Back in January, I wrote a post about how I was led to know more about Mother Teresa. Then I wrote another one that marveled at the obedience that directed her life before she could serve the poor. And today I am writing one more.

CBS News has just released an article about Mother Teresa's doubts. This article is based on a new book of letters coming out, many of which have never been seen before. Some of these letters find Teresa voicing her doubts about God, about prayer, about the existence of the soul, about Jesus. She questions the integrity of her heart sometimes. She wonders at what she is doing.

Personally, I love that she wrote these things. I want to pick up the book and explore its every page because I expect to find encouragement and kinship there, a greater sense of her inward person.

The media, however, pose a different view. To them, the voicing of questions unhinges our faith in her piety. It calls into question her service, as though those acts were performed with divided motives and an insincere heart and therefore, supposedly, worth nothing. And it seems that, for them, if prayer ceases at some point in time, it's never recovered again.

I suppose we can't expect those whose understanding has been darkened and whose eyes have not been opened to apprehend the life of faith, to know that it rises and falls with great tides at times, and that God is still near when it does. But it bothers me that such powerful entities get to stand on such visible stages, leading the rest of the world to conclusions perceived with their unseeing eyes.

Interesting postnote: As I was doing a search for the book of letters to determine its title and date of release (as of yet, I've been unable to locate this information), I uncovered this article released by CNN on September 7, 2001, which relays much of the same information, except in a more objective spirit. It's unclear to me, given the six-year lapse, what CBS is seeking to accomplish with their recycling of what I now see is actually "old" news.