Customer Reviews

A Revolution of Love: The Meaning of Mother Teresa

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A Revolution of Love: The Meaning of Mother Teresa is a beautifully written book. In fact, it is so well written, I classify it as a devotional book, one that a person could read as part of his prayers. The book, however, would fascinate even the non-believer, since it is a biography, and one that is loaded with the significance and meaning of a life more than with a catalogue of facts. I couldn't put it down. I was deeply moved, and I kept thinking of people I could send it to--especially those outside the Church. David Scott established a daunting goal--to explain the meaning of Mother Teresa, not only her place in history or in her country, but also her place in the eternal workings of God, her place in the whole salvation history of mankind. And he succeeded beautifully and with very few words. The book is impressionistic in the best sense of the word. I am left with a picture of such illuminative beauty amid the blood-soaked, dark, twisted and brutal landscape of modern times-a landscape which Scott also brilliantly evokes. Very ably, Scott shows that God sent Mother Teresa to send a message of utmost importance to the world. I couldn't help but think that for all the publicity Divine Providence ordained she should get, the world still has not listened. Yet her life brought me much hope. I simply loved the book.

Contrary to the opinion of the reviewer below, Mother Teresa's life was marked by a profound conversion and closeness to Jesus Christ --- so close, in fact, that after her initial, remarkable encounters with His presence, she found herself sharing in His passion suffering, as she experienced what St. John of the Cross called "the dark night of the soul." She was so close to Christ that unbeknownst to the world, she felt in her heart and soul the same abandonment He felt on the cross when He asked, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?" What is truly remarkable about her is that while enduring this cross, she never once ceased loving Christ in the poor, and never once ceased to respond to Christ's cry on the Cross, "I thirst." David Scott tells us about letters that have been hidden for years that describe this inner journey into total abandonment to God. Her love for Him, her will to act and obey all the days of her life despite a lack of emotional "feelings" and "consolations" and fundamentalist-type "experiences" was amazing and profound.

If she isn't a saint, then no one is!

I love this book because David Scott delves into the motivation behind all of Mother Teresa's tireless, selfless work: LOVE for God, LOVE for people, LOVE for life. Her legacy is one of deep compassion, but tempered with consistent and devoted action on behalf of the poorest of the poor. She will never be forgotten, and even those of us in the X generation could not help but be touched by her inner spiritual glow. She had a richness in Christ that was remarkably simple and yet overwhelmingly supernatural.

What a WOMAN! What a SAINT! This book is for anyone who loved and still loves the woman behind the legend. Thanks to David Scott for writing such a powerful and inspiring little book!

This book is low on facts and high on the catholic party line.
David Scott presents his enemies in wrong and unflattering ways. On page 48, Scott writes, "...the century when Darwin announced his "discovery" that man descended from apes:..." Darwin used his brain and proposed a theory to explain things. Scott tries to inject mystical meaning to mundane things; he makes a big deal about how little we know of Mother Teresa's life before she became a nun. Scott mentions Mother Teresa's critic's but misrepresents their positions and dismisses them as unimportant. Surprisingly, Scott admits that Mother Teresa took big money from unsavory donors, and that she secretly performed unrequested deathbed baptisms.
Despite his sub-title, The Meaning of Mother Teresa, David Scott does not offer us any data to use to evaluate or to understand Mother Teresa. This is not a good biography, it is not even a good public relations document.

Although "A revolution of love: the meaning of Mother Theresa" is a relatively short biography that is easy to read, the book is difficult to interpret due to its overly myopic Catholic perspective. David Scott starts out the book by describing the qualities of a saint as defined by the Catholic canonization process. Based on Scott's assessment, Mother Theresa has met the requisite criteria and it is simply a matter of time before she is inducted into the Catholic "Hall of Fame." As outlined in the New Testament of the Bible, the requirements for sainthood are much simpler than those described by the Catholic Church - they are simply to 1) repent of your sins, 2) trust Jesus Christ as your savior, and 3), be baptized. A mandate of repentance is conversion, which involves, in gradual or abrupt steps, a turning away from a life that is displeasing to God. On page 4, Scott states that Mother Theresa ".. has no dramatic conversion story." Unfortunately, Scott fails to clarify whether Mother Theresa has any conversion story, and he simply describes her decisions regarding the care of the poor. Although clearly noble in nature, these decisions do not equate to a conversion. In lieu of a substantiated conversion (perhaps due to the scant details of Mother Theresa's early life in this and other biographies), Scott could have chosen to provide evidence for one. Instead, he provides quotes and stories throughout the book that may suggest otherwise.