For the first time in more than 30 years, Mother Teresa graces the cover of Time magazine. But unlike the 1975 cover that hailed her as a living saint, this week’s cover titillatingly trumpets, “The Secret Life of Mother Teresa.” The subtitle declares, “Newly published letters reveal a beloved icon’s 50-year crisis of faith.” NBC led the TV pack with serious questions about her faith.
Those letters, written by Mother Teresa over more than 60 years, form a new book called Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light. So what do these letters really reveal? Newsflash: One of the great saints of the 20th century had doubts. At times, she even doubted the existence of God. Imagine that!
Now, to put this in perspective, imagine that for 60 years you waded knee-deep in the gutters of Calcutta to tend to the outcast and the dying. In the midst of unspeakable squalor and human suffering, might you at times not doubt God?
Here’s more news: Mother Teresa struggled with depression. When you wrestle with the devil surrounded by human misery, you might have good cause to be depressed! I know from the years I have spent ministering in prisons. There are many times that you question, “Where’s God?” To be depressed in such situations simply makes you human. To carry on through the depression reveals the hand of God.
Not surprisingly, Mother Teresa’s letters are red meat for the media. And atheists like Christopher Hitchens could not resist ridiculing her dark night of the soul. “She was no more exempt from the realization that religion is a human fabrication than any other person,” Hitchens told Time. “Her attempted cure was more and more professions of faith [which] could only have deepened the pit that she had dug for herself.” Hitchens even compared her to the old communists who realized their lives were meaningless after the Soviet Union collapsed. What rubbish!
And meaningless is the last word you would think of to describe Mother Teresa. To help the poorest of the poor die with dignity was the greatest example of faith, particularly while you are suffering yourself, with doubts and with pain and with depression.
She continued to do the toughest job anyone could possibly do. And she did it to her dying day. Why? As she wrote to her spiritual advisor, she submitted to God. “I accept,” she wrote, “not in my feelings—but with my will, the Will of God—I accept His will.” I came to that realization in my own dark night of the soul a couple of years ago when two of my three kids had cancer.
The very essence of faith, you see, is believing even in the absence of evidence. And it is the only way we can know Christ. We can conclude rationally that God exists, that His Word is true, and that He has revealed Himself. But without that leap of faith, we will never know God personally or accept His will in Christ.
So what do the letters of Mother Teresa reveal? For one, they reveal the true cost of discipleship. To follow Christ is to embrace suffering and the Cross. And, at times, to say with Jesus, “My God, my God, why did you abandon me?”
Certainly Mother Teresa took on the suffering of the world just as her Lord had done. And she demonstrated a kind of faith that few ever experience. But hers is a faith that will be a lasting witness to the world—when Christopher Hitchens and the media critics are long forgotten.
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From BreakPoint®, August 29, 2007, Copyright 2007, Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with the permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or distributed without the express written permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries. “BreakPoint®” and “Prison Fellowship Ministries®” are registered trademarks of Prison Fellowship
Comments
Part II
The churches (body) is not training the children or admonishing the parents for allowing children to raised in this pagan culture. Remember, everything in this culture is the way it is because we allow it. Our children are dying because of drugs and violence. I remember when I was a kid (not all that long ago) a drug dealer tried setting up in a city neighborhood and gave out his "freebie" to a kid. The kid brought it home and it was found by the kids parents. Inquiries were made and the neighborhood fathers got together a went after this guy who attempted to poison and destroy the kids and essentially the families of this neighborhood. They tuned the guy up and ran him off. The police can't do much if the people in the neighborhood are willing to always turn a blind eye to injustice! We as Christians should be willing to stand up to injustices were ever they are.
Religion is man-made custom. A way of worshiping and following & obeying God in absence of clear instruction on how to do so. I will qualify that statement. You may like attending a church that uses hymnals and pipe organs and the ceremony is very solemn and quiet. Communion every Sunday and a set routine and flow of the service. Nothing wrong with that. I on the other hand prefer songs to be played by musicians, my worship songs on an overhead projector or powerpoint (so my hands are free to clap and raise them) as well as a sermon given in a very lively but pointed fashion. Nothing wrong with that either. The only problem with religion is what is added by man. The Catholic church has a long history of taking things from pagan religions and incorporating that into their worship and doctrine. It is a fact of history (and it is in the Bible) other Christian religions the same things. Some build Mega-churches in the community and never lift a finger to bring the lost to Christ in the community. They claim it is a beacon to the lost yet they never turn on the switch. Religion can only be judged by what is portrayed to the congregation and community and that which happens behind closed door in their policies, practices, and the training of the members and children. If they aren't doing that then the church has become a country club in which you pay your weekly dues in tithes (and they'll be sure to let you know if your not!) and a select few run things and have a kungfu grip on all power and control. A church that doesn't evangelize the lost and disciple its converted is useless and should boarded up!
Moral is: Mother Teresa answered the call and even in doubt stayed til the end. She chose obedience to the scripture and to her Lord than her own comfort and safety. She IS a Godly woman. I believe that she did exactly what Jesus Christ did in proclaiming the Gospel to all nations, feeding the poor, and saving souls to the glory of God. She will not be guilty as the in the parable of the Sheep & the Goats (Matthew 25). End of STORY.
