All Comments (41)

Has anyone considered that possibly Mother

Teresa was suffering from psychological Depression? After all she was human and led a life watching the severest suffering on an almost daily basis with out much concern for her own needs...probably never.. I'm not being facetious, this may have been at the core of her "Black cloud" and a lack of any elation. Think about it.

Has anyone considered that possibly Mother

Teresa was suffering from psychological Depression? After all she was human and led a life watching the severest suffering on an almost daily basis with out much concern for her own needs...probably never.. I'm not being facetious, this may have been at the core of her "Black cloud" and a lack of any elation. Think about it.

Has anyone considered that possibly Mother

Teresa was suffering from psychological Depression? After all she was human and led a life watching the severest suffering on an almost daily basis with out much concern for her own needs...probably never.. I'm not being facetious, this may have been at the core of her "Black cloud" and a lack of any elation. Think about it.

"unless you give up reason (choose faith), which I won't."

Reason is not the opposite of faith. Despair is the opposite of faith. Faith works in the mind and heart by uniting the opposing sides of paradox. Thus it is beyond reason, because reason can't take you there. If the Christian mask doesn't work for you, then look at the Zen mask. These are two different hands, pointing at the same moon. Don't mistake the hand for the moon, as so many do - both inside and outside the church/es.

Moderate

do you know mathematics? Like Kurt Goedel, stuff like that?

POEM IN REMEMBRANCE
OF MOTHER TERESA

A saint
She ain't

From Ambrose Bierce's "Dictionary" (composed 1881-1906):

SAINT, n.

"A dead sinner revised and edited."

And so it is with Mother Teresa.

Gerry,

Do you know any science? Statistics; stuff like that?

Gerry,

That was a babble. Got a better shot in the locker?

Mary,

if the word of god is "in" the bible, we must add that is in the understanding of the reader of the bible - it thus becomes a complete arbitrary abstraction (which of course I believe it is), as any other poetic, or musical, or other abstraction, no matter how culturally edifying or pedagogically useful one may regard it.

From this point on it is logically not admissible to quote anything from this abstraction as being "truth", since truth can only be in each reader, never in the book itself.

Personally, I much prefer the original celtic part to the St. Patrick part, who came from England to convert you ;).

Gerry,

The word of God is *in* the Bible, but the Bible is not the word of God in the same sense of the Koran (dictated by an angel to Muhammed) or the book of Moroni (same only to Joseph Smith). The Bible is a history of one people's search and interaction with God, and later, God's search and interaction with all his people,the latter, above all, a teaching document.

Faith means God revealing Himself to you, and He can do so in ways other than the Word of God in the Bible. Remember I grew up in Irish Catholicism & there is a healthy dose of Celtic pantheism and poetry therein, the litany of the Virgin Mary was one of the prayers in Irish I found heartstoppingly, breathtakingly beautiful.

It seems Theresa lost her faith early in her mission. I honestly think she should have immediately gone on retreat and tried to ground (or reground) herself before continuing. But she did not. Anyway, like I wrote earlier: I hope she found her faith before the end.

And on another, more joyous note, here is a link to the Great Mary Litany (in English. It sounds even more beautiful in Irish):

http://www.celtic-catholic-church.org/library/prayer/Great_Mary_Litany.html

Dear moderate,

trying to rationalize something of which, lacking any proof, you are convinced a priori is the dilemma the church (any church) has been in from the beginning: It doesn't work, no matter how hard you or anybody else tries.

Your recommendation of reading a Jesuit shows that you will never accept an outcome, however waterproof, that does not corroborate your preconceptions. This is how I understand your last sentence
"(No, I am not a Catholic. But I know careful reasoning when I see it.)". The fact that you are a catholic or not has nothing to do with careful reasoning!

Of course you can establish fantastic thought buildings with a high degree of operational intelligence to avoid inconsistencies WITHIN such a building. You will, however, never be able to avoid the fundamental inconsistency when compared to the world OUTSIDE the building. Obviously a church father like Tertullian felt this impossibility when he desperately demanded "credo quia absurdum", another argument for my original statement of incompatibilty of reason and faith.

The mere fact that you mention Catholicism proves that you can only think along denominational "faith" lines, for better or worse, which actually proves my point: You don't even know careful reasoning when you see it!

Mary,

if nobody had told you that the bible was the word of god (demanded your "faith"), what criteria would you have, reading the bible accidentally, to know that it wasn't simply a collection of writings by men, which it actually is? And would you apply the same "divine revelation" criteria to anything else you read?

Btw: I know, what faith feels like. I had it decades ago.

The visceral anger directed towards MT is because she overcame her doubts and soldiered on. They don't want to look into the eyes of a strong witness

Moderate:

No, I would not like to be Susan Jacoby or be anything like her, so full of anger and ire. What did poor Mother Theresa, that tiny nun trying to ease the pain of the dying in Calcutta, ever do to elicit the spite and venom that Jacoby poured over her?

