Why Is Mother Teresa Being Hated in the World Today?

The harsh criticisms against the saint signify a more terrible truth

When I was younger, I never thought a day would come when people would hate Mother Teresa.

After all, she's who we used to know as the "living saint". Not even Pope John Paul II had been referred to like that. People from all walks of life respected her, even people whose beliefs were different from hers.

And why not? She tended to the poorest of the poor. She abandoned the comforts of her previous life. She answered a calling within a calling, responding with total abandon in obedience to a God who wants to show mercy to all. And do people today know that she had only two clothes? It is said that even her feet were distorted because when choosing from the available pairs of shoes, she would always choose the worst ones for herself.

If there is ever one icon of mercy in recent history, that would be Mother Teresa, the saint of the gutters.

She was the one sent to those who were starving both for bread and for love.

How do you even begin to help those people who are dying in the streets? When she was busy helping them, her present haters may still be young people who don't even know what difficulties she encountered.

Now that she has passed away, people talk and accuse her of so many things. People twist her words as though she were someone who enjoyed suffering and seeing people suffer.

Why so much hatred? Why now?

Perhaps it's because Mother Teresa's holiness is a truth many people can no longer accept today. Perhaps her very life was a testimony that's almost impossible to believe in our time. And if her life is seen like that, how much more is the life of Jesus?

A saint like Mother Teresa can make herself known today, perform miracles and help the most vulnerable people. But would anyone still believe her? Won't she be crucified right away?

For a world that has embraced the darkness, it's a terrible burden to see people who are walking in the light.

For a people that has long abandoned truth, it's a crime to declare what their ears find so painful to hear.

Mother Teresa cannot be believed in anymore. This world would rather think she's fake or that she never existed at all. Because if not, and she lived the kind of life worthy of being the saint that she is, her words would continue to rise from the grave, declaring the sins of our time and revealing the masks that evil wears today.

“For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? For if I were still pleasing men, I wouldn’t be a servant of Christ.” – Galatians 1:10, WEB

“Never bother about people's opinions. Be obedient to truth. For with humble obedience, you will never be disturbed.” - Mother Teresa

“Thank God I am deemed worthy to be hated by the world.” - St. Jerome