While recording a new episode of the Advaita Show podcast today, my co-host Steve mentioned the recent book that has been published with Mother Teresa’s letters to her spiritual mentors which point out what a big bloody faker she was.
Check it:
Yet no sooner did Teresa start her work in the slums of Calcutta than she began to feel the intense absence of Jesus—a state that lasted until her death, according to her letters.
“The paradox is that for her to be a light, she was to be in darkness,” Kolodiejchuk said.
In a letter estimated to be from 1961, Teresa wrote: “Darkness is such that I really do not see – neither with my mind nor with my reason – the place of God in my soul is blank “There is no God in me” when the pain of longing is so great” I just long & long for God. The torture and pain I can’t explain.”
And this:
“Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The child of your love—and now become as the most hated one. You have thrown away as unwanted unloved So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them because of the blasphemy If there be a God please forgive me I am told that God loves me, and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.
Note: “If there be a God…”
And this:
The whole time smiling sisters and people pass such remarks they think my faith, trust and love are filling my very being. … Could they but know and how my cheerfulness is the cloak by which I cover the emptiness and misery, she wrote.
What a big bloody faker. All the time pretending she was spiritually “with it”, and yet underneath she was a mess.
But… I hear you say… what does it matter? Look at the good she did?
Did she? By lying? By faking? By pretending? By letting the world believe her good works were inspired by her belief when really she was devoid of belief?
Imagine, instead, how much good she might have done had she had the courage to be honest and forthright about her lack of belief, and yet had continued to do her good works regardless??
We’ve seen it before – the bigger the poseur, the bigger the fake. Remember that lesson kids.
I think you misunderstand one of the central tenets of Faith, which is the operating system here, rather than Belief. Without belief, in many (but not all) parts of the Christian religion, you are supposed to still have faith, so that your state of doubt is reconciled – even if you don’t believe in a God who is going to that – by God. If you don’t keep faith, in your state of unbelief, then you’ve gone over entirely to the “dark side” – which Mother Teresa clearly didn’t do.
Cmon Dean… Faith is to hope for things which are not seen, but which are believed to be true (Heb. 11: 1).
If you don’t believe it to be true (and from what I’ve read of her letters today, she did not believe), you cannot, by Christian definition, have ‘faith’.
All you have is… momentum, cognitive dissonance and intellectual dishonesty.
Seeings as you are such a believe in this, I thought I would do some research for you and came up with this:
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=53137.
I think its fair to say that lots of us lose faith in things we believe in. Doesn’t mean we are fake!
Molly
Molly, I read the Catholic World News article which, unsurprisingly, does the usual Christian thing – ignores the facts and just says whatever it wants to support the power base of Mother Church!
Losing faith doesn’t make someone a fake. Losing faith but pretending you still have it for 40 years makes you a fake. And that’s what MT did. I commend her good works, but I’m sorry she didn’t have the moral fortitude to admit to the world that she wasn’t a believer.
So you believe what she wrote literally?
Molly
She was writing letters to her spiritual mentors. This wasn’t some treatise on Christianity. These are her letters to her superiors. So yes I take them literally.
So you believe that she talked to Christ?
Molly
Of course not. But I believe she believed she did.
Has anyone read Christopher Hichens stuff? I know in an interview on Sunday Night Safran, he had lots to say on the fraud that she was. I’ll upload it somewhere and post a link.
Hugo, I’m partway through reading his “God Is Not Great” but I don’t think she has come up. I know he wrote an entire book about her a few years ago called “The Missionary Position”.
You gotta be kidding me!
how many underprivileged kids have *you* recently saved?
who are you to doubt her faith? it is but naural to question god when surrounded by so much suffering. ye despite this, she persevered and served the poorest of the poor. Its not like she was shouting from rooftops “look i am a great Christian . ordain me. make me a saint”. she was simply doing what she did best – serve.i don’t care if she turns out o be a devil worshiper. her deeds speak more for her than some book posthumously published.
