Mother Teresa – No Saint
Not that I ever liked this showboating woman, I do find this to be a funny revelation.
Book Of Iconic Nun’s Letters Shows She Was Tormented By Her Doubts In Her Faith
In life, Mother Teresa was an icon — for believers — of God’s work on Earth. Her ministry to the poor of Calcutta was a world-renowned symbol of religious compassion. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In a rare interview in 1986, Mother Teresa told CBS News she had a calling, based on unquestioned faith.
“They are all children of God, loved and created by the same heart of God,” she said.
But now, it has emerged that Mother Teresa was so doubtful of her own faith that she feared being a hypocrite, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips.
In a new book that compiles letters she wrote to friends, superiors and confessors, her doubts are obvious.
Shortly after beginning work in Calcutta’s slums, the spirit left Mother Teresa.
“Where is my faith?” she wrote. “Even deep down… there is nothing but emptiness and darkness… If there be God — please forgive me.”
Eight years later, she was still looking to reclaim her lost faith.
“Such deep longing for God… Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal,” she said.
As her fame increased, her faith refused to return. Her smile, she said, was a mask.
“What do I labor for?” she asked in one letter. “If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.”
“These are letters that were kept in the archbishop’s house,” the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk told Phillips.
The letters were gathered by Rev. Kolodiejchuk, the priest who’s making the case to the Vatican for Mother Teresa’s proposed sainthood. He said her obvious spiritual torment actually helps her case.
“Now we have this new understanding, this new window into her interior life, and for me this seems to be the most heroic,” said Rev. Kolodiejchuk.
According to her letters, Mother Teresa died with her doubts. She had even stopped praying, she once said.
The church decided to keep her letters, even though one of her dying wishes was that they be destroyed. Perhaps now we know why.
Aug 24, 2007 @ 10:38:06
Mother Teresa was experiencing the dark night of the soul when your ultimate faith is tested. She was experiencing the emptiness and desolation of those she cared for: she shared in their burdens like most saints and took on the sins of the world to help alleviate the suffering of others. She did not understand what she was going through in her outer mind. Saint means the striving one and she is striving to overcome. I would definately say she is on the path to sainthood. She had a great soul! She was a Mahatma.
Aug 25, 2007 @ 09:01:08
I am bipolar and often feel like this. Sometimes I believe and then I doubt. Faith is a gift from God. We believe even if we have doubts. Who is the person who always believes without doubts; there is no such person. I still think Mother Teresa was the greatest spiritual person of the 20th century.
Aug 25, 2007 @ 11:08:44
No, “Mother” Teresa was not a good person at all.
She would tell terminal patients in severe pain that euthanasia was wrong and they should live the rest of their existence in agony and just pray to that great invisible ghost in the sky. She also flew all the way off to Ireland to petition the government to stop them from legalizing divorce, even when it’s found to be an abusive marriage.
Aug 25, 2007 @ 14:48:22
To say Mother Teresa was not a good person at all is extreme. Obviously, if she won the Nobel Peace Prize she must have done some good.
Duh.
2. Terminally ill patients don’t ‘live in extreme pain’ – they are given medications that ease the pain considerably, without putting them into a zombie-like state.
3. If it is seen that the abusing spouse never understood what marriage is supposed to be (always thought beating up wife is okay), the marriage can be annulled – a true marriage then never existed.
A divorce reduces the family to nothing more than a contract that can be revoked at any time.
This is unacceptable, and Christians have a right to stand up for what they believe is correct.
Ian – stay an athiest – you can be that burning light that turns people away from the ignorance of atheism to the truth revealed simply in the nature around them.
Aug 25, 2007 @ 18:16:08
http://www.salon.com/sept97/news/news3.html
“What about her celebrated concern for the poor and the weak? Here the record is much murkier than her saintly image would suggest. I have been shown testimony from leading American and British physicians, expressing their concern at the extremely low standard of medicine practiced in her small Calcutta clinics. No pain killers, syringes washed in cold water, a fatalistic attitude toward death and a strict regimen for the patients.”
That’s cute, you think I turn people off from Atheism? Quite the opposite, I’ve convinced many that god does not exist.
Aug 27, 2007 @ 10:55:12
Sarah my dear, just because someone won a prize doesn’t mean they were ‘good’. It means that someone convinced the arbiters of this prize that she was good. And your second comment, that terminally ill patients don’t live in extreme pain…what planet are you from? I’m not terminal but I do have two degenerative incurable illnesses and guess what, I’m in extreme pain! I take meds for it, but they don’t always work. Do you think that someone with cancer eating up their innards is going to fare better? Join the real world before you make such silly statements.
And guess what, marriage IS a contract between two adults. The reason for this contract is purely financial protection for the parties involved…if they haven’t already made a commitment to each other the contract won’t help, if they have the contract won’t change it.
The Catholic view towards family, contraception, marriage, suicide, well pretty much everything is in-human and archaic. Those of us who think for ourselves reject it and the old pajama-wearing fool who leads the cult.
Aug 15, 2009 @ 04:58:19
i dont know what to believe. The world is in a muddle and always will be because people want to find out religion when we can survive without it.