Mother Teresa’s interior life — to see her not only from the outside, through the lens of her accomplishments, but illumined by her own sense of purpose, to allow her to point us toward the unseen north star of her soul.
Though all the saints are in some way “light-bearers,” witnessing to the light would become the focus of Mother Teresa’s entire vocation. Jesus sent her to “be his light” in the darkness of a Calcutta night that transcended geography. Mother Teresa’s Calcutta was everywhere, symbol of a night that invades and lies in wait in every heart.
Mother Teresa was not called to share her light from “above,” nor from afar — unlike some contemporary proponents of a prosperity gospel, she was not one to stand above the fray, dispensing wisdom from a peaceful and pampered life. Instead, she accepted to be plunged body and soul into the lowest depths of our night, illuminating that night from within, forging a path through our inner darkness into light. The fact that she confronted the night in her own soul first, as her personal letters reveal, does not diminish her spiritual credentials; rather, it augments her credibility. Her dark night makes her not just a teacher but a guide — an escort and companion for our own labored journey into light.
Bowed by Darkness, or Beacon of Light?
But before we move on to explore the secrets of Mother Teresa’s interior life, we first need to be sure not to misconstrue her “darkness” — a darkness God allowed her to experience as a share in the inner night of Calcutta’s poorest of the poor. Mother Teresa was wounded with the inner wounds of her people; she bled with them and died with them. God was calling her to share the heavy, if forgotten, inner burdens of the poor, not only their material deprivation. She was to be fixed to the hidden inward cross of the poor, and to be riven by the same interior anguish that Jesus himself had undergone.
But as painful as her darkness was, theirs was the true night, the darkness that eats away at faith. In Mother Teresa’s time, millions of Calcutta’s street population drew their dying breath under the dusty feet of passersby, after having spent an entire existence deprived of any human evidence of a loving God. This was a tragedy not of God’s making, but man’s — yet one that burdened not man’s heart, but God’s. This was the ultimate sense of Mother Teresa’s dark night, borne in the name of her God, and her poor.
But what of reports that suggested that Mother Teresa had undergone a crisis of faith, or worse, that her smile and her devotion to God and neighbor were little more than hypocrisy? Emphatically, Mother Teresa’s dark night was not a “crisis of faith,” nor did it represent a wavering on her part. Far from being a loss of faith, her letters reveal instead her hard-fought victory of faith, the triumph of faith’s light that shines even in the darkness, for “the darkness has not overcome it” (Jn 1:5).
The same letters that recount her darkness at the feeling level (not at the level of faith) testify, too, to her unshakeable belief, even when she no longer sensed God’s presence. Her letters reveal a supreme, even heroic exercise of faith at its zenith, free of dependence on circumstance or feelings. She consistently chose to believe, refusing to turn away from a brilliance once beheld, simply because clouds had covered her inner sky. No matter how long the hours of her night, never once did she suspect that the sun existed no more. Even in the deepest night of her inner Calcutta, she kept her course towards the Day Star, and never lost her way.
The passages that speak of her darkness recount as well her
