ON CONVERSION

‘Oh, I hope I am converting. I don’t mean what you think. I hope we are converting hearts. Not even almighty God can convert a person unless that person wants it. What we are all trying to do by our work, by serving the people, is to come closer to God. If in coming face to face with God we accept Him in our lives, then we are converting. We become a better Hindu, a better Muslim, a better Catholic, a better whatever we are, and then by being better we come closer and closer to Him. If we accept Him fully in our lives, then that is conversion. What approach would I use?  For me, naturally, it would be a Catholic one, for you it may be Hindu, for someone else, Buddhist, according to one&’s conscience. What God is in your mind you must accept. But I cannot prevent myself from trying to give you what I have.

‘I am not afraid to say I am in love with Jesus because He is everything to me. But you may have a different picture in your life. And this is the way that conversion has to be understood — people think that conversion is just changing overnight. It is not like that. Nobody, not even your father or your mother can make you do that. Not even almighty God can force a person.’

ON BELIEF

‘What we allow God to use us for,that is important. What He is doing through us, that is important. Because we are religious and our vocation is not to work for the lepers or the dying, our vocation is to belong to Jesus. Because I belong to Him, the work is a means for me to put my love for Him into action. So it is not an end, it is a means. Because my vocation is to belong to God properly, love Him with undivided love and chastity, I take the vows.

‘I see Christ in every person I touch because He has said, “I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was naked, I was sick, I was suffering. I was homeless and you took me…” It is as simple as that. Every time I give a piece of bread, I give it to Him. That is why we must find a hungry one, and a naked one. That is why we are totally bound to the poor.

‘The vows we take make our religious life. Our vow of chastity is nothing but our undivided love for Christ in chastity, then we proceed to the freedom of poverty — poverty is nothing but freedom. And that total surrender is obedience. If I belong to God, if I belong to Christ, then He must be able to use me. That is obedience. Then we give whole-hearted service to the poor. That is service. They complete each other. That is our life.’

ON LOVE

‘The poor must know that we love them, that they are wanted. They themselves have nothing to give but love. We are concerned with how to get this message of love and compassion across. We are trying to bring peace to the world through our work. But the work is the gift of God, eh?

‘People today are hungry for love, for understanding love which is much greater and which is the only answer to loneliness and great poverty. That is why we are able to go to countries like England and America and Australia where there is no hunger for bread. But there, people are suffering from terrible loneliness, terrible despair, terrible hatred, feeling unwanted, feeling helpless, feeling hopeless. They have forgotten how to smile, they have forgotten the beauty of the human touch. They are forgetting what is human love, They need someone who will understand and respect them.

‘The poor are not respected. People do not think that the poor can be treated as people who are lovable, as people like you and I.

‘You know, the young are beginning to understand. They want to serve with their hands, and to love with their hearts. To the full, not superficially.

‘Love can be misused for selfish motives. I love you, but at the same time I want to take from you as much as I can, even the things that are not for me to take. Then there is no true love any more. True love hurts. It always has to hurt. It must be painful to love someone, painful to leave them, you might have to die for them. When people marry they have to give up everything to love each other. The mother who gives birth to her child suffers much. It is the same for us in religious life. To belong fully to God we have to give up everything. Only then can we truly love. The word “love” is misunderstood and so misused.

‘A young American couple told me once, “You know a lot about love; you must be married”. And I said, “Yes, but sometimes I find it difficult to smile at Him”.

ON DEATH

‘Death is going home, yet people are afraid of what will come so they do not want to die. If we do, if there is no mystery, we will not be afraid. There is also the question of conscience — “I could have done better”. Very often as we live, so we die. Death is nothing but a continuation of life, the completion of life. The surrendering of the human body. But the heart and the soul live for ever. They do not die. Every religion has got eternity — another life, this life is not the end; people who believe it is, fear death. If it was property explained that death was nothing but going home to God, then there would be no fear”.

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 that 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 that 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 the 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.

ON HER WORK

‘Since we began our work, something wonderful is happening. More and more poor people are coming from the villages into Calcutta, but there is a difference. Ordinary people are beginning to get concerned. Before, they used to pass by a person dying on the streets, but now, when they see something like that, they immediately do something. If they can’t get an ambulance, they bring the person to us by rickshaw, or taxi, or take them to Kalighat, or they phone us. The big thing is that they do something; it&’s wonderful, eh? At least it has broadened people&’s minds. And they are no longer frightened. They used to be frightened before of getting involved with the police, but they know now that there is a place to go to and that there are Sisters who will stand by them.

ON SIN

‘God dwells in us. That&’s what gives Him a beautiful power. It doesn’t matter where you are as long as you are clean of heart. he is there with you and within you twenty-four hours. That&’s why He says, “Love others like I love you.” Clean of heart means openness, that complete freedom, that detachment that allows you to love God without hindrance, without obstacles. When sin comes into our life that is a personal obstacle between me and God. He cannot act through me or give me strength when there is sin between us. Sin is nothing but slavery.

‘When I choose evil, I sin. That&’s where my will comes in. When I seek something for myself at the cost of everything else, I deliberately choose sin, I say, for example, that I am tempted to tell a lie, and then I accept to tell the lie. Well, my mind is impure. I have burdened myself. I have put an obstacle between me and God. That lie has won. I preferred that lie to God. That&’s why poverty is such a wonderful gift of God for all of us — there are fewer obstacles. Very often, in a desire to get something, there&’s greed, there&’s jealousy, there&’s distraction. We cannot see God then. It is an obstacle.’

ON PRAYER

‘You should spend at least half an hour in the morning, and an hour at night in prayer. You can pray while you work. Work doesn’t stop prayer, and prayer doesn’t stop work. It requires only that small raising of mind to Him. “I love you, God, I trust you, I believe in you, I need you now.” Small things like that. They are wonderful prayers.’

Extracted from Mother Teresa: Her People and Her Work by Desmond Doig, © Nachiketa Publications Limited, a Statesman Enterprise.