The Dark Night of the Soul

Letters Reveal Mother Teresa's Secret

Mother Teresa had a calling, she told CBS News in a rare interview, based on unquestioned faith.

"They are all children of God, loved and created by the same heart of God."

But now, it emerges that Mother Teresa was so doubtful of her own faith that she feared she was being a hypocrite, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips. In a new book that compiles letters she wrote to friends, superiors and confessors, her doubts are obvious.

Shortly after beginning work in Calcutta's slums, the spirit leaves her.

"Where is my faith?" she writes. "Even deep down … there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. ... If there be God — please forgive me." ...

Eight years later, she's still looking for the belief she's lost.

"Such deep longing for God," she writes. "… repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal."

As her fame increased, her faith refused to return. Her smile, she says, is a mask.

"What do I labor for?" she asks. "If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true."
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According to her letters, Mother Teresa died with her doubts. She had even stopped praying, she once said.

More on the Letters: 'The Silence and the Emptiness Is so Great'