Posted on 08/24/2007 8:40:01 AM PDT by HarleyD
Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who has been put on the “fast track” to sainthood, was so tormented by doubts about her faith that she felt “a hypocrite,” it has emerged from a book of her letters to friends and confessors. Shortly after beginning her work in the slums of Calcutta, she wrote: “Where is my faith? Even deep down there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. If there be a God — please forgive me.” In letters eight years later she was still expressing “such deep longing for God,” adding that she felt “repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal.” Her smile to the world from her familiar weather-beaten face was a “mask” or a “cloak,” she said. “What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.” Mother Teresa, who died in 1997 and was beatified in record time only six years later, felt abandoned by God from the very start of the work that made her a global figure, in her sandals and blue and white sari. The doubts persisted until her death.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Is that a “yes”?
[i]katergasomai means is demonstrate or show[/i]
Nope. It means exactly how it is translated, “work out”. “Ergos” is work, the root of “energy”.
With all due respect, I cannot understand how this can be considered an "unfair attack". The person who was responsible for her canonization is the same one who is publishing the papers:
Doesn't it seem more reasonable that she suffered these emotions?
I can't say Mother Therese did NOT have heretical notions, simply because I don't know her very well. But you've made a contemptably weak case.
I didn't make any case; Mother Teresa's own words stand as testiment to her beliefs and make the case that she was preaching another Gospel.
You may think urging someone to become a "better" Muslim is an appropriate thing for someone who supposedly is ordained by God to preach the truth of Christ crucified, but I don't.
Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." -- Galatians 1:6-12"I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another Christ:
Paul thought this warning was so important he repeated the phrase twice in verses eight and nine..."if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed."
So what are we to make of Mother Teresa instructing Muslims to become "better" Muslims? What would Paul say? What would Christ say?
Seems logical.
Aren't we seeing a pattern here?
The priest sex scandals are "over-blown;" Mother Teresa's own words don't mean what they say; and the pope didn't really intend to label all Protestant churches as "defective," just "wrong."
Jabberwocky.
Didn’t St. Teresa of Avila also experience this most of her life. The fact that she went on regardless, and did what she did makes her a saint!
Feelings or lack of them are not evidence for or aganist faith. Worship, obedience, works of love for the sake of Christ are evidence of a faith that is stronger than any feeling.
I just read Romans 5 today and was struck by the mention of experience leading to hope...
And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." -- Romans 5:3-6"And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
We do not have Mother Theresa every thought put on paper. I would never assume to know the whole of a person by letters she wrote. So how you could judge Mother Theresa incorrect puzzles me.
I don’t need any external source; I know what these words mean. Ergazomai is the broad sense of work as in produce through energy. Kat- is a suffix that indicates outcome of a process, “to work out”. If I had a nickel for every pastor that lies about Greek of which he knows nothing in order to defend his theological fantasies, I’d be a very rich man.
And if God chooses to give that gift in a different measure to someone else, should you or I look down on them?
"What do you have, that you have not received?"
God gives some saving faith in Jesus Christ and to others He gives strong delusion.
I think trying to become a "better" Muslim falls into the latter category.
And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
Remember, "whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14:23).
The pedophile Mohammad denying the divinity of Christ is not "of faith" and thus, is sin. One of the really big ones, too.
It must be kept in mind that there are strict laws in many States in India against Christian’s trying to convert Hindus. The Sisters of Charity no doubt walked a fine line between providing shelter, food, medicine and love to the poorest of Calcutta’s citizens. Many of whom were probably low caste. If officials thought the Sisters and Mother Theresa were using the aid they provided as a means of converting people they would have faced civil and/or criminal penalties. That is the most likely reason for her statements about people being good Christians, or Hindus or Muslims.
Doesn't it seem more reasonable that she suffered these emotions?
In light of what I posted about the mystical process, yes. That was my point. However the media and some on this thread are taking it in a different direction; that trials of Faith make someone not Christian or specifically not Catholic.
She’s a saint.
Satan certainly is pushing his insinuations and half-truths against Blessed Teresa.
Mat 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done unto me.
Mother Theresa knew this was true, and now understands it more clearly than she ever could in this life.
This excerpt from an 1989 Time Magazine interview may help clarify Mother Theresa’s faith.
Time: What did you do this morning?
Mother Teresa: Pray.
Time: When did you start?
Mother Teresa: Half-past four
Time: And after prayer
Mother Teresa: We try to pray through our work by doing it with Jesus, for Jesus, to Jesus. That helps us to put our whole heart and soul into doing it. The dying, the cripple, the mental, the unwanted, the unloved they are Jesus in disguise.
Time: People know you as a sort of religious social worker. Do they understand the spiritual basis of your work?
Mother Teresa: I don’t know. But I give them a chance to come and touch the poor. Everybody has to experience that. So many young people give up everything to do just that. This is something so completely unbelievable in the world, no? And yet it is wonderful. Our volunteers go back different people.
Time: Does the fact that you are a woman make your message more understandable?
Mother Teresa: I never think like that.
Time: But don’t you think the world responds better to a mother?