“wow”, it’s not me who is doubting her faith – she didn’t HAVE any faith. It’s in her letters. I agree with you – I don’t care if she turns out to be a devil worshiper either. What I’m saying is unfortunate is that she wasn’t up front with the world about her motivations or honest about her doubt. She could have done much more good by saying “you know what? I don’t believe in God or Jesus but I did this anyway.”
I agree with comment in your last post Cam in which she should have said I don’t believe but I did this anyway and I think she should still be applauded for all that she did do.
Having said that the push for making her a saint has to be seriously in doubt.
If she had said, “You know what? I don’t believe in a supreme being anymore…” then nobody would’ve backed her and she couldn’t have managed to do the things she did. They may be a bit batty at times, but the sheer number of Catholics in the world are quite a force when they’re doing something they believe in.
I wish I knew who said it first, but there’s gotta be a quote out there that says something like “The truth isn’t important, tell the people what they to hear.”
I imagine someone like P.T.Barnum said it or something… right after he said “there’s a sucker born every minute.”
Herne, it depends, I guess, on whether or not you want to be a force for good or not. MT could have helped millions more people than she did by simply being honest about her lack of belief. Even if she had done it at the end of her life… which, I guess, her letters have now done on her behalf.
Okay, not that I care but a good argument is always fun, even if she did have doubts if god was with her or existed at all but she still worked in her name, what benefit did she personally get out of it?
Also, I have only read an extreme little bit of stuff on this book, but if I read correctly these are only excerpts? Correct? As you would know as well as anyone Cam, the excerpts of a book are always the most controversial. It could be that every other letter says how much “god” is helping her.
Molly
Cam, taking one definition of faith from the Bible (there are many others) does not counter what I wrote – nor is the Old Testament the sole arbiter on Christianity, which is a tradition developed over 2000 years…
You have great faith in rationality!
Dean, give me another definition of faith then, one that doesn’t require you to believe in something.
As for rationality, it doesn’t require faith, that’s why it’s superior to bronze age mythological superstitions.
Faith always requires belief. People have faith that Science will ‘save us’ from the mess we’ve made of the Earth – that’s believing in something they hope is true, but cannot prove. Sadly I think Science is going to be too busy making the next super-expensive face cream to come to the party, but other people’s faith is strong.
And as for Mother Teresa, all I can say is that it’s lucky she was in the slums of Calcutta and not you, because you apparently have zero compassion. Can you imagine the pressure on her, knowing that from their poor, painful existence SHE was the person who gave them hope in God that all their suffering was somehow not for nothing, that God cared enough to send her to them, etc, etc. In that context, and having once been filled with faith and hope herself, and knowing the deep personal misery this ‘absence of God’ had brought her, is it really such a stretch to understand why she chose not to tear down the foundations of their faith? I’m not saying it was right, but I sure as hell sympathise with her situation. We also don’t know the whole of her thinking just from a few letter excerpts. She may even have blamed herself for her loss of faith, thinking she was weak or had moved away from God. (She was a Catholic, after all…guilt is not exactly rare amongst them.) Her feeling that there may not even be a God at all might have come after years of trying to regain a faith she once had.
My point is that to just point your finger and say, ‘big fecking faker’ oversimplifies the situation to a degree that just makes you look like a nasty bastard. Whatever unbelief she kept to herself, it doesn’t diminish her lifetime of work serving the poor. There was nothing fake about her in that sense, and whatever her flaws, she deserves to be spoken of with a certain degree of respect, not slagged off like some televangelist who’s just been caught spending church funds on hookers.
Chosha, I totally agree with you. Lucky it was her in Calcutta and not me. I do have zero compassion and I am a nasty bastard. Best you never run into me in a dark alley in Canberra, talking Japanese or policy analysis.
With that out of the way… I never suggested her lack of belief in any way diminished her lifetime of service, only that she could have done even more good by being honest about her lack of belief. We’re not just talking about your average social worker here… we’re talking about THE poster child for Christianity in the late 20th century. She was the gold standard. She was the Princess Di of Christianity.
And she didn’t even believe for most of her adult life by the sounds of it. That’s like Bob Geldof turning around and saying he never really believed in helping Africa. Or Steve Irwin turning around and saying he never really believed in helping the crocodiles.
