{"id":10,"date":"2008-11-03T12:19:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-03T17:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/faithlens\/2008\/11\/03\/october-29-november-5-2008-mother-teresa-great-saint-or-great-fraud\/"},"modified":"2015-12-03T15:36:19","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T20:36:19","slug":"october-29-november-5-2008-mother-teresa-great-saint-or-great-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/faithlens\/october-29-november-5-2008-mother-teresa-great-saint-or-great-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"October 29-November 5, 2008 – Mother Teresa: great saint or great fraud?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Warm-up Question:<\/span><\/strong> What makes a \u201cmodern day saint\u201d?<\/span><\/div>\n

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Nobel Peace Laureate, Christian celebrity, and a person on the fast-track to sanctification in the Catholic Church — all of these characteristics describe one woman, <\/span>Mother Teresa<\/span><\/a>. For many people, she is the greatest example for someone who lived a truly Christian life. Now, with the publication of a new book, a few dissenting voices that have been calling her a fraud all along have become prominent again.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Macedonia to parents who were of Albanian descent. At the age of eighteen, she left home and joined the Sisters of Loreto who ran missions in India. As a nun, she first taught at a high school in Calcutta. Seventeen years later, in 1948, she received permission to devote herself to the care of the dying in the slums of Calcutta. She started her own order, the Missionaries of Charity, and won support of her cause all over the world. Mother Teresa\u2019s work has been praised by church leaders and ordinary people alike. In 1979, she won the Nobel Peace Price.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Critics of Mother Teresa have always pointed out that she represented the most fundamentalist views of Catholicism. She condemned abortion and divorce, for example, even in cases of abuse. Her critics also questioned her order\u2019s fundraising methods and her verbal support of dictators such as the Duvalier family of Haiti who donated money to her cause. They also pointed out that, in their opinion, her display of poverty was a show and that, when it came to her own health treatment, she went to hospitals in Western Europe and the United States, not to the hospital run by her order.<\/span><\/div>\n

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While her previous critics did not have much of an audience, a different kind of evidence has now surfaced that could damage Mother Teresa\u2019s image of a saintly human being. It appears that Mother Teresa, after beginning her work with the poor in Calcutta, lost her faith. For almost 50 years, with the exception of a few weeks, she did not feel the presence of God in her heart or when receiving the Eucharist. In one of her letters to her confessor she wrote: \u201cJesus 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.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n

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The people who compiled this and similar letters in \u201cMother Teresa: Come Be My Light\u201d want to show that the perceived absence of God can still be a divine gift that enables people to do saintly works. Yet, Mother Teresa\u2019s critics and others ask why she was able to smile and talk about the presence of God in the world if she herself felt nothing but darkness and loneliness.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Could it be that one of the greatest women among us was actually one of the lowliest? Or does one of Mother Teresa\u2019s most quoted sentences ring especially true for her own life: \u201cI do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Discussion Questions<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n