I don't see anything in what you say that addresses what the pastor said. Is it right to neglect alcoholics "because they are going to hell anyway?"
I would say addictions are diseases with a strong, maybe even a dominant 'spiritual' component. I have tried to keep up with the field, AND I have known people who, having started the never-ending recovery process, then received the Lord into their lives and hearts. I have also known people who first had a religious conversion and THEN quit drinking. Both groups seem to benefit (or at least those who love them do) from continued 'spiritual growth', consciously sought.
Is it your general thought that .... well, try this:
I was chaplain at a home for severely handicapped kids. Though it was fewer than ten miles from Charlottesville and had been there since Hector was a pup -- and longer, very few people knew about it. The board seemed more preoccupied with being First Families of Virginia than with keeping the place going. ( I got $50 a week for my alleged work.)
So I went to a local 'radio personality' and bought time on the Sunday morning schedule and for 4-5 years I had a show every Sunday without fail (though some were taped in advance.)
As a result of my attention seeking and publicity-grubbing, I raised local awareness of the institution, shamed the board ( a very little -- they were pretty proof against shame), and raised money on which I had to pay taxes but all of which went to the care of the children.
I mingled with the local 'great', and dealt with their misplaced admiration. There's a word for what I was that I cannot use on the Religion Forum. Let's say "attention prostitute." I'm hoping that's acceptable.
BUT I achieved the objective, by God's grace and the generosity of my audience of two or three. It took the help of the Federal Government to close the home.
So I suppose I also have received my reward. In any event I am edified by the respect given to the injunction not to judge, and the careful exercise of the responsibility to avoid taking quotes out of context when one is doing a hatchet job.
Time: What's your greatest hope here in India?Here.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.
To me the way what she says has been taken out of context is morally and almost physically revolting.
I want to thank you for providing the context for the Mother Teresa statement. It’s bothered me having seen it in isolation in the past, seeing the statement in full indicates that whoever originated the abbreviated quote was deliberately distorting what she intended.
So, thank you.
Thanks for posting this full text. I’m always grateful to see things “put aright” that have been, whether purposefully or not I cannot know, distorted or stripped of their authentic context.
As for the work Mother Theresa did among the poorest of the poor, I often recall the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus himself tells this teaching parable; the man left by the wayside, by those who professed a religious belief and custom, was ministered to by one who was not , by tradition, supposed to interact with him. Not only was he given salve for his wounds, but transport to a safe haven and money to cover his needs and the promise of a return to see his progress. There was no mention of what his religious beliefs were before he received the help that had been denied him by others.
You are right to ask: where does the good come from? And with whom was the Lord God more pleased?
I regreat that I’m not skilled in doing links. But for someone who will do it, at Zenit.org there is a September 2, 2010 interview with Fr. Joseph Langford, MC. He is the priest who together with Mother Teresa founded the priests of the Missionaries of Charity, her priestly congregation.
That interview should put some truth to the life, works and faith of Mother Teresa, and put to rest—at least for those who truly want to be reasonable—some of these unfounded and almost cruel comments about her life and work.
Why would somebody want to lie about Mother Teresa and to take excerpts from what she said and present them out of context and then suggest they "prove" what the rest of the interview contradicts?
I'm quite serious. This is so despicable it makes me question the value of these conversations. There is no real conversation, and now we have 'facts' being brought into evidence which, upon a chance enquiry, are shown to be distorted into falsehoods.
Almost the whole of the debate depends on your side saying things about our teaching which are false. When I finally gain a little bit of a hearing on what we actually mean by "real" I am invited to use this forum for an introductory course on Scholastic Realism and Aristotle's Metaphysics! Or the momentary glimpse of truth is immediately buried under a pile of abuse and further misrepresentations.
I am accustomed to that. Those who eagerly embrace falsehood, even for the best of motives, naturally and inevitably compromise their ability to perceive the truth.
But when lies (mostly of the form of sugestio falsi and suppressio veri by ripping quotes out of their context) are used to demean a charitable woman who is now dead, I am revolted.
I can quite understand your side's ignorance of the trials of the walk with Jesus. To love Him is, sooner or later to cry with Him, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" Your side belittles His generosity and thinks he merely imputes (λογιζομαι) righteousness, while you forget that His word is living and active and brings to pass what He says. So, if he imputes righteousness He will make it happen, real righteousness, not merely snow on a dung hill. And our Lord has shown, unforgettably, that the way of the Truth leads through torment and a sense of abandonment. And, because He loves us, He invites us to share His happiness, happiness so unlike the world's idea of happiness that to us it looks like a man being tortured to death.
