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.
This stuff tears my heart and brings me to tears. I can only imagine what pain this must have caused Our Blessed Lord on the Cross
I THINK YOU SPEAK FOR A LOT OF US ON THIS FORUM AND I THANK GOD FOR THAT AND FOR YOU.
“YOUR SIDE MAKES ME SICK”.
YES.
And this is the first time I ever posted in capitals.
That was spectacular, anything else I could say would only trivialize it.
The early Christians didn't have all the Scriptures, couldn't assemble openly, weren't respected, faced angry mobs or death by stoning or being fed to lions or losing everything. They were hated by their governments and hunted. But they knew they had everything they would ever need in Christ Jesus The Lord.
Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, And cast [him] out of the city, and stoned [him]: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul.
And they stoned Stephen, calling upon [God], and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. - Acts 7:55-60
Thank you!
There are only so many contexts that can support I believe all gods can save
What a triumph for Satan that those who consider themselves devoted to Jesus think it their duty to mock her whom God blessed
First of all, no one is "mocking her."
More importantly, do you actually believe God "blessed" Mother Teresa? She was a tortured woman for 40 years who did not believe in God.
Is that the Romanist's idea of "blessed?"
We didn't always know this, but we do know this now after reading her many letters. She did not pray. She doubted the existence of God and the divinity of Jesus Christ. And she died in those black thoughts.
That is not "blessed."
That is bereft and alone and bitter and ignorant.
I pity her. We can only hope she received the mercy she did not believe existed.