Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light

Overview

"Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light" gathers decades of private letters and spiritual notes that trace Mother Teresa’s hidden interior life behind her public ministry. Edited and framed by Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, the correspondence reveals a striking paradox: while she became a global symbol of Christian love, she lived for years in profound spiritual darkness, experiencing a near-continuous sense of God’s absence. The book presents this not as unbelief but as the crucible in which her faith, charity, and obedience were refined, allowing a deeper identification with the abandoned poor she served.

The call within a call

In 1946, on a train to Darjeeling, she received what she later called a "call within a call": an inner command from Jesus to leave the secure life of a Loreto nun and serve the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. Early letters from 1946, 1947 describe vivid locutions and a sense of Jesus’ nearness, summoning her to be His "light" among those who suffer most. Guided by spiritual directors, she pursued Church approval, left Loreto in 1948, and founded the Missionaries of Charity, whose distinctive fourth vow bound them to wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor.

The long night of faith

After the initial period of intense consolation came an extended "dark night" that lasted, with brief interruptions, for the rest of her life. Teresa wrote of emptiness, desolation, and a painful longing for God that went unanswered, fearing at times that her interior void made her a hypocrite. She nevertheless resolved to "smile at God" and to give unstintingly to others, choosing love as an act of will when feeling and light were withheld. A short respite in 1958 confirmed her path, but the darkness returned. With the help of Jesuit director Joseph Neuner, she came to see this trial as a participation in Jesus’ cry of abandonment on the Cross and a way to share the inner poverty of those she served.

Spirituality of thirst and surrender

Threaded through the letters is a spirituality centered on the words "I thirst", which she placed in every Missionaries of Charity chapel. She interpreted Jesus’ thirst as a yearning for souls and for love, and her mission as quenching that thirst through small acts done with great love. The Eucharist, silent adoration, and absolute trust in divine providence anchor her resolve. She insists on cheerful service, humility, and "loving trust, total surrender, cheerfulness" even in aridity. The darkness becomes a sacrificial offering, a hidden fire fueling visible works of mercy.

Obedience, growth, and the widening mission

The editor’s commentary situates the letters amid the growth of the Missionaries of Charity, from a handful of sisters in Calcutta to a global family of sisters and brothers. Repeatedly, Teresa submits major decisions to ecclesial authority, takes counsel from directors such as Celeste Van Exem and later Archbishop Lawrence Picachy, and shapes the congregation’s constitutions to safeguard poverty, simplicity, and closeness to the most abandoned. The correspondence also discloses her desire that many letters be destroyed, a wish not fully carried out; their preservation serves the Church’s discernment of her sanctity.

Portrait that emerges

What arises is a portrait of holiness marked not by constant spiritual sweetness but by fidelity without consolation. The letters reveal a woman consumed by love yet internally stripped, whose credibility rests on the consistency between her hidden suffering and her public tenderness. She once wrote, "If I ever become a saint, I will surely be one of darkness", indicating not despair but a chosen solidarity with those who feel forsaken. The book thus reframes her legacy: Mother Teresa’s luminous charity was not the overflow of felt intimacy with God, but a steadfast act of faith offered from within a long night, making her a witness to hope for believers and skeptics alike.