So when Mother Teresa, Blessed (or, if you insist, blest -- the pronunciation does not affect the meaning) Mother Teresa, suffers the loving chastisement of God, a scourging with Dominical and Scriptural precedent, your side takes the Grace as proof of her unbelief, the blessing as evidence of damnation!
What remarkable blindness! What a triumph for Satan that those who consider themselves devoted to Jesus think it their duty to mock her whom God blessed and to despise her whom God refined in trial!
Our Lord is as clear as need be about judging the souls of others. But the spectacle of a woman who first embraces poverty which would make most of us weep, and then tolerates the uncomprehending admiration of fools to raise money for the desperately poor and to elevate the thoughts of those who grudgingly honor her while despising her religion -- this heroic work is met with your side's contempt. I say again, what remarkable blindness!
In a recent First Things someone wrote of watching a woman tune the blessed one out the minute she began pleading for the unborn. While Teresa pled, this woman made up her shopping list! Who needs to listen when we all know it's just a mass of tissue and abortion is a choice?
Your side also is so offended by a woman who gave her life to the stinking, purulent, and oozing poor, that no amount of careful cropping is enough to make sure her edited words can be used to discredit her.
When we both are dead, the Missionaries of Charity will be going into the foulest and most despairing corners of society to bring some small attention and respect to those who never heard of their own dignity. There will be problems. The order will go through one or more periods of laxity and indulgence, followed by a new reform.
No one will remember the words we spoke, the arguments we wrote in our petty and mendacious disputes. But centuries from now the order Mother Teresa founded will still remember their founder as my order remembers Dominic. As the great-great-grandchildren of our heirs squabble over their inheritances ("They've left grievin' and gone to grabbin'" a parishioner of mine said) while on the other side of the world someone will die, not filthy and alone but clean, embraced, and loved, because of the woman your side eagerly degrades.
I think I will take a couple of days off from this thread. Your side makes me sick. I am not yet as strong as Mother Teresa. May God forgive and strengthen me until I embrace the nausea triggered by such a disgusting hostility toward the good.
How ridiculous your side seems! A little Albanian woman, made mighty with the might of God, so terrifies you that you must pronounce her damned and adduce lies to justify your sentence.
Well what constitutes "neglecting them"? Does the pastor preach in a church once or several times a week? Is his home door and church door always open if they want to come in? Will he give them spiritual advice if they come in? Are they free to attend any church in the South? Or is he supposed to haunt bars looking for them?
My own father was an alcoholic. He took us to church on sunday and sat outside in the car waiting for us. Was he free to come inside? Absolutely. We make choices
This like the stupid WWJD bracelets assume we can do what Jesus did or love like Jesus did.. or be jesus to another.. He was perfect and God.
Time: But you do not evangelize in the conventional sense of the term.
Mother Teresa: I'm evangelizing by my works of love.
Heathens love and do good and kind works as well, unless we preset the gospel it is a hollow human love that leaves the recipient lost in sin and lost to their gods.
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.
The important word here is PREACH not LOVE ...Jesus never told us to love and not preach.. Jesus never told us that Love was the gospel or could be substituted for it making preaching unnecessary..He told us to love one another and to love our fellow man..but never that love substituted for the gospel .It is sad this woman did not know the gospel so she could share it.. it is not works it is GRACE
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.
This I would agree with IF the gospel was presented ..but if one is believing that their works will "show Christ "and convert a heathen it will never happen.. "Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the WORD of God", "Rom 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
Mar 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
Good works is not preaching MD
The problem with Hindus is they have numerous gods.. without a clear teaching of scripture they could simply add jesus as one of their many gods
That is NOT conversion.
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.
And so what , they love their gods too...That she loves HER God means nothing to them if they never are told to repent their gods and come to Christ
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.
Poor thing things all gods are the same..so they get closer to their false gods that will never save
That is pathetic MD
This "context " does not show her to be a Christian ..it shows she does not know what the gospel is nor does she know scripture..
Roman Catholic apologists summon up a lot of anonymous sources when their prejudices needs bolstering.
Mother Teresa was no one's mother, and God will judge her motives. For me, the most interesting thing about her is that her Roman Catholic faith did not sustain her. On the contrary, it left her bereft, miserable, vacant and without hope in Jesus Christ as her Savior.
Such is Rome.
Believe in Christ and the word of God. Believe in Christ's work on the cross, and not in the work of men's hands.