A priest is putting together a book of Mother Teresa’s letters. In some of them, she admits that she maybe doesn’t believe in God.
This is interesting, but not shocking. Avoiding the intellectual steamroller of atheism is a minor modern spiritual challenge. Evangelical atheists are quite compelling, and I’m not skilled or wise enough to parry their rhetoric.
I listen and bob in the atheist pool for a while, but eventually I get out, towel off, and go back to theism. Basically just because I like it.
Atheism is pretty unlikeable. (Though I know several wonderful atheists.) The main draw is its patina of intellectual inevitability, but after you've gotten pulled in by it, you're stuck in some ugly territory. Once I’m lost and conflicted, directionless in a dark forest, the only path out seems to be going with what I like.
Aside from basic gratification, this is useful because knowing what I like is a dim wisp of truth. You can’t bamboozle me out of simple joy. I can't think my way out of just basically liking comic books and cartoons and long walks alone. So if I stagger in the direction of that small truth, it’s bound to lead to larger truths. And by choosing a series of escalating truths, you can’t escape choosing God.
A compelling question I heard in a sermon once, and again in less official settings, is: “Would you still follow Christ if there were no Heaven?”
I’ve been through every shade of answering that question. First, I rejected the question, revulsed by it. Then I realized I didn’t know if I would. Then I thought I wouldn’t. Eventually, I concluded that I would, and by now, I’ve decided the question is sort of silly.
Following Christ for the reward is legitimate theology. It’s a fundamental way God draws us to him, by promising carrot over stick. Nothing wrong with that.
But after you run with God for a while, after you show up for the handout enough, it dawns on you that you’re in the relationship for the irrational-but-true reason that you’re in the relationship. You are because you are. You want to leave? There’s the door. But sucky as following Christ can be, it's really quite nice, and all your alternatives are suckier. And since you’ve already got this relationship, you might as well stick around and keep having it.
It would be wild, goofball speculation to say that Mother Teresa’s line of thinking veered near mine on this. Almost unquestioningly, I give her credit for being deeper, wiser, and more honest than I am. But I don’t know what other reason there is for continuing to do something so hard when your faith in God is so tenuous. You have to have faith in SOME thing, and I’ve noticed as you follow truth, you wind up back at God’s porch, even if you don’t recognize it during mortality.
That’s what I think. That’s what I hope. That’s the basket where I’m keeping my eggs these days.
Mother Teresa had agonizing doubts about whether God exists. Even if she didn’t pray, even if she felt lost from why she did what she did, she still did it. If you needed a reason for her halo to shine brighter, that’s it.
TANGENT: The priest gathering the letters for his book says,
The letters were gathered by Rev. Kolodiejchuk, the priest who's making the case to the Vatican for Mother Teresa's proposed sainthood. He said her obvious spiritual torment actually helps her case.
"Now we have this new understanding, this new window into her interior life, and for me this seems to be the most heroic," said Rev. Kolodiejchuk.
Heroic? Pfft. This isn’t hero work. This is saint business. Heroes triumph. Saints persevere. That’s how you sit at the right hand of God.
I would be ecstatic for more American clergy to be in the same position.