Part I
When you see children dying of starvation, when you see all manner of injustice done to people day in and day out for years on end it not too difficult to imagine that occasionally you question your faith.
To answer the post by BOC560 (quote:)
"Mother Teresa was obviously a “good Catholic.” But was she a member of the church of the Body of Christ? That is the big question we should be asking now for our own sake."
For this woman to live and work and ultimately die in that place for all those years do you not believe that perhaps she did have a relationship with Jesus Christ? That she did have time in devotion (which is required) to examine her faith and either build on it or run from it? All those years you could not fake in that environment. I have more faith in her being a Christian than I do of some of the Popes that we have had. We have a Pope now who has already compromised the scripture by making a statement of scripture and doctrine and then recanting because of a Muslim outcry. Either don't make the statement in the first place or stand up for what is your belief! She was given gifts such as a car from the Pope and she sold it and put the money back into the ministry.
You also said:
"Religion is mankind’s attempt at making himself acceptable to God by his own merit and performance. We see religion in the bible as it was laid out to Israel. When the Jews made a covenant with God, they agreed upon a performance-based, conditional method to attain a right standing with Him."
The priests of the temple in the Old Testament were told by God what to wear, how to construct the temple, and what to sacrifice. They also were killed if the had spot or blemish in their lives - unrepented and unclean sin. That is why bells and a rope were tied around the priest's ankle so they could pull his body out if he wasn't right.
The New Testament churches weren't given this type of instruction because Christ paid the sin debt and was the last sacrifice needed. The believers were given an opportunity to have complete and unhindered worship to the Lord by building a church (body & building) and worship and instruction period(s) as they felt represented that particular body desire to worship their God. Worship was a true offering of faith and love for God and Jesus Christ. As long as that fell inside the guidelines of what would be acceptable to the Lord. Paul had problems with the first churches (body) because of outsiders and pagan doctrines that were trying to weave into the fiber of the Christian beliefs and essentially trying to choke out the true gospel message and meaning. Much of this I fear is why the church is more and more becoming an collection of ineffectual grouping that go to listen (but not hear) a word of God that tickles their ears and then go home.
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0026.html
Next question?
Mother Teresa was obviously a “good Catholic.” But was she a member of the church of the Body of Christ? That is the big question we should be asking now for our own sake. Catholic doctrine still places Jesus on the cross. Catholic doctrine still requires the saved to be of their religion. Consider the doctrine of the following preachers:
Catholics
Grace Baptists
Free Will Baptists
Hard Shell Baptists
Seventh Day Baptists
Unitarian Universalists
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Pentecostals
Methodists
Do you believe you could be taught the sound doctrine of your salvation in any one of these? That God would be pleased with your choice of any one of those listed above? A man would have to be a total idiot to fail to see that these preachers are teaching contrary to each other and thereby are liars.
Let’s be honest here. They are in error on the very basics of Christianity itself. (You don’t get any more basic than salvation!) It is obvious that these “professional” holy men don’t even know the first, basic thing about the subject they claim to champion. You need to take the responsibility to study to discover God’s truth and stop relying on the preachers and churches to feed you their doctrines.
In my younger years when I read that the way is narrow and few will find it, I thought, “That’s really not so accurate because, just look at all the churches lined down Main Street in every town and city. There must be millions of Christians!”
I no longer think that is the situation at all. Only seven were spared from the entire world’s population at the flood. Each time Israel was conquered, only a remnant was saved. At the time of the crucifixion, there was the “Little Flock” that believed. The majority favored the killing of killing Jesus.
While mankind is very liberal in accepting all faiths and religious denominations for the sake of unity, God does not. Good works are commendable but I hope Mother Teresa (and you) don’t rely on good works (or the service to any church) to be acceptable to God.
Religion is mankind’s attempt at making himself acceptable to God by his own merit and performance. We see religion in the bible as it was laid out to Israel. When the Jews made a covenant with God, they agreed upon a performance-based, conditional method to attain a right standing with Him.
Your salvation requires that you humble yourself to the point of conceding that you cannot create righteousness. Your salvation is secured by GRACE alone, through FAITH alone in CHRIST alone. Read 1 Corinthians 15, verses 1-4 for the requirements of your salvation.
Outside of her works in the slums of the world, this is how I remember her:
http://www.peggynoonan.com/article.php?article=295
Mother Teresa has always been for me, Jesus in the flesh! Her having doubts, I am so glad to know that she was truly human too! :o) There isn't a Christian alive that has not had doubts (nor any that have gone on to be with the Lord) The Lord Himself, voiced doubts.
I pray for people like Christopher Hitchens. I have had my own doubts; but I learned something about God, HE loves me even when I have my doubts, I have learned to trust my God, knowing that HE has a plan that HE is working out, and only HE knows the fullness of that plan.
God Himself in Christ, suffered MORE than we shall ever have to, as HE paid the penalty for mankinds sin. The people who are commenting on Mother Teresa's life, do not know the LORD God and (who is the accuser of the brethren) so we Christians should pray for them.
The more we live in the endtimes these kinds of things are bound to happen. But we do not need to defend Mother Teresa or any other follower of Jesus Christ, HE is our defender, and HE is our shield.
Pray for those who do not know the Lord God! For His Glory! Annie