religion

Faith and Mother Teresa


I have more faith in God and the hereafter than Mother Teresa. Who knew? Apparently not her. The Vatican published a book of letters not terribly long ago from the future saint to her various confessors over the span of forty plus years that revealed, among other things,  that she didn’t believe God existed or that there was even a heaven. I am over-simplifying a bit when I say this, but she was a hypocrite walking. I don’t personally think that having doubts or questions about your faith, or the Creator, disqualifies anyone from being an example of good to others. In the area of championing the poor, the down-trodden, the sick and the basically ignored of the world, there are few people who could lay claim to the devotion to cause that Mother Teresa exemplified during her life. The reason I believe that she is a hypocrite, and shouldn’t ever be proclaimed a saint (though she will be), is that she didn’t admit she had these doubts publicly. And why should have she? Because she was Mother Teresa, the shining example held aloft for all Roman Catholics to measure their own pitifully lacking spiritual selves against. A fact that she could not have been ignorant of nor could it have escaped her attention, especially in her later years, was that the church had lofty plans for her post- mortem. 

 

I am not enough of a theologian to debate the finer points of what this big reveal means in terms of the church’s crusade to saint her. But I am enough of a believer in God and the existence of a hereafter to know that, while I have my doubts and suspicions about organized religions of all kinds, for the most part we don’t have all the information we need in order to form any realistic picture of who God is and to what extent he is really in charge. Unlike Teresa, I never doubt. Not anymore.  Not even recently. Which covers most of the last couple decades of my life. Oh, I may vehemently object to the events of my life and the obligations these events have imposed on me, but I don’t doubt God’s presence in my life. Such as it is. I have deliberately not listened to God, thinking that if I pretended ignorance I wouldn’t have to do whatever it was I was expected to do, but that’s not doubt as much as it is childishness. 

 

I have written about this before, but it bears repeating in the context of today’s topic. I prayed for a miracle when I was told that my first husband, Will, was going to die. When it was clear that he wasn’t going to be spared, I prayed that he would go quickly, as much for my own sake as his, and when I finally stopped begging for a reprieve for us both and listened, I accepted what was to be. Not always graciously. I will never be the outward model of humility and acceptance of God’s will. Not the model that Mother Teresa was for appearance’s sake. I expected God to step up and help me, and he did. Whenever I was faced with an obstacle that I couldn’t overcome myself, I got assistance. Money that I needed was offered. Babysitters appeared. Assistance of all shapes, sizes and types manifested. It was almost magic really. How can you doubt in the face of magic? And maybe that was Teresa’s problem. Assistance came too readily and seemingly without strings for her to believe that God was behind it. After all, if she was a victim of the same Catholic upbringing that I was, she was taught that God doesn’t give his assistance, or his love, freely but grudgingly and after you have suffered enough to earn it.

 

Teresa’s hypocrisy lies in the fact that she doubted without limits and, as someone who was touted as a model to other Catholics, she kept her doubts to herself. If she were just one of the flock, her crisis of faith would have been her own to wrestle with, but she allowed her superiors to use her as a “shining” example for others to emulate or feel inferior to depending on your take of the Catholic hierarchy. She could have been a stronger example of faith if she would have been honest, but she chose to be a false model, a fake.  And it apparently ate away at her. Small wonder she couldn’t hear God or see his stamp on her life and work.

 

I feel sorry for Mother Teresa. She is going to be sainted for all the wrong reasons and I can’t imagine that such a tortured soul would find much eternal rest in that.

By Any Means Necessary


Gwen Stefani is one of countless female singers these days who can’t seem to sing while clothed. Nakedness is a prerequisite for success if you are a woman in the entertainment field it seems, and there is no shortage of young, and not so young woman, happy to oblige in the name of feminism. That’s a rant for another day however. Today I am having problems with religious faith. Not mine. I know what I believe and what I don’t. No my issue is with the faithful who find that in order to remain faithful and in good standing, they must alter the behavior of others. Ms. Stefani performed in Malaysia recently. A country that is over 60% Islamic, they naturally have a telephone book thick list of rules and regulations that women in particular must adhere to regarding dress lest they force some good Muslim boy into sin. Couple of observations here before I continue, first of which is that sin, as the good Sisters of the Presentation taught me, is an individual’s choice. That old Flip Wilson punch-line “The devil made me do it” was just a figure of speech, and second, if men are so weak that the sight of a women’s arms or neck or hair can plunge them into the abyss maybe they should be the ones walking around heavily veiled. Basically Stefani was informed she would have to follow the country’s strict rules regarding female performers and that her usually skimpy wardrobe and provocative performance would not be permitted. Her spokespeople responded with a press release confirming that she would comply. My question is why? Why do women comply with what amounts to the tenets of someone else’s religion when they visit these countries? It’s respectful? Is it? Is it respectful to force me to comply with the rules of your religion? I have my own religion, thanks very much. Are you going to respect that? And the answer is of course, no, because as most reading people are aware if you aren’t Muslim in a Muslim predominant country you are treated as second class at best and persecuted at worst. Tolerance is a way one, non-reciprocal thing. 

