Mother Theresa's "Dark Night of the Soul"

The latest issue of Time has an article on the recent publication of a book which contains the letters of Mother Theresa. It turns out that almost from the beginning of the time that she began her work in India, she experienced almost continuous spiritual aridity, or what St. John of the Cross referred to as the "Dark Night of the Soul." Behind all of the years of incredibly self-giving ministry to the poorest of the poor, she struggled with her faith and felt as though God had abandoned.

I was first alerted to the article on my AOL email account and read the synopsis story with some interest. I actually had read an article in First Things some months after her death in which the author who had access to some of the letters described the spiritual aridity under which she worked for most of her life in India, so I was not surprised by this "news." Some of the comments that I have read by journalists and others indicate surprise or shock at her experience and seem to think it demonstrates the shakable foundation of religious faith. The more I read the "spiritual masters" of the Christian faith (I am currently reading St. Theresa of Avila's Interior Castle) the less surprised I am by this phenomenon. I think a common understanding of faith is that people expect that God is a kind of genie in a bottle (and, in fact, I do think many Christians have this grossly mistaken understanding of God). However, all sincere followers of Jesus have times of trial and a feeling of God's absence as even Jesus did on the cross. St. Theresa's seems to have been far longer than most.

Are you surprised by Mother Theresa's struggle? Any comments?