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Mother Teresa's letters


Pierre the Great

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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/23/...in3199062.shtml

Shortly after beginning work in Calcutta's slums, the spirit leaves her.

"Where is my faith?" she writes. "Even deep down … there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. ... If there be God — please forgive me."

Eight years later, she's still looking for the belief she's lost.

"Such deep longing for God," she writes. "… repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal."

As her fame increased, her faith refused to return. Her smile, she says, is a mask.

"What do I labor for?" she asks. "If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true."

"These are letters that were kept in the archbishop's house," says the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk.

The letters were gathered by Rev. Kolodiejchuk, the priest who's making the case to the Vatican for Mother Teresa's proposed sainthood. He says her obvious spiritual torment actually helps her cause.

"Now we have this new understanding, this new window into her interior life, and for me this seems to be the most heroic," says Rev. Kolodiejchuk.

According to her letters, Mother Teresa died with her doubts. She had even stopped praying, she once said.

The church decided to keep her letters, even though one of her dying wishes was that they be destroyed. Perhaps now we know why.

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I'm saying because I've had the same feelings.

I believe in social justice and to rid of poverty.

Problem is once you engage in trying to fix the problems you realize how corrupt the religious truly are. They are in her own words hypocrites. Its depressing and she was looking for answers (much like me) and realized nothing is there.

She's humanist agnostic I have no doubt about it. She wants there to be a god but everything she sees shows otherwise because if God is all powerful there would be no poverty and injustice. If God was all loving, there wouldn't be poverty or wars.

She had the weight of the world syndrome.

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Just because you can't find something doesn't mean it isn't there.

If its there its not paying attention or has abandoned us.

She was trying to do good, realized the human race is cruel and religion is just a black tunnel. Goes down to the first thing they teach you in bible class that god is all loving and all powerful. If God is all loving then poverty wouldn't exist. If he/she/it was all powerful then wars and genoicide would not exisit. She lived in the poor. She saw the truth but wanted to believe and felt coldness.

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PTG - just because the world is screwed up doesn't mean that there isn't a good and loving God. part of what makes God good and loving is that He entrusts - He entrusted the world into humankind's hands. there are so many more points i could offer to this argument, but, it will probably go nowhere - so - i'm not going to bother. suffice to say, i completely disagree with you on this point, and would be pleased to elaborate if i felt it would help either you or any other reader.

also, not all religious people are hypocrites as you make them out to be. they often appear hypocritical because we make them out to be perfect - when - any truly religious person knows that "all have sinned ..." and "there is none holy but God" - therefore - even i, as a pastor of a church, sin. i am not perfect. i don't pretend to be perfect. but, i'm sure there are some people in my congregation or in my community that THINK that i THINK i am perfect - this would then make me look to be a hypocrite, when in fact i am not.

As for Mother Theresa's faith in God, that is between her and God - and no one can truly know for sure what she believed either in her life-time or on her death-bed. i will say this - sometimes i wonder what in the world i am doing, giving my whole life to God as a pastor of a church. sometimes i wonder if it's worth it all. i wonder if there really is a God who gives a crap. but these thoughts are temporary. i'm then reminded of times in my past when i KNEW God was real. i remember times when i KNEW God involved Himself in my life - beyond any circumstancial evidence. then, i ask God to forgive me for doubting, and i go about the business of life.

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I know nobody is perfect. But all I see is church being fused with politics. I also grew up in a split lutheran family in where one side of the family goes to a church that says my church is going to hell. I also went to a school run by catholics who more or less said the same thing by saying you have a different religion then I.

I people have labeled me atheist/agnostic/communist blah blah blah. But they don't know me. Just because I'm not part of a religion doesn't make me bad. I was pushed, I didn't go willingly. When my cousin can't get married at the church he grew up in because he lived with his girlfriend now wife for 3 years and has to go in front of the church and admit that you've sinned and been a horrible human being and let god down. That's nuts.

When my mother can't take communion at her church growing up. Where she was baptized, confirmed and married because she's in the "other lutheran church" is hypocritical.

Or when my uncle was going to get excommunicated because he was deemed "too liberal".

When I went to an evangelical youth convention all I heard was how the "liberals" were the scum of the earth and they must be stopped. Um hello? That's not being a good person.

My main goal in life and my main mission is to help people in some form or another. I do it because its the only thing I understand. I don't do it to make me feel better and please a god. I do it because I care.

I don't believe in the idea of praying. When something bad happens Bush is only response is prayer. Like its going to go away. The only time something is ever going to get done is not through prayer but through the human will to act.

My view of God is that its distant. People have just turned it into another rallying cry for their own gain. I frankly don't see the point anymore.

I know nobody is perfect. But all I see is church being fused with politics. I also grew up in a split lutheran family in where one side of the family goes to a church that says my church is going to hell. I also went to a school run by catholics who more or less said the same thing by saying you have a different religion then I.

I people have labeled me atheist/agnostic/communist blah blah blah. But they don't know me. Just because I'm not part of a religion doesn't make me bad. I was pushed, I didn't go willingly. When my cousin can't get married at the church he grew up in because he lived with his girlfriend now wife for 3 years and has to go in front of the church and admit that you've sinned and been a horrible human being and let god down. That's nuts.

When my mother can't take communion at her church growing up. Where she was baptized, confirmed and married because she's in the "other lutheran church" is hypocritical.

