Lately, I’ve become obsessed with Mother Teresa. In one way, at least, we weren’t much different. We both stopped experiencing God in our lives. My spiritual desert started in 2002; hers lasted the last 50 (50!) years of her life.
After four years, I decided the reason I wasn’t feeling God in my life was because he didn’t exist; Mother Teresa never gave up hope. She will soon become a saint. I won’t. But I wonder who draw the correct conclusion that their loss of contact with God. Christopher Hitchens, a major Mother Teresa critic, put it bluntly:
“She was no more exempt from the realization that religion is a human fabrication than any other person, and that her attempted cure was more and more professions of faith could only have deepened the pit that she had dug for herself.
You can read about her spiritual crisis in Mother Teresa: Come By My Light or In a fantastic article in Time magazine. Among her writing to her spiritual advisors:
Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.
And:
“The smile,” she writes, is “a mask” or “a cloak that covers everything.” Similarly, she wonders whether she is engaged in verbal deception. “I spoke as if my very heart was in love with God — tender, personal love,” she remarks to an adviser. “If you were [there], you would have said, ‘What hypocrisy.’ “
Plus, this she wrote as a dialogue to Jesus:
[Jesus:] Wilt thou refuse to do this for me? … You have become my Spouse for my love — you have come to India for Me. The thirst you had for souls brought you so far — Are you afraid to take one more step for Your Spouse — for me — for souls? Is your generosity grown cold? Am I a second to you?
[Teresa:] Jesus, my own Jesus — I am only Thine — I am so stupid — I do not know what to say but do with me whatever You wish — as You wish — as long as you wish. [But] why can’t I be a perfect Loreto Nun — here — why can’t I be like everybody else.
Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love — and now become as the most hated one — the one — You have thrown away as unwanted — unloved. I call, I cling, I want — and there is no One to answer — no One on Whom I can cling — no, No One. — Alone … Where is my Faith — even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness — My God — how painful is this unknown pain — I have no Faith — I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart — & make me suffer untold agony.
[Jesus:] I want Indian Nuns, Missionaries of Charity, who would be my fire of love amongst the poor, the sick, the dying and the little children … You are I know the most incapable person — weak and sinful but just because you are that — I want to use You for My glory. Wilt thou refuse?
Finally, there was this:
So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them — because of the blasphemy — If there be God — please forgive me — When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven — there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. — I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart
Oddly, I take some solace in Mother Teresa’s “dark night of the soul.” I mean, if she couldn’t connect with God — I don’t feel so bad that my faucet to the Big Guy got turned off to too. I’m sure I’m going to hell for saving saying this, but it seems to me Mother Teresa should have been WAY more honest in dealing with her spiritual crisis that spanned a half-century. It seems to me that everyone could be more honest when it comes to the state of his/her beliefs.
12 responses so far ↓
1 Drew // Jul 23, 2008 at 9:49 pm
“”I’m sure I’m going to hell for saving this, but it seems to me Mother Teresa should have been WAY more honest in dealing with her spiritual crisis that spanned a half-century.”"
I think so as well. Regardless of her work (and I have heard some disturbing stories about that as well) she is looked up to as a person of Faith. That is a lie. But hey, the various religious groups throughout history have never been known to allow facts to get in the way of their buisness practices.
2 pat // Jul 23, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Drew, the only reason people go to hell is if they reject Jesus as their Saviour. Mother Teresa gave her life away to help others, but it does sound like she faltered when she didn’t allow the Holy Spirit to direct and comfort her.
3 Thranil // Jul 23, 2008 at 10:45 pm
“I’m sure I’m going to hell for saving this…”
Well no worries there, William, since Hell is clearly a myth… or as I like to say to struggling theists:
“Smile, there is no Hell”
4 Brian // Jul 24, 2008 at 10:05 am
Friend,
The hell comment is strange since you seem to profess a ‘reluctant atheism’. Unless that was just pure cynicism, which indicates a belief in God that involves anger at His perceived ways.
Might be wrong.
If not, I understand that. I have felt pure rage at the injustices I’ve been so closely in my own life.
I have always found some comfort when God seems, from my finite existence, the most indifferent and cruel in reading the psalmist’s cry to Him…
“Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favor again?
Has his unfailing love vanish forever?
Has his promise failed for all time?
Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has He in his anger withheld his compassion?”
“Then I thought, to this will I appeal; the years at the right hand of God”
“I will meditate on all your works and consider all your might deeds”
Psalm 77:7-12
As a christian, I seem to find comfort mostly in his deeds of forgiveness towards me through Christ. When He seems uncaring, cruel and ambivalent. I try (through His help) to focus on his mercy. Romans 11:33-36
It’s all I have sometimes.
