Our site already published Mother Teresa’s famous prayer “Do it anyway“, which seems to be, anachronistically, the best answer one can offer to the atheists’ antics against her. Today, on her Feast Day we would like to share some more of her writings with you:
Life
Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, taste it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is costly, care for it.
Life is wealth, keep it.
Life is love, enjoy it.
Life is mystery, know it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.
On joy
“Joy must be one of the pivots of our life. It is the token of a generous personality. Sometimes it is also a mantle that clothes a life of sacrifice and self-giving. A person who has this gift often reaches high summits. He or she is like sun in a community.” ― Mother Teresa, In the Heart of the World: Thoughts, Stories and Prayers
On a pure heart and Mary
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.
On Love (1)
The success of love is in the loving
– it is not in the result of loving.
Of course it is natural in love to want the best for the other person,
but whether it turns out that way or not
does not determine the value
of what we have done
~
It is not how much we do,
but how much love we put in the doing.
It is not how much we give,
but how much love we put in the giving.
~
If we really want to love
we must learn how to forgive.
~
We can do no great things;
only small things with great love.
~
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.
On Love (2)
“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, A Simple Path: Mother Teresa
On God
“God made the world for the delight of human beings– if we could see His goodness everywhere, His concern for us, His awareness of our needs: the phone call we’ve waited for, the ride we are offered, the letter in the mail, just the little things He does for us throughout the day. As we remember and notice His love for us, we just begin to fall in love with Him because He is so busy with us — you just can’t resist Him. I believe there’s no such thing as luck in life, it’s God’s love, it’s His.”
― Mother Teresa, A Simple Path: Mother Teresa
On East and West
“In the West we have a tendency to be profit-oriented, where everything is measured according to the results and we get caught up in being more and more active to generate results. In the East — especially in India — I find that people are more content to just be, to just sit around under a banyan tree for half a day chatting to each other. We Westerners would probably call that wasting time. But there is value to it. Being with someone, listening wihtout a clock and without anticipation of results, teaches us about love. The success of love is in the loving — it is not in the result of loving. ”
― Mother Teresa, A Simple Path: Mother Teresa
And the following is a book review of the collection of her private writings “Come be My Light”
From Catholic News Agency
By Br. Benet S. Exton
Book by Brian Kolodiejchuk.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who was beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 19, 2003, is the perfect example of a saint in modern times. This book is a collection of Mother Teresa’s letters which have provoked controversy in the secular press because commentators misunderstood what they read.
The commentators couldn’t understand what Mother Teresa was writing about. How could this nun, who many thought was so close to God, suffer for most of her life from the absence of God? They accused her of being a hypocrite, a concern she had noted in her writings.
Mother Teresa suffered what is called in spirituality according to St. John of the Cross, the “dark night of the soul.” Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, who is a member of Mother Teresa’s priests’ community and is her postulator (promoter), comments that Mother Teresa’s “darkness” was one of the longest known periods of darkness for a person. Mother’s patron saint, St. Therese of Lisieux, had also experienced darkness and had doubts about her faith. Other saints also have endured the dark night of the soul including St. Paul of the Cross.
Mother Teresa from childhood had a close relationship with Jesus. She revealed to her spiritual directors that in the 1940s that she experienced hearing the voice of Jesus and “seeing” a few visions. She heard Jesus’ voice say, “I thirst for souls!” At first Mother Teresa was not sure what to make of this and other comments of Jesus. She discussed this with her spiritual director and realized it was Jesus truly speaking to her, not the devil or her own self. She had these experiences when she felt called on September 10, 1946 to found a new order to help the poor.
A few years after founding the order, she no longer had these experiences – they were replaced with darkness and a feeling of aloneness. She desired to be one with Jesus, but she could not feel or anything of his presence. This went on up to the day of her death.
She continuously desired to experience Jesus’ presence in her soul and in her life by remaining faithful to Jesus and to her calling. She was able to teach others about spirituality and how to become holy, but she herself did not experience any consolations from Jesus.
She was a source of support to others. She always encouraged her community to always “smile” and to especially “smile at Jesus” in the disguise of the poorest of the poor.
Fr. Kolodiejchuk presents several letters from Mother Teresa to her spiritual directors and others. She at times asked her correspondent to destroy them, but many realized that these letters would one day be of great help to others.
Even though her interior self was enveloped in darkness she was able to give her all to Jesus in whatever he wanted of her. She had committed herself totally to Jesus’ will early on and would not go against God’s will.
In reality, the darkness became a gift from God that kept Mother Teresa from becoming full of pride and of self. When she was honored with awards and popularity, she did not pay any attention to it. She was totally engrossed in God’s will and in working for Jesus in the poorest of the poor.
Fr. Kolodiejchuk kept most of the letters presented in this book in the style that Mother Teresa wrote them. He also includes some responses to Mother’s correspondences to her spiritual directors or Church superiors while adding commentaries which clarify what the letter is about and what events were going on.
On the book jacket is a picture of Mother Teresa and on the back side is a quote from her, “If I ever become a Saint—I will surely be one of ‘darkness.’ I will continually be absent from Heaven—to light the light of those in darkness on earth.” This is a wonderful quote for those who are suffering from darkness of different kinds. She is a tremendous example for those who have doubts about their religion. She was suffering immense darkness, but still had complete faith in Jesus. She gave her all for him and his poor whom she was called to serve him in.
Some of this may seem a bit strange, but Fr. Kolodiejchuk explains Mother’s spirituality and what she meant by the poorest of the poor and such terms. Kolodiejchuk includes two appendices. The first is Mother’s rule for her order dated 1947. The second is notes she made for a retreat in 1959. There are endnotes and a short index.
This reviewer has not read any other reviews on this book in preparing this review to avoid being influenced by other reviewers. It was good to have read this book and understand what the secular press was making a fuss about. They could not understand it since it was about spiritual things and not earthly.
This book is very highly recommended to those interested in spirituality, Mother Teresa, and who are undergoing their own darkness in its various forms like the dark night or possibly of depression and other illnesses. Mother Teresa’s example gives hope to all of us. She did not have an easy life as many might have thought. What this collection of letters shows is that it is possible to be faithful to God even in the most trying circumstances. May Blessed Teresa of Calcutta pray for us!
Br. Benet Exton, O.S.B., St. Gregory’s University, Shawnee, Oklahoma.
Catholicism Pure & Simple 