“During [an] approximately 12-year period, Teresa goes through a complete change, from the intensity of her epiphany to the disillusionment and the realization that her connection with God is lost,” Musale said.
Yet, Kolodiejchuk has criticized this characterization of St. Teresa as inaccurate.
“Unfortunately, the producers of the film appear unaware of Mother Teresa’s own interpretation of her darkness, or the significance it had for her life and vocation,” Kolodiejchuk said.
“As her own writings attest, one of the most profound things about Mother Teresa is that she never ‘lost her faith,’ even amid desolation and uncertainty. Her personal letters speak of her ’unbroken union [with God]’ during her darkness and observe that ‘my mind and heart is habitually with God,’”
“She describes the ‘doubt’ in which she lived ‘for the rest of her life’ as, instead, a trial of faith — an experience well-known in the Catholic mystical tradition,” Kolodiejchuk said.
The priest argued that, rather than demonstrate a loss of her faith, St. Teresa’s doubts “illustrated the depth of that faith, and her confidence that Christ would not abandon her.”