5 Edward T. Babinski // Jul 25, 2008 at 3:42 am
THE “WISDOM” OF MOTHER TERESA
Mother Teresa: “God always provides. He provides for the flowers and the birds, for everything in the world that he has created. And those little children are his life. There can never be enough.”
“God provides?… There can never be enough?” Scientists who study birds have found that one-third of adult birds and four-fifths of their offspring die of starvation every year. [David Lack, “Of Birds and Men,” New Scientist, Jan., 1996]
Mother Teresa On Aids: “It is the retribution for ‘improper sexual misconduct.’”
(Then what were the Black Death, smallpox, influenza, measles, mumps, polio, and TB “retribution for?”–E.T.B.)
Mother Teresa On Poverty: “It is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot. The world is much helped by the suffering of poor people.”
(The more poor people there are who “accept” their suffering, the more rich people there will be who manipulate them. The rich complain that the poor want something for nothing. But the rich often stop at nothing to get everything. Where is Mother T.’s indignation at the “rich” like Jesus displayed?–E.T.B.)
Mother Teresa On the Intense Pains of a Man with Cancer: “You are suffering like Christ. Therefore Jesus must be kissing you.”
(Mother T. was against the use of anesthetics to deaden pain, and she repeated the above story of intense suffering as an illustration of that belief. However, she also revealed the man’s reply to her. In response to Mother T. telling him that “Jesus must be kissing you,” he replied, “Then I wish he’d stop.”–E.T.B.)
Mother Teresa On Overpopulation: “There is no problem of overpopulation, only of God’s will.”
(So if you live in a country whose population growth is outpacing its food production and economic growth, then you ought to throw away those rubbers and birth control pills, and get down on your knees and embrace starvation and poverty, because according to Mother T. that’s “God’s will.”–E.T.B.)
Mother Teresa’s statements, above, were drawn from THE MISSIONARY POSITION by Christopher Hitchens
Edward T. Babinski
6 Edward T. Babinski // Jul 25, 2008 at 3:53 am
MOTHER TERESA
AND THE NON-NECESSITY OF CONVERTING TO CHRISTIANITY. (Maybe that went hand in hand with her doubts?)
“We never try to convert those who receive [aid from Missionaries of Charity] to Christianity but in our work we bear witness to the love of God’s presence and if Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, or agnostics become for this better men — simply better — we will be satisfied. It matters to the individual what church he belongs to. If that individual thinks and believes that this is the only way to God for her or him, this is the way God comes into their life — his life. If he does not know any other way and if he has no doubt so that he does not need to search then this is his way to salvation.” (Mother Teresa, Life in the Spirit: Reflections, Meditations and Prayers, pages 81-82)
“I’ve always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic”… After including some prayers in her book she added that if you were not a Christian you could replace the name “Jesus” with “God.” (Mother Teresa, A Simple Path, page 31 & 35).
“I love all religions. … If people become better Hindus, better Muslims, better Buddhists by our acts of love, then there is something else growing there.” “All is God — Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, etc., all have access to the same God.” (Mother Teresa, cited from unreferenced sources in an online article, “The Myth of Mother Teresa” at Challies.com)
7 spellcheck is your friend // Jul 25, 2008 at 6:20 am
your faucet got turned off to?
or two or toooooooooooooooooooooo.
Going to hell for saving this or saying this.. I am having a hard time trying to understand exactly what you’re trying to save. I mean say. Bill? are you drinking again?
8 Drew // Jul 25, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Pat,
Why does each and every religion stipulate that the best way (or only way) to be damned is to not believe in the principle figure? Are you sure you are not going to Hell for rejecting Thor? Or Isis? or Zeus? Or…I could be listing gods all day. Better I get back to work…
9 pat // Jul 25, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Drew, I meant my comment to encourage you that speaking anything about Mother Teresa wasn’t going to send you to hell. I don’t look at my belief in Jesus as a religion, but it’s a love relationship with One who sacrificed His life for my salvation. So I meant no offense.
10 Drew // Jul 26, 2008 at 1:59 am
Actually, the “going to hell” part was a quote from the blog post itself. As I do not believe in Hell, I have no fear of it. If I am wrong (ala Pascal’s Wager), then at least I will know some people there, as surely that is where all my friends will be
However, my question remains. How can you, or anyone else be so confident that the one particular set of beliefs you have is correct, when there are literally 100’s of different gods and beliefs, and the evidence for each is equally compelling(or not)?
11 abibibo // Jul 21, 2009 at 2:23 pm
The dialogue of Mother Teresa has shown one of the trials we face here on earth. It is when we do not feel God in our lives. It is us who has to lift our spirits up to feel his presence. I firmly believe this is to test how strong our Faith is to God.
12 abibibo // Jul 21, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Obviously, Mother Teresa has obviously pass this test because she was beatified.
This is a message to everyone who has given up on God: Do your very best to find him. Do it smartly by consulting a priest, pastor, bishop etc..
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