--- title: Mother Teresa a Saint: A History of Her Complicated Faith description: For nearly 50 years, the woman who is now being declared a saint felt that God had abandoned her—and continued her work anyway. canonical: https://time.com/4476076/mother-teresas-faith-history/ author: Mahita Gajanan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-02T12:30:28.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T00:21:16.924Z article:section: History og:title: A History of Mother Teresa's Complicated Faith og:description: For nearly 50 years, she felt God had abandoned her og:url: https://time.com/4476076/mother-teresas-faith-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfe23c9b3144f27c1/6988a4840a4a225dd99cb1d2/mother-teresa-faith-history.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Mother Teresa. Patna India og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A History of Mother Teresa's Complicated Faith twitter:description: For nearly 50 years, she felt God had abandoned her twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfe23c9b3144f27c1/6988a4840a4a225dd99cb1d2/mother-teresa-faith-history.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # A Brief History of Mother Teresa's Complicated Faith by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Sep 2, 2016 12:30 PM UTC  Mother Teresa in Calcutta Mother Teresa in CalcuttaReligious Images/UIG—Getty Images/Universal Images Group by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Sep 2, 2016 12:30 PM UTC Mother Teresa will [become a saint on Sunday](http://time.com/4154671/mother-teresa-saint/?xid=homepage), less than a year after Pope Francis certified her second miracle, a requirement for sainthood. During her lifetime, she was often referred to as a [“living saint,](http://time.com/vault/issue/1975-12-29/page/47/)” winning the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the Missionaries of Charity helping poor and sick people. However, Mother Teresa’s seemingly unbreakable bond with God was much more complicated than she let on in public. For nearly 50 years, she felt God had abandoned her. Letters made public years after her death in 1997 revealed that Mother Teresa spent nearly half a century without feeling God’s presence, “neither in her heart or in the eucharist,” as [TIME reported](http://time.com/4126238/mother-teresas-crisis-of-faith/) in 2007: --- > “” --- Mother Teresa was aware of the contradiction between her public persona and private feelings. She called her smile “a mask” or “a cloak that covers everything.” Her letters reveal she wrestled with the existence of God. In an undated prayer to Jesus at the suggestion of a confessor, she [said she had no faith](http://time.com/4126238/mother-teresas-crisis-of-faith/). Such a lengthy crisis of faith becomes all the more significant as Mother Teresa is declared a saint. “I’ve never read a saint’s life where the saint has such an intense spiritual darkness,” Rev. James Martin, author of _My Life with the Saints_, told TIME in 2007\. “No one knew she was that tormented.” [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) The revealing letters were published in a book entitled _Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light_, compiled and edited by Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, Mother Teresa’s postulator. In an interview with the [New York _Times_](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/world/europe/mother-teresas-sainthood-priest.html?%5Fr=0) this August, Kolodiejchuk called Mother Teresa’s perseverance “heroic” in the face of the the “darkness” she felt. “She was suffering that loneliness, that sense of being unloved, unwanted in her relationship with Jesus,” he said. “but in solidarity with and identified with others who were in some way living that sense of loneliness and being unloved.” **_Read TIME’s full 2007 cover story about Mother Teresa’s letters, here in the TIME Vault:_** [The Secret Life of Mother Teresa](http://time.com/vault/issue/2007-09-03/page/1/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4476076/mother-teresas-faith-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4476076/mother-teresas-faith-history/"},"headline":"A Brief History of Mother Teresa's Complicated Faith","datePublished":"2016-09-02T12:30:28.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T00:21:16.924Z","description":"For nearly 50 years, she felt God had abandoned her","url":"https://time.com/4476076/mother-teresas-faith-history/","keywords":["faith"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfe23c9b3144f27c1/6988a4840a4a225dd99cb1d2/mother-teresa-faith-history.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mahita Gajanan","jobTitle":"Gajanan is an editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfe23c9b3144f27c1/6988a4840a4a225dd99cb1d2/mother-teresa-faith-history.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Mother Teresa. 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