Quotes of Mother Teresa
“Keep the joy of loving God in your heart and share this joy with all you meet especially your family. Be holy – let us pray."
"I once picked up a woman from a garbage dump and she was burning with fever; she was in her last days and her only lament was: ‘My son did this to me.’ I begged her: You must forgive your son. In a moment of madness, when he was not himself, he did a thing he regrets. Be a mother to him, forgive him. It took me a long time to make her say: ‘I forgive my son.’ Just before she died in my arms, she was able to say that with a real forgiveness. She was not concerned that she was dying. The breaking of the heart was that her son did not want her. This is something you and I can understand."
"When once a chairman of a multinational company came to see me, to offer me a property in Bombay, he first asked: ‘Mother, how do you manage your budget?" I asked him who had sent him here. He replied: ‘I felt an urge inside me.’ I said: other people like you come to see me and say the same. It was clear God sent you, Mr. A, as He sends Mr. X, Mrs. Y, Miss Z, and they provide the material means we need for our work. The grace of God is what moved you. You are my budget. God sees to our needs, as Jesus promised. I accepted the property he gave and named it Asha Dan (Gift of Hope).
"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."
"Like Jesus we belong to the world living not for ourselves but for others. The joy of the Lord is our strength."
"There are so many religions and each one has its different ways of following God. I follow Christ:
Jesus is my God,
Jesus is my Spouse,
Jesus is my Life,
Jesus is my only Love,
Jesus is my All in All;
Jesus is my Everything."
Make us worthy, Lord, to serve those people throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give them through our hands, this day, their daily bread, and by our understanding love, give them peace and joy. I heard the call to give up all and follow Christ into the slums to serve Him among the poorest of the poor. It was an order. I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them.
When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed.
You and I, we are the Church, no? We have to share with our people. Suffering today is because people are hoarding, not giving, not sharing. Jesus made it very clear. Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do it to me. Give a glass of water, you give it to me. Receive a little child, you receive me.
Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world.
If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive. A clean heart is a free heart. A free heart can love Christ with an undivided love in chastity, convinced that nothing and nobody will separate it from his love. Purity, chastity, and virginity created a special beauty in Mary that attracted God’s attention. He showed his great love for the world by giving Jesus to her.
There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives - the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them. Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart.
Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your own weakness. Speak tenderly to them. Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of your greeting.
Always have a cheerful smile. Don't only give your care, but give your heart as well.
The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not mortification, a penance. It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. But we are perfectly happy.
I pray that you will understand the words of Jesus, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Ask yourself “How has he loved me? Do I really love others in the same way?” Unless this love is among us, we can kill ourselves with work and it will only be work, not love. Work without love is slavery.
Little things are indeed little, but to be faithful in little things is a great thing.
A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves. The fruit of silence is prayer, fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace.
People who really love each other fully and truly – they are the happiest people in the world, and we see that with our very poor people. They love their children, and they love their home. They may have very little, they may have nothing, but they are happy people.
Faith is lacking because there is so much selfishness and so much gain only for self. But, faith, to be true, has to be a giving love. Love and faith go together. They complete each other.
Actually we touching Christ’s body in the poor. In the poor is the hungry Christ that we are feeding. It is the naked Christ that we are clothing, it is the homeless Christ that we are giving shelter.
It is not just hunger for bread or the need of the naked for clothes or of the homeless for a house made of bricks. Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.
We ourselves feel that what we are doing in just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would less because of that missing drop. I do not agree with the big way of doing things. To us what matters is an individual. To get to love the person, we must come in close contact with him. If we wait till we get the numbers, then we will be lost in the numbers. And we will never be able to show that love and respect for the person. I believe in person to person; every person is Christ for me, and since there is only one Jesus, that person is the one person in the world at the moment.
There is always the danger that we may become only social workers, or just do the work for the sake of the work. It is a danger if we forget to whom we are doing it. Our works are only an expression of our love for Christ. Our hearts need to be full of love for him, and since we have to express that love in action, naturally then the poorest of the poor are the means of expressing our love for God … A Hindu gentlemen said that they and we are doing social work, and the difference between them and us is that they are doing it for something, and we are doing it for Somebody.
Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting. In the slums, we are the light of God’s kindness to the poor. To children, to the poor, to all who suffer and are lonely, give always a happy smile. Give them not only your care, but also your heart.
Let us not be satisfied with just giving money; money is not enough, for money one can get. The poor need our hands to serve them, they need our hearts to love them. The religion of Christ is love, the spreading of love.
Some weeks back I heard there was a family that had not eaten for some days – a Hindu family – so I took some rice and I went to the family. Before I knew where I was, the mother of the family had divided the rice into two and she took the other half to the next-door neighbours, who happened to be a Moslem family. Then I asked her:’How much will all of you have to share? There are ten of you with that bit of rice.” The mother replied: ‘They have not eaten either'.’ This is greatness.
Some people came to Calcutta, and before leaving, they begged me: ‘Tell us something that will help us to live our lives better.’ And I said:’Smile at each other; smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other – it doesn’t matter who it is – and that will help you to grow up in the greater love of each other.’
Some months back a man who had been beaten up was picked up from the streets of Melbourne. He was an alcoholic who had been for years in that state, and the Sisters took him to their Home of Compassion. From the way they touched him, the way they took care of him, suddenly it was clear to him:’God loves me!’ He left the home and never touched alcohol again, and went back to his family, to his children, to his job. After, when he got his first salary, he came to the Sisters and gave them the money, saying:’I want you to be for others the love of God, as you have been to me.’
It’s not how much you do, but how much love you put into the action.
Joy is prayer – Joy is strength – Joy is love – Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. God loves a cheerful giver. She gives most who gives with joy. The best way to show our gratitude to God and the people is to accept everything with joy. A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love. Never let anything so fill you with sorrow as to make you forget the joy of the Christ risen.
Source : A Gift for God, Mother Teresa of Calcutta
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