Mother Teresa: People are responding not because of me, but because of what we’re doing. Before, people were speaking much about the poor, but now more and more people are speaking to the poor. That’s the great difference. The work has created this. The presence of the poor is known now, especially the poorest of the poor, the unwanted, the loved, the uncared-for. Before, nobody bothered about the people in the street. We have picked up from the streets of Calcutta 54,000 people, and 23,000 something have died in that one room [at Kalighat].
Time: Why have you been so successful?
Mother Teresa: Jesus made Himself the bread of life to give us life. That’s where we begin the day, with Mass. And we end the day with Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. I don’t think that I could do this work for even one week if I didn’t have four hours of prayer every day.
Time: Humble as you are, it must be an extraordinary thing to be a vehicle of God’s grace in the world.
Mother Teresa: But it is His work. I think God wants to show His greatness by using nothingness.
Time: You are nothingness?
Mother Teresa: I’m very sure of that.
Time: You feel you have no special qualities?
Mother Teresa: I don’t think so. I don’t claim anything of the work. It’s His work. I’m like a little pencil in His hand. That’s all. He does the thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do it. The pencil has only to be allowed to be used. In human terms, the success of our work should not have happened, no? That is a sign that it’s His work, and that He is using others as instruments - all our Sisters. None of us could produce this. Yet see what He has done.
Time: What is God’s greatest gift to you?
Mother Teresa: The poor people.
Time: How are they a gift?
Mother Teresa: I have an opportunity to be with Jesus 24 hours a day.
Time: Here in Calcutta, have you created a real change?
Mother Teresa: I think so. People are aware of the presence and also many, many, many Hindu people share with us. They come and feed the people and they serve the people. Now we never see a person lying there in the street dying. It has created a worldwide awareness of the poor.
Time: Beyond showing the poor to the world, have you conveyed any message about how to work with the poor?
Mother Teresa: You must make them feel loved and wanted. They are Jesus for me. I believe in that much more than doing big things for them.
Time: What’s your greatest hope here in India?
Mother Teresa: To give Jesus to all.
Time: But you do not evangelize in the conventional sense of the term.
Mother Teresa: I’m evangelizing by my works of love.
Time: Is that the best way?
Mother Teresa: For us, yes. For somebody else, something else. I’m evangelizing the way God wants me to. Jesus said go and preach to all the nations. We are now in so many nations preaching the Gospel by our works of love. “By the love that you have for one another will they know you are my disciples.” That’s the preaching that we are doing, and I think that is more real.
Time: Friends of yours say that you are disappointed that your work has not brought more conversions in this great Hindu nation.
Mother Teresa: Missionaries don’t think of that. They only want to proclaim the Word of God. Numbers have nothing to do with it. But the people are putting prayer into action by coming and serving the people. Continually people are coming to feed and serve, so many, you go and see. Everywhere people are helping. We don’t know the future. But the door is already open to Christ. There may not be a big conversion like that, but we don’t know what is happening in the soul.
Time: What do you think of Hinduism?
Mother Teresa: I love all religions, but I am in love with my own. No discussion. That’s what we have to prove to them. Seeing what I do, they realize that I am in love with Jesus.
Time: And they should love Jesus too?
Mother Teresa: Naturally, if they want peace, if they want joy, let them find Jesus. If people become better Hindus, better Moslems, better Buddhists by our acts of love, then there is something else growing there. They come closer and closer to God. When they come closer, they have to choose.
Time: You and John Paul II, among other Church leaders, have spoken out against certain lifestyles in the West, against materialism and abortion. How alarmed are you?
Mother Teresa: I always say one thing: If a mother can kill her own child, then what is left of the West to be destroyed? It is difficult to explain , but it is just that.
Time: When you spoke at Harvard University a few years ago, you said abortion was a great evil and people booed. What did you think when people booed you?
Mother Teresa: I offered it to our Lord. It’s all for Him, no? I let Him say what He wants.
Time: But these people who booed you would say that they also only want the best for women?
Mother Teresa: That may be. But we must tell the truth.
Time: And that is?
Mother Teresa: We have no right to kill. Thou shalt not kill, a commandment of God. And still should we kill the helpless one, the little one? You see we get so excited because people are throwing bombs and so many are being killed. For the grown ups, there is so much excitement in the world. But that little one in the womb, not even a sound? He cannot even escape. That child is the poorest of the poor.
... continued at http://www.servelec.net/mothertheresa.htm
But in each of those cases, just like in the OT saints and the stillborn baby and even in the bushman who has never heard the Gospel, it is still and always and only Jesus Christ who will save them, if God wills.
Not Mohammad. Not Buddha. And not their own righteousness, but the righteousness of Christ imputed to them.
And it doesn't look like that is the Gospel Mother Teresa preached.
The nun's crisis of faith was revealed four years ago by the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, the postutalor or advocate of her cause for sainthood, at the time of her beatification in October 2003. Now he has compiled a new edition of her letters, entitled, "Mother Teresa: Come be My Light," which reveals the full extent of her long "dark night of the soul."
That's fascinating. Half of her life, the second half, is a long time to doubt whether God exists or not.
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