In the popular imagination, it is often thought that a religious person ought to be in the image of Ned Flanders from The Simpsons: a happy-go-lucky type exemplifying optimism and politeness. However, much like how a romantic comedy does not reflect the reality of a romantic relationship, this image of an always-positive believer comes nowhere near the reality experienced by most people of faith. If faith is a relationship, then it makes sense that there will be times of exhaustion, doubt, and, most of all, loneliness.
While Mother Teresa worked amidst heart-breaking poverty, she found her own heart beaten down by interior struggles of doubt, pain, loneliness, and anxiety. “I am told God lives in me,” she wrote to her spiritual director in 1957, “and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.” While these words may shock some, Mother Teresa is far from the first Catholic saint or spiritual model who has had to endure such intense struggles. St. John of the Cross and Dorothy Day would certainly find a friend in the small nun who struggled as she showed kindness to those who needed it the most.
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