Or when my uncle was going to get excommunicated because he was deemed "too liberal".

When I went to an evangelical youth convention all I heard was how the "liberals" were the scum of the earth and they must be stopped. Um hello? That's not being a good person.

My main goal in life and my main mission is to help people in some form or another. I do it because its the only thing I understand. I don't do it to make me feel better and please a god. I do it because I care.

I don't believe in the idea of praying. When something bad happens Bush is only response is prayer. Like its going to go away. The only time something is ever going to get done is not through prayer but through the human will to act.

My view of God is that its distant. People have just turned it into another rallying cry for their own gain. I frankly don't see the point anymore.

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I frankly don't see the point anymore.

This saddens me.

:(

Seems that you have been hit with one unhealthy situation after another. Sadly, many churches (dare I say MOST churches) have completely lost their focus and purpose for existence. And when a group of any size forgets why they assembled in the first place, they tend to get themselves into trouble - and a church is no exception - falling prey to petty politics, shallow emotionalism, and needless legalism.

I hope someday you are able to find a healthy church that would completely redefine your understanding of and renew your faith in God.

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I also went to a school run by catholics who more or less said the same thing by saying you have a different religion then I.

That's bullshit, the Catholic Church absolutely does not teach anything like that. If they did, why would they bother education non-Catholics? Why would they bother teaching about other religions? Why would they teach respect for other religions? Be an agnostic all you want, but don't go making claims against other religions that are categorically wrong.

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Yeah I told myself to give the United Church of Canada a shot. So sometime during the first semester I'll go to one in Nanaimo.

That's bullshit, the Catholic Church absolutely does not teach anything like that. If they did, why would they bother education non-Catholics? Why would they bother teaching about other religions? Why would they teach respect for other religions? Be an agnostic all you want, but don't go making claims against other religions that are categorically wrong.

Um first day at the catholic school the kids around me said:

So PTG, what religion are you?

They always referred to Lutheranism at another religion. When I tried to explain its not, the got testy.

If anything that school was a farce. All the students were being "un-catholic" outside of school, but inside they just attacked anybody who wasn't like them religiously. Somewhere I missed the memo that you could be a constant party goer, have 5 f-buddies, and take drugs and sell drugs on a weekly basis. And yet they attacked me, who doesn't do any of those for having 'un-christian' beliefs.

The most bizarre and sad moment though was the lutheran (mo-synod) school. The pastor spent the whole class saying why people like Gandhi are burning in hell. That and the entire class calling me a baby eater because of my political views and the fact that my lutheran insurance okays abortions. Yet they fail to realize that they have the same insurance company. lol

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They always referred to Lutheranism at another religion.

Um, maybe because it is? Yes, both are Christian, but they differ on fundamental issues such as papal authority, sacraments, and Mary.

You've got to stop thinking that just because certain members of a group of people you've encountered act a certain way means all members of that group act that way. What you're saying is no different than if you said, "A Jew beat me up once, so all Jews must me bullies" or "A group of black people beat me up, so all black people must be mean." You've got to understand that, or you're letting your prejudices run your life. Just because one group of Catholics is hypocritical or one group of Lutherans is extremist doesn't mean anyone who follows those religions is a hypocrite or an extremist.

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Um, maybe because it is? Yes, both are Christian, but they differ on fundamental issues such as papal authority, sacraments, and Mary.

You've got to stop thinking that just because certain members of a group of people you've encountered act a certain way means all members of that group act that way. What you're saying is no different than if you said, "A Jew beat me up once, so all Jews must me bullies" or "A group of black people beat me up, so all black people must be mean." You've got to understand that, or you're letting your prejudices run your life. Just because one group of Catholics is hypocritical or one group of Lutherans is extremist doesn't mean anyone who follows those religions is a hypocrite or an extremist.

denomination:

1. a religious group, usually including many local churches, often larger than a sect: the Lutheran denomination.

religion:

1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.

Here's the problem with the catholic teaching, they Christians are all the same. We are the Christian religion. Lutheran is not a religion but a denomination of Christianity just like Catholicism is a denomination of Christianity. And Shia is a denomination of Islam and Sunni is a denomination of Islam. Orthodox Judaism is a denomination of Judaism just like Conservative and Reform.

get it?

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The thing that pisses me off is that it was her dying wish for the letters to be destroyed. What business did this guy have keeping them so he could turn a profit by publishing them? I'd like to kick that guy in the nuts.

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The thing that pisses me off is that it was her dying wish for the letters to be destroyed. What business did this guy have keeping them so he could turn a profit by publishing them? I'd like to kick that guy in the nuts.

Same thing happened to Franz Kafka. A friend of his sent the manuscript of The Trial (among others) to a publisher, against Kafka's will.

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Same thing happened to Franz Kafka. A friend of his sent the manuscript of The Trial (among others) to a publisher, against Kafka's will.

Haha, simonus and I were talking about this thread and he brought up Kafka as well.

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Fact of the matter is I like PTG. Then again, I just ignore everything he posts on the topics of religion and politics.

Not that there's much left of course.

My point is, just chill, all of you. Once the season starts we can all focus on getting back to fighting, not amongst ourselves, but with fans of other teams.

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Um, yeah. PTG's posts might have been a little riled up, but the rest of us have posted perfectly calm and rational messages. I guess my bullshit statement could be seen as riled up, but his statement couldn't have been further from the truth.

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