Mother Teresa

While I am not Catholic, and find much of Catholic tradition to be at odds with the teaching of the scriptures, Mother Teresa is almost universally held as an example of self sacrificing love and service to the poor. I found this very lengthy article interesting, in that she went about her ministry for 50 years without any "feeling" of the presence of Christ in her own life.

I found the article to be impressively well researched getting opinions from religious leaders, secular psychologists, and atheist leaders.

Some quotes below:

Mother Teresa- "So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them - because of the blasphemy - 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 & hurt my very soul. - I am told God loves me - and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?"

"Let's say you're married and you fall in love and you believe with all your heart that marriage is a sacrament. And your wife, God forbid, gets a stroke and she's comatose. And you will never experience her love again. It's like loving and caring for a person for 50 years and once in a while you complain to your spiritual director, but you know on the deepest level that she loves you even though she's silent and that what you're doing makes sense. Mother Teresa knew that what she was doing made sense."

"Who would have thought that the person who was considered the most faithful woman in the world struggled like that with her faith?" he asks. "And who would have thought that the one thought to be the most ardent of believers could be a saint to the skeptics?"