It is impossible to doubt the goodness of the person in Mother Teresa. But I feel a great sadness for the dark side of her Spiritual being with God.
According to Wikipedia…
Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), born Agnesë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu(pronounced [aɡˈnɛs ˈɡɔndʒe bɔjaˈdʒiu]), was an Albanian Catholic nun with Indian citizenship who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata (Calcutta), India in 1950.
For over 45 years she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity’s expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries. Following her death she was beatified by Pope John Paul II and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.
Mother Teresa expressed grave doubts about God’s existence and pain over her lack of faith:
“Where is my faith? Even deep down … there is nothing but emptiness and darkness … If there be God—please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul … How painful is this unknown pain—I have no Faith. Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal, … What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.”~Mother Teresa
It is a frightening thought, after spending your life living in poverty, you would question the very existence of God. Something is very wrong with the picture we have of Mother Teresa and the pain from deep within her soul.
“Even deep down … there is nothing but emptiness and darkness…”~Mother Teresa
God Spots 
Hi Archie;
I read that about Mother Theresa in the past and it does not surprise me. She still sacrificed a lot for the poor.
For a person like myself, who is not an Atheist but who does not believe in what many religious people believe in, I can relate to her thoughts, for I had similar ones.
It is not a fun process losing faith. Yet for me something else took over.
I appreciate her honesty, for me it was a revelation for there is so much dishonesty out there in respect to Jesus and other things, it is difficult for many.
Hi Archie;
Maybe there is some truth to Revelations. I see Social Security ir running out of coin this year.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/mar/14/social-security-to-start-cashing-uncle-sams-ious/
There is no more coin for anything, borrowing and printing money is the order of the day. The world is hanging on by a thread.
When the US dollar falls on the world stage, there is nothing to take its place. It’s going to get ugly out there.
You have to wonder.
Ich. Yes. Mother Teresa sacrificed much, I suppose. I really don’t know. She always seemed to be dressed nice and didn’t particularly look hungry. But she might have been. Certainly the people around her were hungry.
I have the feeling in the early days of her commitment to the catholic religion and the poor of Calcutta, life was much different than in the later days. I suspect life was full of God Spots!
I wonder if somewhere in the evolution of feeding a single mouth and feeding a thousand corporations, she lost her soul…
Hi Archie;
Lately the Catholic Church has been drowning in publicity concerning pedophile priests, cover ups and what not.
Considering the Catholic Church professes to be Christian or following Christ, I don’t see it the teachings represented much.
They call themselves father and reverend, deny themselves God’s gift, the companionship of a woman. The also deny woman a place at the alter, as in priestess.
It’s funny, a couple of girls I used to know when I was a kid, went to a Catholic boarding school. Once out, they became very promiscuous, tasting freedom for the first time and not really knowing how to deal with it.
It’s sad how a screwed up doctrine can screw up so many lives.
Know them by their fruits 🙂
I have often pondered this woman’s life. I have something she said upon a tree in a garden, It says”do no great thing in life, only small things with great love. She is also an inspiration in that the main goal was born out of love-not religion, when asked why she indulged in pagan practices – as getting water from the Ganges River upon death , she smiled and said”because if comforts them”.
Could I see the death and suffering she did upon a daily basis and not wonder where God was? Could I give up my family and not wonder “why me” Could I dedicated my life to the sick and dying and still stay whole? Have we all not asked these questions and been riveted by the silence, or the unanswered questions. No, I think she was merely Human , maybe stronger than most, but still human with unanswered questions, questions that left a hole of uncertainty. But nonetheless a life lived out of love”because it comforted them”.
I’ve been thinking about this one for a couple days. At first I thought, “What?” But then I started mulling some things over. Why should this report have shocked me? After 30 years of ministry almost nothing shocks me anymore. Just because one does good things for less fortunate others does not authenticate their salvation. And if this account of her words is true then I have no choice but to be left with my doubts. Jesus said in John 14:6 “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one can come to the Father except except through Me.” I would venture to guess “No one” applies to even the Mother Teresa’s of the world. And if this account of her words is true, then yeah, I’m left with doubts. She has left me no choice.
The answer is simple isn’t it.
Patricia, the people she lived with and helped were her real “family”. They loved her, she them.
“Pagan Practices?” getting water out of the river, no less Pagan than jumping into a river and saying you’re baptized, isn’t it?
Richard, Jesus spoke in one of the Aramaic tongues. The bible you are familiar with is written in old English, translated from old Greek or Latin, written one or two generations after the words were supposedly spoken.
I often wonder if he didn’t say “My way is the truth and the life.”
It makes more sense and conforms better to the old testament commandments, which did not allow for more than one God or idolatry.
The same Church which is oft criticized and has the head in Rome was instrumental in making into doctrine the Trinity with the help of Emperor Constantine.
Knowing how politics, power and religion corrupts things in our lives and events in recent history, can you trust that which an emperor and a number of bishops declared to be true?
Guest post from a lady who has earned the right to speak…
https://37stories.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/guest-post-with-thoughts-on-mother-teresamissionary-teresa-devlin/
About Mother Theresa,
I think the more we love the scriotures, the more we are brought to a place of questioning. Jesus said, ” whatever you ask for in my name believing, ye shall have.” Yet how many do not get those things they ask for? We eventually make excuses for it ie: I didn’t REALLY believe, I didn’t ask in Gods will etc… etc…And there are many other verses. We know Mother Theresa by her love. The more suffering one sees, the more they will question because our “american religion” tells us that God is Santa Claus and if we don’t pout and we don’t cry, we will get what we have asked for.
I don’t think Mother Theresa’s doubts have anything to do with her “not” being saved. Jesus said that those who love have passed from darkness to light and that they will be known as christians by the love they have for one another.
I think the “church” has all these very little boxes of who is saved and who is not. It is by their ” fruits” that they are known, not by their doctrine. ” LOVE HIDES A MULTITUDE OF SINS”…. I think that we are all broken and that we will all die somewhat broken and somewhat questioning if we have believed what is right. There is no shame in that. Jesus had his own doubts when he faced suffering himself. Let us not put God in the boxes of life and dogma. He is so much bigger if He is God. Mother T… knows now and all her tears are wiped away. We are all doing the best we can with what little we know. Let’s extend grace and admit that if we are honest, we all face those dark times of the souls questioning.
Hi Teri;
I like your words for they speak true and from the heart.
It takes courage to be honest and human today. Seems everything we say or write, someone can contradict.
Mother Theresa is gone, at least in the physical sense.
Your comment about little boxes is one of the biggest failings of people, not that it is all their fault. We are trained that way and peer pressure insures a reasonable amount of success.
Our creator designed us this way. It is known who and what we are. The only ones who need to discover who and what we are is ourselves.
She is a person that has called me to greater faith-fullness since I first became aware of her life of service.
When I first read the book of her letters regarding her struggle in apparent darkness, my immediate response was, not that she had “fallen away” and wasn’t the person I thought she was. I thought, “Yes!! That’s who I perceived her to be all along. A faithful, loving woman that continued in bringing the love of Jesus to everyone she met whether she sees, or feels it or not.” She lived life “in His name,” she re-presented Jesus until her last breath.
Thanks Skip. I think I will Google her letters… archi