“The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”
―
Mother Teresa
“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.”
―
Mother Teresa
“I am only a pencil in the hand of God, but it is He who writes.”
―
Mother Teresa
“He who is faultless does not care for the opinion of others.”
―
Mother Teresa
“Sometimes people can hunger for more than bread.
It is possible that our children, our husband, our wife, do not hunger for bread, do not need clothes, do not lack a house. But are we equally sure that none of them feels alone, abandoned, neglected, needing some affection? That, too, is poverty”
―
Mother Teresa
“love only variously everyday
The meaning of love”
―
Mother Teresa
“God has not called me to be successful. He has called me to be faithful.”
―
Mother Teresa
“One filled with joy preaches without preaching.”
―
Mother Teresa
“Our life of contemplation shall retain the following characteristics:
—missionary: by going out physically or in spirit in search of souls all over the universe.
—contemplative: by gathering the whole universe at the very center of our hearts where the Lord of the universe abides, and allowing the pure water of divine grace to flow plentifully and unceasingly from the source itself, on the whole of his creation.
—universal: by praying and contemplating with all and for all, especially with and for the spiritually poorest of the poor.”
―
Mother Teresa
“Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.”
―
Mother Teresa
“Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”
―
Mother Teresa
“You may be exhausted with work, you may even kill yourself, but unless your work is interwoven with love, it is useless. To work without love is slavery.”
―
Mother Teresa
“We too are called to withdraw at certain intervals into deeper silence and aloneness with God, together as a community as well as personally; to be alone with Him — not with our books, thoughts, and memories but completely stripped of everything — to dwell lovingly in His presence, silent, empty, expectant, and motionless. We cannot find God in noise or agitation.”
―
Mother Teresa
“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls. ”
―
Mother Teresa
“Persuaded of our nothingness and with the blessing of obedience we attempt all things, doubting nothing, for with God all things are possible. We will allow the good God to make plans for the future, for yesterday has gone, tomorrow has not yet come, and we have only today to make him known loved, and served. Grateful for the thousands of opportunities Jesus gives us to bring hope into a multitude of lives by our concern for the individual sufferer, we will help our troubled world at the brink of despair to discover a new reason to live or to die with a smile of contentment on its lips.”
―
Mother Teresa
