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.