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The Church is correct to go forward.
Mother Teresa wouldn’t be the first saint who was spiritually dry or having her doubts at some point or other in her life. I don’t think this is anything new, really.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1885977/posts
In this thread, you have Protestants defending Mother Teresa, against doubters. Whether sainted or not (doesn’t matter to us Sola Scripturors), she lived an exemplary life. Those without any existential questioning, frankly, I don’t believe.
All the best to her and the RCC.
She is a perfect saintly example of how good works and faith is “everything”.
Jesus on the cross cried to the Father .. why have you foresaken me .. why wouldn’t a mere mortal have a crisis of faith?
i saw john allen on CNN talking about this. CNN, of course, was pretty bad. I never thought John Allen was very brilliant but he certainly did a very good job on this I thought.
Well, as she did unto the “least of these,” so she did unto our Lord. Mother Theresa is in good hands!
Even the best saints struggled with the faith.
The fact that a miracle was attributed to Mother Theresa is very telling.
From my limited reading of the saints, it seems that everyone of them went through “dark night” experiences, struggling with doubts and aridity; it seems to be a part of what all Christians go through in their walk. God tests us to see if we will exercise Faith, Hope, and Charity even when we have no sensible consolations, to see if our love for Him is real. I have never met a Christian yet (of any denomination) that hasn’t had those “dark night” times in their lives.
Mother Theresa’s life witness puts her critics to shame.
The level of debate on this issue has been pitiful and painful to watch as the secular media has picked up on some details of Mother's spiritual journey and run with them in totally the wrong direction. Those who have piled on have likewise displayed a spectacular ignorance of the spiritual life.
The truth is that Mother Teresa's doubts were a severe trial permitted by God in the fashion experienced by all the saints. The critical point is that Mother Teresa experienced this trial amidst her heroic work to the poor and of founding a religious order in which she persevered to the end. This requires real faith and her perseverance in the face of these doubts marks her work as heroic and saintly. Had she desisted and left the religious life as many have done, it would be a different story. However she faced this trial humbly and courageously and ran her race to the end.
Likewise, St. John Vianney battled all his life with a temptation to flee Ars and his work as a confessor because he believed he was obstructing God's work and doing nothing good. He was tempted to retire and live a solitary life.
Sunday's second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews is particularly relevant to all of this: "Whom the Lord loves he chastises and puts to the test".
Mother Teresa was tested and tried by God and not found wanting.
40 years? Thats a long time.
Of course.
All of the great saints go through an extremely trying night of the soul.
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September 5, 2007
![]() Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta
![]() (1910-1997)
Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the tiny woman recognized throughout the world for her work among the poorest of the poor, was beatified October 19, 2003. Among those present were hundreds of Missionaries of Charity, the Order she founded in 1950 as a diocesan religious community. Today the congregation also includes contemplative sisters and brothers and an order of priests.
Speaking in a strained, weary voice at the beatification Mass, Pope John Paul II declared her blessed, prompting waves of applause before the 300,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square. In his homily, read by an aide for the aging pope, the Holy Father called Mother Teresa one of the most relevant personalities of our age and an icon of the Good Samaritan. Her life, he said, was a bold proclamation of the gospel. Mother Teresa's beatification, just over six years after her death, was part of an expedited process put into effect by Pope John Paul II. Like so many others around the world, he found her love for the Eucharist, for prayer and for the poor a model for all to emulate. Born to Albanian parents in what is now Skopje, Macedonia (then part of the Ottoman Empire), Gonxha (Agnes) Bojaxhiu was the youngest of the three children who survived. For a time, the family lived comfortably, and her father's construction business thrived. But life changed overnight following his unexpected death. During her years in public school Agnes participated in a Catholic sodality and showed a strong interest in the foreign missions. At age 18 she entered the Loreto Sisters of Dublin. It was 1928 when she said goodbye to her mother for the final time and made her way to a new land and a new life. The following year she was sent to the Loreto novitiate in Darjeeling, India. There she chose the name Teresa and prepared for a life of service. She was assigned to a high school for girls in Calcutta, where she taught history and geography to the daughters of the wealthy. But she could not escape the realities around herthe poverty, the suffering, the overwhelming numbers of destitute people. In 1946, while riding a train to Darjeeling to make a retreat, Sister Teresa heard what she later explained as a call within a call. The message was clear. I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. She also heard a call to give up her life with the Sisters of Loreto and, instead, to follow Christ into the slums to serve him among the poorest of the poor. After receiving permission to leave Loreto, establish a new religious community and undertake her new work, she took a nursing course for several months. She returned to Calcutta, where she lived in the slums and opened a school for poor children. Dressed in a white sari and sandals (the ordinary dress of an Indian woman) she soon began getting to know her neighborsespecially the poor and sickand getting to know their needs through visits. The work was exhausting, but she was not alone for long. Volunteers who came to join her in the work, some of them former students, became the core of the Missionaries of Charity. Other helped by donating food, clothing, supplies, the use of buildings. In 1952 the city of Calcutta gave Mother Teresa a former hostel, which became a home for the dying and the destitute. As the Order expanded, services were also offered to orphans, abandoned children, alcoholics, the aging and street people. For the next four decades Mother Teresa worked tirelessly on behalf of the poor. Her love knew no bounds. Nor did her energy, as she crisscrossed the globe pleading for support and inviting others to see the face of Jesus in the poorest of the poor. In 1979 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On September 5, 1997, God called her home. |
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