The second thing that prompted me today was a seemingly unrelated article I read about pharmacists in the state of Washington who are suing for the right to not stock their shelves with the perfectly legal Plan B emergency contraceptive. Pharmacies in Washington are now required by state law to provide Plan B. A small group of pharmacists contend that this is a violation of their rights and that the state cannot force them to provide birth control to women if it is against their religious beliefs. My first question for these conscientious objectors would be if they require men to provide proof of marriage before they fill Viagra scripts, but beyond that what happened to the concept of living your faith? It seems to me that instead of forcing the circumstances to change, a person of faith would come to the conclusion that they needed to change careers in order to  uphold their religious beliefs. Jesus certainly never told the disciples that following him would be easy. As a matter of fact, St. Paul does almost nothing else but spout the “sacrifice” line as a matter of course for the early Christians. Of course, the Christians of way yore were willing to be eaten by lions or crushed by stones rather than compromise their faith in God. Today’s Christian’s hire lawyers and cry, “That’s not fair! I should be able to be a good Christian AND keep my really good paying job. I have a gas-guzzling SUV and a no money down mortgage to pay, and after all, I am right, and these fornicating women should just be grateful that I am here to prevent them from burning in a lower level of hell than they are already heading for.”

It seems to me that it is hypocritical to say you are faithful to God’s word, as you understand it, and yet need to cheat in order to actually be faithful. Because that is what it is. It’s cheating. God, at least the one I know, expects you to do the hard work yourself. No shortcuts. No rules aimed at controlling the actions of others (who interestingly, but not surprisingly, always seem to be women). And the funny thing (if you’re not the female being victimized) is that these people really think they deserve to be admired for standing up for their faith. Admired for what? Being weak? Not having the balls to give up something you like for something you believe in? Hypocrisy is not admirable.

Growing Up Catholic


Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglica...

Image via Wikipedia

So, even though I spent fifteen minutes on the phone tonight reassuring my mom that vegetarianism and Easter dinner is not a recipe for disaster, it only just occurred to me that it is Holy Week. I hated Holy Week when I was growing up. It meant going to church on a day that wasn’t Sunday, like protestants do, and masses that were longer than 30 minutes, a practically unheard of thing when I was a child.

 

It started with reading the Passion ensemble style on Palm Sunday. The longest freaking mass of the year, and you spent at least half of it on your feet. No slouching. No leaning. Back straight. Missile open. Attention paid. Not that I was ever paying attention. My favorite place to hide when I was a child was deep inside my head where I had many stories to occupy me when the world around me was too intense, or in the case of mass or school, too pointless.

 

 

In school that week we had prayer services and did the stations of the cross everyday. As often as I have done them, the stations, I still don’t know them by heart. Not like a Hail Mary or the responses during the consecration which come back unbidden and  virtually word for word no matter how many years it has been.

 

Thursday night, we went to mass to watch Father wash feet and to read yet another version of the Passion. There are four gospels you know.

 

Friday. Stations of the Cross. This time in a packed church in the middle of the day. The consecrated host was taken from the altar and the tabernacle draped to indicate Jesus’ death. Fun times.

 

Saturday night. Mass again and since there couldn’t be a consecration, no resurrection yet, you would think it wouldn’t take as long. You’d be wrong.

 

Sunday morning mass, the day of the Resurrection of God’s only son made flesh, was actually the shortest mass of the week. It was like a reward for having made it through Holy Week boot camp. The gospel was about Mary Magdalene finding the tomb empty and running to fetch the apostles. It was always interesting to me that Jesus appeared to Mary first. Didn’t that make her important? The answer to that is no. Mary was a woman. My Irish Catholic view of the world told me that women ruled it, but in the Catholic church, we ran and fetched. God only loved us second best and even that was predicated on our shunning birth control in favor of Kennedyesque broods or taking the veil.

 

Easter was crammed full of rituals I detested. Lent with its fasting and meaningless deprivation. Confession. The sisters made us go once a week during Lent. We were children. At some point over the course of forty days, we had to start making up sins. And of course, there were the endless hours of rosary my dad would insist we recite every night after the dishes were done. Praying as a family was something the church encouraged although I didn’t notice it making my family a happier group of people.

 

The last Easter Sunday mass I attended was with Will the spring before we got married. We had to sit in the overflow because everyone who was ever even nominally Catholic goes to mass on Easter Sunday. I remember he thought we spent an awful lot of time on our feet and knees, and why were there seats if we weren’t going to use them? Sometimes I wonder if I am making a mistake by not raising my daughter in the faith. It certainly shaped who I am in some ways.

Maybe that is why.