September 5 | Moments Almanac | Calcutta
On September 5, 1997, Mother Teresa died in Calcutta after a lifetime spent among the poor, the abandoned, and the dying. To the world, she seemed to embody unwavering spiritual certainty. But letters published after her death revealed a surprising private struggle: for decades, she often lived without any felt sense of God’s presence.
In this episode of Moments Almanac, we look beyond questions of Catholic sainthood to something every Christian can understand—the experience of praying when God seems silent. From Mother Teresa’s hidden struggle to the cries of Psalms 13, 22, and 88, her story reminds us that faith is not measured by how strongly we feel God’s presence.
Sometimes faith sings. Sometimes faith soars. And sometimes faith simply gets up, puts its feet on the floor, and takes the next obedient step.
Welcome to Moments Almanac for September the 5th. And on this day, in 1997, in a small room in Calcutta, an 87-year-old woman took her last breath. The world knew her as Mother Teresa. Small, stooped, dressed in a simple white dress trimmed in blue, famous for caring for people others had forgotten. But the world did not yet know about the letters. For decades, Mother Teresa had written privately to spiritual advisors about something almost completely hidden from public view. She often could not sense the presence of God. Today we don't have to settle the Catholic's judgment on sainthoods or agree with every part of Mother Teresa's theology and practice to hear something deeply familiar in her story. Because believers have been praying into the darkness for a long time. Why, Lord, do you stand far off? How long, Lord, will you forget me forever? Mother Teresa's story asks a haunting question. What does faithfulness look like when God seems silent? She was born in nineteen ten in what is now North Macedonia. At eighteen she left home and joined the Sisters of Loreto and soon traveled to India. For seventeen years she taught at a girls' school in Calcutta. Then in nineteen forty six during a train ride to Darjeeling, she experienced what she called a call within a call, a conviction that she should leave the relative security of the convent and serve Calcutta's poorest people directly. In 1948, she stepped into that new life wearing that simple dress that would become recognizable around the world. Two years later, she founded the Missionaries of Charity. Their work expanded from Calcutta into countries around the globe, caring for the dying, abandoned, orphaned, and desperately poor. In 1979, Mother Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize. From the outside, hers appeared to be a life overflowing with spiritual certainty, but after her death, private letters revealed another story. Beginning around the time her ministry among the poor took shape, Mother Teresa, she wrote repeatedly of an agonizing sense of God's absence. She longed for him, prayed to him, served in his name, and yet for long stretches she could not feel his nearness. And this wasn't a bad week. The struggle continued in varying degrees across decades. That makes her story more complicated, but perhaps also more useful. Scripture never promises that faith will always feel like faith. David asked God why he seemed so far away. The sons of Korah wondered why their souls were cast down. Psalm eighty eight ends without the darkness lifting in from the cross. Jesus himself took the words of Psalm twenty two upon his lips. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Christian faith doesn't rest upon the ability to continually manufacture the sensation of God's presence. Our feelings matter, but they are not the foundation beneath us. God is. Mother Teresa kept getting up. She prayed when prayer felt empty. She walked into the streets. She washed wounds. She fed hungry people. She held the hands of the dying. Whatever theological differences Protestants might have of her tradition, there is something worth noticing there. Sometimes faith sings, and sometimes faith soars, and sometimes faith simply puts its feet on the floor in the morning and takes the next obedient step. Mother Teresa died on September fifth, nineteen ninety-seven. India honored her with a state funeral, and nineteen years later the Roman Catholic Church canonized her. But perhaps this part of the story that's most useful to the rest of us was never seen by the crowds. For nearly half a century, a woman known around the world for her faith lived with questions she could barely speak aloud. And she kept showing up. Maybe that's the word for somebody somebody who's listening to this today. If God seems silent, his silence is not proof of his absence. And if you cannot feel what you once felt, you can still do the next thing you know to be faithful. Sometimes the strongest faith is not the faith that makes us feel the most. It's the faith that keeps on walking when feelings have gone dark. And that's Moments Almanac for September 5th. I hope you'll join me tomorrow. Until then, take heart, my friend, and share the grace.
