Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith

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Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith

Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.
— Mother Teresa to the Rev. Michael Van Der Peet, September 1979

It seems the inner spiritual life of a saint is no picnic. This Time Magazine article reviews her collected letters to her confessor. She says "a saint is not someone with clean hands, a saint is someone with willing hands."


Time Magazine article on new book of Mother Teresa's Letters to her Confessor

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q1m-8npkJ4[/youtube]

I don't think much of her since I've read about what she was really like.

Gee, so life was too much to handle and sometimes she was down? Shame on her for being human like everyone else. Except that sometimes she wrote of not having faith in God and nonetheless kept helping Him as well as she could. Most people get discouraged and walk away without a backward glance.

mother theresa suffered from a messianic complex.


well....i wouldn't really say suffered considering all the money and free things she got from it. the people under her care certainly suffered, though.



but hey, the church has to try and establish itself as not only a bunch of old stories but that there can still be saints from today and miracle workers.

and who better than a woman who is somewhat charismatic and thinks they're a jesus figure.

Oh, smeg... don't mention charismatic and Jesus-figure in the same sentence; you might end up with the evangelists saying SHE is the antichrist, and you know where that will lead us to...

I don't and didn't really follow what Mother Teresa is about... but anyone who confesses beliefs publicly but internally does not believe them... just a liar. There was probably great pressure on her to say these things... but anyone who wants to experience the sort of suffering she wanted to suffer... should have dealt with the public suffering of being honest...

Easy for me to say... sitting here in Wisconsin, lazy and doing nothing...

I'd rather be honest and do nothing, than a liar and do good works... but that's just me.

"Johnny, get up out of that wheelchair and WALK, in the name of Jesus! WALK!"

Silence falls as Johnny gets up to walk..... and falls flat on his face.

'Why didn't it work?' says Johnny, to which the evangelist turns and says, 'Well, you go to have faith.. Ooh, you got to have faith, faith faith....'

Anyway, I just love that Penn & Teller show. Has a very apt title....

It makes me sad that people sitting around in 1st world nations are so quick to judge this woman based on hearsay and the fact that her sanctuaries and hospitals for the poor were not up to our standards.

Have you ever been to see starving people and drunkards lying in the street? To see little dirty children running around with no one to care for them? To see widows struggling to throw together some corrugated tin shelter over their broods? I have seen these things with my own eyes. When you have a limited amount of funds, there is only so much you can do to help in a nation where millions of people are neglected and dying. Maybe she wasn't perfect, but she did a hell of a lot more in India than she would have been able to do if she'd stayed home and lived a relatively comfy, sheltered life in Albania.

As for her spiritual struggle, I say that only makes her more noble. It is easy to press on when you're inspired and high on something or other. Imagine doing what she did, and being depressed all the time. Lots of people just stay home and get drunk on days like those.