Contemporary Saints' "Loss of Faith"

St. Therese of Lisieux (1873 - 1897) has been an influential model of sanctity because of the simplicity & practicality of her approach to spiritual life. She is one of the most popular saints in the history of the Church. 

She felt an early call to religious life, & at 15, became a nun, & joined her two older sisters at the convent. After nine years, having fulfilled various offices, in her last eighteen months, she fell into a "night of faith", in which she is said to have felt Jesus was absent & been tormented by doubts that God existed. She died at 24 due to tuberculosis. The Basilica of Lisieux is the second most visited place of pilgrimage in France after Lourdes.

In "The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna", the author, 'M', writes about a conversation he had with Narendra (later called Swami Vivekananda) on April 21, 1886. It was during the last days of Sri Ramakrishna, who, it should be noted, had already bestowed many spiritual experiences on Narendra.

Narendra: "There is no such thing as God."

M: "Sri Ramakrishna has seen God."

Narendra: "It may be his hallucination. Sri Ramakrishna told me some people call
him God. I replied, let a thousand people call you God, but I shall not call you so as long as I do not know it to be true."

Later of course, Swami Vivekananda (1863 - 1902) overcame his reservations & brought Hinduism to the world stage in the Parliament of Religions at Chicago.

It is intriguing that these two contemporary saints had a crisis of faith at about the same time.