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Faith crisis? Not the Mother Teresa he knew

Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published August 31, 2007

This is the cover of "Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light," by Missionaries of Charity Father Brian Kolodiejchuk. The new book about Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta's writings on feeling abandoned by God has created a flurry of interest and media speculation.

Detroit — Whatever Blessed Teresa of Calcutta may have been going through in her spiritual life, a local priest who met her several times doubts "crisis of faith" could have been a good description for it.

"That's certainly not what I experienced when I met with her shortly after her sisters came to Detroit," says Msgr. Patrick Halfpenny, now pastor of St. Paul on the Lake Parish in Grosse Pointe Farms.

As archdiocesan director of communications when Blessed Teresa visited Detroit in 1979 after her Missionaries of Charity established a convent at the former St. Agnes Parish, then-Fr. Halfpenny drove then-Mother Teresa to the Fisher Building studios of WJR Radio, where she was interviewed by the late J.P. McCarthy.

Msgr. Halfpenny was able to do a lengthy interview with her himself when she returned to Detroit a year later, and then met her again in Rome when he took a group of seminarians to the Vatican in the early 1990s.

Speaking of the reports that Blessed Teresa felt some sort of estrangement from God, which will be detailed in a forthcoming book, Msgr. Halfpenny says he imagines what she was going through was "not unlike what an earlier Teresa experienced," referring to the 16th-century Spanish mystic, St. Teresa of Avila.

"To experience dryness in prayer, even over an extended period of time, can produce two reactions — one is to just throw up one's hands and give up; the other is to continue to pray, even though God doesn't seem to be responding," he continues.

Halfpenny

"That she continued to pray, continued to trust God, and continued to encourage others to pray — the last thing I would call that is a 'crisis of faith.' Instead, I would say that was evidence of a very deep faith," Msgr. Halfpenny adds.

And he mentions how Mother Teresa continued to bring other people to faith and continued her work on behalf of the poor.

"That she continued to draw from this seemingly bottomless pool of love indicates that she continued to be nourished, even though she experienced this dryness," Msgr. Halfpenny says.

Fr. Jaime Hinojos, pastor of St. Gabriel Parish in southwest Detroit, has a similar view. "That's something like the 'dark night of the soul' St. John of the Cross wrote about," he says, referring to another 16th-century Spanish mystic.

St. Gabriel Church will host a special Mass on her feast day, Wednesday, Sept. 5, at 10 a.m.

"We've done this every year since I became pastor, and this will be our third one," Fr. Hinojos says.

"We have the Missionaries of Charity here in this neighborhood. They love to live among the poor, and they help us with catechism," he says.

Fr. Hinojos says it was the Missionaries of Charity who first requested a Mass for Blessed Teresa's feast day, but he readily agreed: "She is a good example to us all. It's a good opportunity to make our Gospel values stand out and be known."