Likely the book will make some good money and maybe it is going to help the poor and people will say that this makes it worth selling the book. Or that her doubts will help others who have doubts. I don’t know.

In regard to whether she really was a Christian or not, I guess we have to look at the entire Bible. Jesus’ story of the good Samaritan certainly points out that it was the person who helped the man in distress who was doing God’s work, not the people who were “officially” religious people.

Mother Theresa did talk about being touched by joy at times. The fact that she lived MOST of her life never “feeling” the love of Jesus could mean that the way she lived her life was overwhelming, among the sick and dying. Perhaps she never had the time or took the time to learn that she really was sitting at the “feet of Jesus.” But just because she didn’t FEEL the presence of Jesus does not necessarily mean that she was not in the presence of Jesus.

If at the end of time we have to give some accounting of how we spent our life, will God be more “satisfied” because I felt the love and joy of God but barely did the “average” in helping my fellow human beings? Or will he look at someone like Mother Teresa who cared her whole life for people that others had neglected? I read somewhere too about her saying she would help a Hindu to become a better Hindu. But she also said she would tell people about her faith in Jesus if they asked how she could do the work she did. I think she started with people from where they already stood. If they were Hindu, she spoke with them about their faith. If she told them, “I am sorry, but because you are Hindu you are going to Hell. You need to say ‘Jesus is Lord’ and then you will be OK,” how much longer would that person want to talk with her? They could see the love of Jesus in her actions and if that love was something they did not see among their religious Hindu people, isn’t that a testimony to the love of Jesus and of God?

I surely don’t have all the answers, but like Ed, I am pondering these things.

Joanie D.

I’ll get in trouble for this comment as is usual around here, but I have to say that during my most recent trip to India last month something got me thinking specifically about Mother Theresa.

During a Sunday of touring Delhi I went to the Indira Ghandi museum where I saw newspaper articles of Ghandi with Mother Teresa(that’s how she spelled it). This got me to thinking about Mother Teresa, and wondering what lasting effect she had on the country, which seemed to be surprising little.

It seems to me that the people of India themselves don’t really regard her as anything more than a good woman who helped the poor. And the Indian culture doesn’t seem to place a lot of value

Since I was in Delhi, I thought perhaps that maybe Mother Teresa’s influence was more localized, and that her impact in Calcutta (Kolkata) would be much greater. Now, I didn’t get to go to Calcutta, but from the limited research I’ve done, it doesn’t seem there is any lasting effect there either.

I guess the big issue I have is that while Mother Teresa was a great humanitarian, she does not seem to have been a very good evangelist. I know that sounds cold, but for all the reverence she garners, it just seems odd to me that the Christian faith in Calcutta is either exactly the same (approximately 1%) or less than the rest of the country.

Now, the reason I say all this is because I have to ask those who know more about her and her faith than I…Are we really so sure that Mother Teresa was a Christian doing God’s will? Or was she just a great humanitarian, helping those who needed it, out of a sense of pity for them?

Is the darkness and separation from God just the circumstances she was in, was it that God has abandoned India, and possibly the entire eastern mysticism that engulfs it, or did she not really know God?

These are just questions that have been bugging me. It seems pretty clear that she didn’t preach or teach the gospel, and she even said she didn’t share the gospel with those she was helping, that by living a good life they would get to heaven.

Now a disclaimer, these are questions. I’m not denying Mother Teresa’s faith, that’s not my place, but I’ve been pondering these things for a while now.