It doesn’t take away from what she did, but it’s also a terrible waste.
Cameron,
Your ooze arrogance.
Did you ever meet her? Have you ever met any nun from her order? Have you ever been to Calcutta to see her work that continues to this day?
“I do have zero compassion and I am a nasty bastard.”
No wonder Teresa makes no sense to you… or her Lord.
Sad.
-Alister
Alister, I was just trying to be agreeable. I don’t see what meeting her, meeting a nun or going to Calcutta has to do with the price of eggs in China. I’m talking about what SHE wrote in HER letters. You can stay all prissy about your/her “lord” if it gets you hard, but it doesn’t for a moment change the fact that for 40-odd years Teresa was held up as the beacon of Christianity when, according to HER letters, she wasn’t ever sure God existed and, if he did, she felt abandoned by him and Jesus. The most hailed Christian of her time felt abandoned by her/your “lord”.
What does that say about the veracity of the religion?
I found this article didn´t really know where to post it, since you haven´t done a show on politics in a bit…
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/09/06/bush_wmd/
Cameron.
Her letters don’t worry me in the slightest.
I don’t know any “real” Christians who haven’t had – at some point in their lives – a “dark night of the soul”. It’s just par for the course.
What I read in the very few snippets you’ve shown here, are deep and honest reflections on her sense of “connection” to God (or absence of it), rather than a fear that he really doesn’t exist. Indeed, her letters show that she never doubts he is there, but rather that she feels he has withdrawn from her in some way… hence the coldness, darkness, etc.
It is a Christian’s normal experience to have seasons with God… where in one he seems to come close and at others where the connection seems lost entirely.
Accordingly, Teresa is just a normal Christian. It’s just that most do not talk about their internal journeys with God as she has in her letter. They do, I’m sure, but not for “public consumption”.
Why these period of darkness and emptiness? I don’t know, except that God is always as work in the human soul to teach us to trust him and to give ourselves over to him more, and somehow allowing these seasons of emptiness is part of that journey.
I am not a great historian of the faith, but I can tell you that in the biographies of the “greats” you’ll see the same patterns.
Bob Clinton has studies the lives of countless Christian leaders over the centuries and talks about these period of intense isolation (these dark nights of the soul) as a very common feature.
http://www.amazon.com/Making-Leader-J-Robert-Clinton/dp/0891091920
Perhaps there are better analyses than that one, but it is the one I know about and have read myself.
-Alister
PS. What I think I’m saying to you, Cameron, is that what you have in fact done here is to confirm to Christians that Teresa was in fact a real Christian, since most will identify with her experience deeply.
Alister, you’ve somehow attempted to turn blatent proof that the holy spirit does not exist into supposed proof of Teresa’s true christianity. Are you forgetting pre-destination and the existence of the holy spirit?? Or are they only applicable for more ‘faith advanced’ christians?
Let’s say I convince a hundred people that a lion is hidden in my backyard. I then send them one by one to see for themselves. I’m sure a decent percentage will come back and say they saw it just to avoid sounding like an idiot. If those that claim to have seen it get together later and some mention to others that they actually didn’t see it, this is not simply “the true experience” of the hidden lion. It is blatant proof that the lion never existed in the first place.
Try removing yourself objectively from the whole situation, imagine everything is possible (greek, gods, christian god, budha, etc) and see what remains after critically testing each one.
I find this conversation very interesting. As a faithful Catholic, I’d just like to explain what I think about Mother Teresa’s writings quoted above (and remember that these were taken out of context). We believe in compassion, that is sharing in others’ passion or suffering. She cared for the unwanted, the unloved, the thrown away, the forsaken. In feeling that God had abandoned her, she also understood that she was sharing the suffering of the very people she was helping.
My friend, Donna did know Mother Teresa and has written a book about her, based upon a decade of letters and visits. Mother once said to Donna that Christ loved her (Donna) so much that He brought her close enough to His cross to kiss her. This was at a time in Donna’s life when she was experiencing her own “dark night”. I say this merely by way of illustrating my point.
