Mother Teresa on Faith

'Why these people and not me? That person picked up from the drain, why is he here, why not me? That is the mystery. Nobody can give that answer. But it is not for us to decide; only God can decide life and death. The healthy person may be closer to dying or even more dead than the person who is dying. They might be spiritually dead, only it doesn't show. Who are we to decide?'

'That is why abortion is such a terrible sin. You are not only killing life, but putting self before God; yet people decide who has to live and who has to die. They want to make themselves almighty God. They want to take the power of God in their hands. They want to say, "I can do without God. I can decide." That is the most devilish thing a human hand can do. That is why we are paying with such terrible things happening in the world. It is a punishment, it is the cry of those children continually coming before God. It is such a contradiction of even ordinary common sense and reason: we spend millions to prolong life of an old person who is more or less dead. And yet there is this young life for the future... I cannot understand. There is no way to express it. We are fighting abortion by adoption. In the same way, I cannot understand capital punishment.'

'Where there is mystery, there must be faith. Faith, you cannot change no matter how you look at it. Either you have it, or you don't. For us, it is very simple because our feet are on the ground. We have more of the living reality. There was a time when the Church had to show majesty and greatness. But today, people have found that it does not pay. They have found the emptiness of all that pomp so they are coming down more to the ground, and in coming down there is the danger that they are not finding their proper place.'

'God has created all things. All the butterflies, the animals - the whole of nature He has created for us. To them He has not given the will power to choose. They have only an instinct. Animals can be very lovable and love very beautifully, but that is out of instinct. But the human being can choose. That is the one thing God does not take from us. The will power, the power to will. I want to go to heaven and I will, with the grace of God. If I choose to commit sin and go to hell, that is my choice. God cannot force me to do otherwise. That's why when we become religious we give up that will power. That is the sacrifice is so great: the vow of obedience is very difficult. Because in making that vow you surrender the only thing that is you own - your will power. Otherwise my health, my body, my eyes, my everything are all His and He can take them. I can fall, I can break, but my will power doesn't go like this. I must choose to give it and that is beautiful.'

'Our expanding knowledge does not dim our faith, it only shows the size of God's creation. Often we cannot understand. I don't know if you have read St Augustine's life: it is a beautiful example. St Augustine was struggling to understand God, to understand the Trinity,to understand the magnitude of God's creation. His human mind could not grasp it. He was searching here and there when he came upon a small boy, who was trying to fill water into a hole in the ground. St Augustine asked him what he was doing and the boy said, "I'm trying to fill this hole with water." And St Augustine said it was impossible. Then the child, who, in truth, was an angel, said, "It is still easier to put the ocean into this hole than for you to understand the mystery of God." And it is true.'

Source:
Mother Teresa: Her People and Her Work
by Desmond Doig
Harper & Row, Publishers, San Fransisco, 1976
ISBN 0-06-061941-4
(pp. 162, 164)