Mother Teresa's Dark Nights

Three years after my radical conversion from postmodern secular humanist to fledgling believer, I went to Calcutta to volunteer for two months at Mother Teresa’s children’s home (Shishu Bavan). I wanted to understand what she meant when she said their work was not social work but religious work. Abraham Heschel once wrote that the true prophets of God “ceaselessly shatter indifference.” They are “reluctant messengers” who allow God to speak through them imploring us to return to him in “a world that is not so much devoid of meaning as deaf to meaning.” Mother Teresa was one of these prophets. And even though we learned this week that she will be formally declared a saint on September 4, like all prophets, Mother Teresa suffered.