Still, I would think that SJ is pretty pleased with her performance: chief nasty of No-Faithland, that's an accomplishment of sorts.

And Gerry:faith is not belief in things unseen (the standard dictionary definition). Faith is God revealing Himself to you (the Catholic catechism definition). Faith is trust in the Lord.
Faith is what Mother Theresa was so desperately searching. Faith is what she had lost in the terrible slums of Calcutta. I hope she found it in the end.

One of the biggest phonies of all, Weigel, is here to tell us what to believe. He's toast.

Dear Gerry,

"You cannot argue about faith, using reason, without giving up faith."

You should give Thomas Aquinas a read and say that afterwards, if still are bamboozled enough to think it true. The entire Catholic tradition is about reasoning about faith, God, and Science.

I suggest you go talk to the Jesuits about it, such as Father Thomas J. Reese on another thread.

(No, I am not a Catholic. But I know careful reasoning when I see it.)

Mary Cunningham,

it does make me feel better... a little bit. Vineyards produce wine, the alcohol of faith in this case. Well then: Here is to you!

Well, Gerry, if it makes you feel better I think myself--and you can call me--a HIC (humble Irish Catholic). A simple labourer in the vineyard of the Lord...like Mother Theresa, although not nearly as productive.

Mary Cunningham has to resort to phrases that start with "you are a..." and to scorn and contempt ("unholy trinity, acolytes"), brandishing her "writing achievements" in order to spread her message of "love". All those fancy words don't describe anything except herself.

Christianity has been spread through aggression (like Islam) through the millenia, and I am unhappy that we are still in those middle ages, as we watch such missionaries whose education could lead them to a better understanding of how people do, might, could and should interact today.

Peter,

you misquoted me: Giving up reason certainly doesn't mean choosing faith! I never said such nonsense.

I said the opposite: Choosing faith means giving up reason ("credo quia absurdum", Tertullian).

You cannot argue about faith, using reason, without giving up faith.

I prefer "god-given" reason, lol!

Mary Cunningham,

You do seem unusually out of sorts today. Is the British weather being its usual self, i.e., gray and gloomy?

All I can say about your comment above is:

Dogs have masters.

Cats have assistants.

Celebrants of the Mass have acolytes.

I don't do Masses and I don't have acolytes. If people agree with me, that's nice, but they got there on their own and not because I wrote something.

Best regards to you.

Tomorrow may well be a better and kinder day for all of us.

Om Mani Padme Hum

Mary,

Would you trade places with Susan Jacoby? I wouldn't. I think the worst punishment for SJ is that, well, she is SJ.

Dear Mary Cunningham:

"No Faith (the titleist unfortunately suffers from dyslexia) is full of athiests....and they are very angry. Sample Ms Jacoby. Anger is also a good antidote to fear, and they are fearful. That is something Mother Theresa was not."

Myself, I call it "Against Faith". We have here a forum run by a superanuated gossip columnist who got rich by slandering her neighbors, and then married well. What can you expect?

Was it Tacitus who said "They terrify lets they be terrified."? You are on to something there. Good character study observation.

"I only try to follow the lead set by that ardent agnostic, Norrie Hoyt...and his accolytes, although right now they are busy on Susan Jacoby, cheering on her astonishing rant!"

Susan Jacoby reminds me of the lady who became the grumble in The Great Devorce. I do hope she changes her ways before she becomes the rant. I dropped a post off there just for grins. It will doubtless be a hoot seeing the responses there.

Wasn't Mother Teresa terrible for not abolishing poverty and not doing CAT scans on the dying in Calcutta? Where do these morons get this stuff?

All the best.

I'm still somewhat stuck on the concept of "Sainting" anyone and the idea of seeking out "miracles"... and "fast tracking"... Not to take away from the woman's extraordinary life, but in her death I smell an awful lot of Public Relations eminating from the Godvertising Dept. at the Vatican and elsewhere.

Face it folks, despite her letters and even the extensive knowledge of her life, we simply do not know what it was that drove the woman to live the life she chose... she may well have been the narcissist Susan believes she was, and she has her argument... She may have simply felt that working with the poor was her calling... and yes, she may have not had as much feeling for people as she did for the cause of growing the church... perhaps she was all 3 at the same time.

For me the interesting thing to watch at this point is the manner in which the combatants draw the battle lines and how the writers of history decide to tell this woman's story.

Imagine this... you're debating the motivations and meaning of the life of a woman who lived during our time and left letters which we KNOW she actually penned. It should humble those who seek to argue the political issues of the day by quoting scripture and attributing it to those who lived 1000's of years ago.

Hey Marilyn...

So did you read that in Newsweek or The Times while sitting on your fat @$$ in a beauty parlor or doctor's office?

Or did you read that as you used those publications to make a pallet on the floor to sleep on in the missions YOU started in Calcutta and around the world?

Hmmmm?

Gerry,

Giving up reason means choosing faith? Please explain. This is surely a surprise to believers, who think they have more to think and reason about than anyone else. May I recommend "Orthodoxy" or "The Catholic Church and Conversion" by G. K. Chesterton--to explain things better than I could explain them myself? Please don't let the fact that he's a believer deter you. You may find him immensely interesting and intelligent. Cheers.

