An article published yesterday by Time contains details of writings of Mother Teresa indicating that she went through spiritual dryness – a failure to sense the presence of God – for most of the period of her ministry amongst the poor. Mother Teresa wanted the writings to be destroyed, but they were kept by the church, and have now been published.
In one meditation, Mother Teresa writes: I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?” In a letter she writes: …the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.
Spiritual dryness or running on empty is a common problem for workaholic Christian leaders. The normally prescribed treatments are taking a break from work, structuring a regular time into each day to pray and listen to God, and taking periodic retreats to seek God’s heart and to derive inspiration and encouragement from other Christian leaders. Faith is like a marriage relationship; every incident which happens along the way is an opportunity to grow closer together or further apart. But it seems that for Mother Teresa the relationship was dry in spite of all her efforts to make it work.