The incurably incredulous living saint: a multidisciplinary approach to Mother Teresa’s spiritual darkness

Abstract

Mother Teresa’s spirituality has been under scrutiny following the revelation that she suffered from the dark night of the soul. This three-part study initially covers the Church's reactions to her aridity from 1999 to 2007. The second part focuses on three main approaches—theological, psychological, and medical—in academic writings to her emptiness, interpreting it as indicative of holiness and a mental health condition. Having acknowledged sporadic attempts to see Teresa’s ministry and spiritual dryness as being interrelated, employing both the “sociological imagination” and a biographical approach, the final part highlights the significance of exploring this relationship as a causality in the context of an array of interrelated personal, familial, and ethno-spiritual milieus. The study contends that Teresa’s desolation was a lifelong condition which determined her choice of vocation and every decision thereafter, including the charism of the Missionaries of Charity and the stages of her ministry.