Mary Cunningham, everybody is fearful to some degree. It is a condition for survival. It even is a condition for development. Different people choose different antidotes. You choose Jesus and the bible. I don't. The stories are without value, unless you give up reason (choose faith), which I won't.

Fear in itself is nothing to be ridiculed, but using other people's fear as a means to exert power - that is what religions are about and have always been about. Just think of the "nose ring" of the unconscionable "original sin" concept, which through millenia has made generations of credulous illiterates horrified with fear of hell, and exploit their fear.

Then the literates pick up those tales, because through the millenia ..., and use any ever so twisted sophism to rationalize the irrational.

Thank you, not for the "acolytes" of Norrie Hoyt.

Marilyn:

For Christians, "getting souls for Christ" is the essence of love for them (and not just love for Christ). It is, in fact, bringing them to God, their true happiness, and thus putting them outside the reach of our own temptations to manipulate or abuse them. If Christ is God (as Christians believe) and if God is also our Creator and our only Happiness--please explain to me the problem with wha Mother Teresa did?

For the record, Mother Teresa also fed and cared for the bodies of the "poorest of the poor."

I remember reading about Mother Teresa several years ago, maybe in Newsweek or the New York Times, about the relationship of her work in India to her Catholicism. Her only interest in working with the poor was to "get souls for Christ." Period. Not compassion, concern, love, caring. Just to amass as many souls for Christ as possible. How's that for saintliness?

Hmm.

Religious person speaks ill of the views of a non-believer and is called intolerant.

Susan Jacoby slanders and villifies a soon-to-be saint, blasphemes the miracle at Cana by saying Jesus did it to "please his mother" and is called what? An intellectual? A scholar?

I would dearly love to know what Jacoby et al. _believe in_. I do not have time for bigotry -- does the Post?

Gracian

Bob R.:

If you wanted "spirituality and reflection" I am afraid you are in the wrong place. No Faith (the titleist unfortunately suffers from dyslexia) is full of athiests....and they are very angry. Sample Ms Jacoby. Anger is also a good antidote to fear, and they are fearful. That is something Mother Theresa was not.

Russell D:

I only try to follow the lead set by that ardent agnostic, Norrie Hoyt...and his accolytes, although right now they are busy on Susan Jacoby, cheering on her astonishing rant!

Hypocrisy is human, even among Christians (or maybe even more so among Christians). Heck, look at Senator Craig who's been punishing homosexual acts though it sure looks as if he's been partaking as well.

On a site devoted to spirituality and reflection, I am constantly amazed at the harshness of the reader comments. It seems that incivility stops nowhere any longer

Mary Cunningham:

My dear, you seem to be filled with sarcasm and a general inhospitable attitude today.

May I ask why?

I would be much more concerned if Blessed Teresa had NOT experienced that which is described. How could one reach spiritual maturity without expereincing both the dark night and spiritual dryness?

I would be much more concerned if Blessed Teresa had NOT experienced that which is described. How could one reach spiritual maturity without expereincing both the dark night and spiritual dryness?

I would be much more concerned if Blessed Teresa had NOT experienced that which is described. How could one reach spiritual maturity without expereincing both the dark night and spiritual dryness?

"Do not turn your face away from me, O Lord!" pleaded the psalmist.

This is what MT was asking as well. I actually think she was writing down her doubts to get rid of them, venting in a way. Maybe she should have taken better care of her spiritual side. Jesuits and other religious orders mandate an annual retreat. Did Mother Theresa avail herself of any if these?

I don't think so. I think she wore herself out.

Still banging on about those 273 Protestants executed by Mary Tudor in 1556-ish, eh Norrie??

Of course, Mary was the monarch of England, not the Church, and her father and sister hanged (drawn & quartered) ten times more English Catholics than she (we'll leave the later massacres in Ireland by Anglican Stuart and Puritan Cromwellian forces out of it)but your animosity extends only to 'crimes' committed by the Catholic Church, even if they weren't actually commited by the Church...Next you'll start emoting over the Spanish Inquisition.

Never any new material! You're like a broken record: a scornful, agnostic bore... SCAB for short. (I am also expecting the immanent arrival the other members of your Unholy Trinity: A Herman Hermit and Henry James, both of them running a gamut of emotions from contempt to scorn and back again.)

The Roman Catholic Church, its theologians (like George Weigel), and its public relations people love doubters like Mother Teresa, who were already established figures who have presented a positive image for the Church, before the doubts were known.

Then, as George Weigal wrote,"...there is no contradiction between faith and questioning, or between faith and a sense of spiritual aridness".

But woe betide the non-famous doubter or the doubter who has antagonized the clergy or the hierarchy.

In those cases, not too long ago, the doubter was likely to find him/herself being burnt alive at the stake.

In the Church, as elsewhere, popular celebrities often get a free pass.