The Rediff Special / Mother Teresa

The Joy in Loving

Some reflections on life, by Mother Teresa

True love always has to hurt. It must be painful to love someone, painful to leave someone. You might have to die for them.

When people marry they give up everything to love each other. The mother who gives birth to her child suffers much. Only them can we truly love. The word 'love' is so misunderstood and so misused.

There was the man we picked up from the drain, half eaten by worms and, after we had brought him to the Home for the Dying in Kalighat, he only said, 'I have lived like an animal in the street, but I am going to die as an angel, loved and cared for.'

Then, after we removed all the worms from his body, all he said, with a big smile, was: 'Sister, I'm going home to God,' and he died. It was so wonderful to see the greatness of a man who could speak like that without comparing anything. This is the greatness of people who are spiritually rich even when they are materially poor.

One day a lady came to me dressed in a very rich sari. She told me: 'Mother, I want to share in your work.' I prayed for a moment to get the right answer to give her about sharing in my work. And I told her: 'I would begin with the sari. You start buying a cheaper sari each month, and the money you save, you bring it to me for the poor.' So she started buying cheaper saris and she said it changed her life.

She has really understood sharing. And she told me that she has received much more than she has given.

Iwill never forget the day I was walking down a street in London and saw a man sitting all alone, looking so terribly lonely. I walked up to him and I took his hand and shook it. And he exclaimed: 'Oh, after so long, this is the first time I've felt the warmth of a human hand.' And then his face brightened up. He was a different being. He felt that there was somebody who really wanted him, somebody who really cared.

I never realised before that such a small action could bring so much joy.

We get so many visitors every day at Mother House in Calcutta. When I meet them I give each one my 'business card'.

On it is written:

The fruit of silence is prayer;

The fruit of prayer is faith;

The fruit of faith is love;

The fruit of love is service;

The fruit of service is peace.

This is very good 'business'! And it makes people think. Sometimes, they ask me to explain it. But you see, everything begins with prayer that is born in the silence of our hearts. Among yourselves you can share your won experience of your need to pray, and how you found prayer, and what the fruit of prayer has been in your own lives.

Iremember that at the beginning of my work I had a very high fever and in that delirious fever I went before St. Peter.

He said to me: 'Go back. There are no slums in heaven!'

So I got very angry with him and I said: 'Very well! Then I will fill heaven with slum people and you will have slums there. Then you will be forced to let me in. We will all have to go home to God.'

In Calcutta, we cope with 9,000 people every day and the day we don't cook, they don't eat.

One day, a Sister came and told me: 'Mother, there is no more rice for Friday and Saturday; we will have to tell the people that we don't have it.'

On Friday morning at about 9 o'clock, a truck full of bread arrived. The government had closed the schools for some reason. All the bread was brought to us and for two days our people ate bread, and bread and bread! I knew why God had closed the schools. Those thousands of people had to know that God loved them, that He cared for them.

When I received the news of the Nobel Peace Prize, I said : I am myself unworthy of the prize. I thank to God for making the world acknowledge the existence of the poor and the works of love to be works of peace.

On the same day, a tiny abandoned infant was brought to Shishu Bhavan (children's home) in Calcutta and was named Shanti (Peace). The infant survived.

The other day I received $15 from a man who has been on his back for twenty years and the only part that he can move is his right hand. And the only companion that he enjoys is smoking. And he said to me: 'I do not smoke for one week, and I send you this money.'

It must have been a terrible sacrifice for him but see how beautiful, how he shared. And with that money I brought bread and I gave to those who are hungry with a joy on both sides. He was giving and the poor were receiving.

Death is going home, yet people are afraid of what will come, so they do not want to die. 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 forever. They do not die.

Excerpted from The Joy in Loving, A Guide to Daily Living with Mother Teresa, Compiled by Jaya Chaliha & Edward Le Joly, Viking, 1996, Rs 395, with the publisher's permission.