Mother Teresa was not a fake at all – she was the genuine article. Human, with doubts and insecurities, but with great hope and faith. Remember, even Jesus uttered “Father why have you forsaken me?” upon the cross.
Nissa
I think Teresa’s letters refute your suggestion that she had faith. Read those quotes above – those aren’t the statements of someone with faith. Those are the statements of someone who felt like she had dedicated her life to a cause and been totally abandoned.
And if Jesus actually existed (which I doubt, as their is zero contemporary evidence) and if his words were accurately recorded (which is doubtful considering nobody who ever knew him wrote anything down first-hand) and if he actually felt forsaken by God as per your quote above, then Christianity obviously doesn’t have much to offer. If the originator of the religion, the prophet, the original benchmark, the son of God, felt abandoned by his God (by himself? I’ve never understood that conundrum), then the rest of you don’t have much of a chance.
Alister, if by “a real Christian” you mean someone with zero relationship with God and Jesus, then I concur.
Your attempts to spin the excerpts of her letters may work for the weak minded, but anyone who reads the quotes above will see the truth.
She clearly says “If there be a God”. She obviously isn’t sure.
And this isn’t a moment of doubt we’re talking about. From what I’ve read in the excerpts of the book, this was CONSTANT throughout the last 50 years of her life.
The most devoted Christian on the planet and she wasn’t sure God existed and thought that if he did, he had abandoned her, throughout her 50 years of devotion.
If God/Jesus abandoned the most devout of Christians, what hope do the rest of you have?
CR: I’ve never had anyone quote my profile at me like they ‘know where I live’ before. Did your chest puff out as you were typing? 😉
“And she didn’t even believe for most of her adult life by the sounds of it. That’s like Bob Geldof turning around and saying he never really believed in helping Africa. Or Steve Irwin turning around and saying he never really believed in helping the crocodiles.”
It’s not like those things, because she never stopped believing in helping the poor. It’s actually more like Martin Luther King writing in his diary that in spite of all his speeches he sometimes struggled against personal feelings of inferiority as a black man.
“I never suggested her lack of belief in any way diminished her lifetime of service,”
Actually you did. It’s right there in your post. My reason for commenting in the first place was because you had questioned that she did any good. And been scornful about a level of personal despair that was actually very sad.
Okay chosha, you’ve got me with the analogies. They are bad. But I never said in the post that her fakery diminished her service to the poor. Just that I wish she had been able to do her good works without faking her belief.
I wish so, too. My own spiritual journey recently is such that I’ve come to realise how harmful it can be to require certainty of believers. Right action should come from sense of right, not from duty to something so strict that a loss of faith seems to render your right action meaningless. I really feel sorry for Mother Teresa in this. I’m feeling confused and I’m not under anyone’s microscope like she was. She was walking a hard road inside.
Cameron, it was 1961. I don’t believe she was a fake, but rather a faker because she had to. She was at odds with her state of disbelief having been indoctrinated in an era where one could not really proclaim their lack of faith or disbelief. I do agree with if you’re not a believer then you don’t have that christian faith thing. Makes no sense at all.
But I must agree, regardless of her lack of belief this shouldn’t be seen as negative, the woman did give of herself to the poor.
In modern times she could have kicked the habit and said she was doing it because it’s the right thing to do and it gratifying work to do.
I’ll even say this. most faithless, godless do it for the sake of helping because they can, not because of maybe going to a heaven, being in the good favors of their deity, but because they can. In either case MTeresa did her thing.
Wow, a comment on a 5 year old post! I had to re-read it to remember what I said. I concede that maybe post-1961/2 she re-discovered her faith. I haven’t read the book. I’m not sure I agree with you, though, that the 60s were a time when she couldn’t renounce her faith. It wasn’t exactly the dark ages. But perhaps she *wanted* to believe and just stuck with it. I give props to anyone who helps the poor, religious or not – I’m a big supporter of Father Bob Maguire – but if she *was* faking her belief, it may have done a fair amount of damage as well.