I feel Indian to the most profound depths of my soul. The Missionaries of Charity share in their way of dressing, the way of life of the poorest in this world. Of course India needs technicians, skilled men, economists, doctors, nurses for her development. She needs plans and a general coordinated action. Meanwhile people have to live, they have to be given food to eat, be taken care of and dressed. Our field of work is the present India. While these needs continue, our work will continue.

The greatest injustice we have done to our poor people is that we think they are good for nothing; we have forgotten to treat them with respect, with dignity as a child of God. People have forgotten what the human touch is, what it is to smile, for somebody to smile at them, somebody to recognise them, somebody to wish them well. The terrible thing is to be unwanted.

Why do people come to India? Because they believe that in India we have a lot of spirituality and this they want to find. Among them are many who come to our house and work with us, in the home for the dying. Many of them are completely lost; it is very important that they are guided, that they are led. Why are people going round in circles, just to see the scenery? There is not much point in that -- but there is something more; people are really hungry for God. Travel is one way of showing their hunger.

To parents: 'It is very important that children learn from their fathers and mothers how to love one another -- not in the school, not from the teacher, but from you. It is very important that you share with your children the joy of that smile. There will be misunderstandings; every family has its cross, its suffering. Always be the first to forgive with a smile. Be cheerful, be happy.'

A rich man came to me and said he wanted to give up something in his life -- his house, his car.

I suggested: When you go to the store to buy a new suit or some clothes, instead of buying the best, buy one that is a little less expensive and use that extra money to buy something for someone else, or better still for the poor. When I finished saying this he looked really amazed and exclaimed: 'Oh! Is that the way, Mother? I never thought of it.' When he left, he looked so happy and full of joy at the thought of helping.

I will never forget the night an old gentleman came to our house and said that there was a family with eight children and they had not eaten, and would we do something for them. So I took some rice and went there. The mother took the rice from my hands, then she divided it into two and went out. I could see the faces of the children shining with hunger. When she came back I asked her where she had gone. She gave me a very simple answer: 'They are hungry also.' And 'they' were the family next door and she knew that they were hungry. I was not surprised that she gave, but I was surprised that she knew.

In Melbourne, I visited an old man nobody seemed to know existed. I saw his room; it was in a terrible state. I wanted to clean it, but he kept on saying : 'I'm all right.' I didn't say a word, yet in the end he allowed me to clean his room. There was in that room a beautiful lamp, covered for many years with dust. I asked him: Why do you not light the lamp? 'For whom?' he said. 'No one comes to me.' I said: 'Will you light the lamp if a Sister comes to see you?' He said: 'Yes, if I hear a human voice, I will do it.' The other day, he sent me word: 'Tell my friends that the light she has lighted in my life is still burning.' See what a little act can do?

I hope I am converting people. 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. And this is the way conversion has to be understood--people think that conversion is changing overnight. It is not like that. If in coming face to face with God we accept Him in our lives, then we are converting. We become better Hindus, better Muslims, better Catholics, better whatever we are, and then by being better we come closer to Him.

T he poor people whom we gather each day are those whom society rejects and abandons. People do not think that the poor can be treated as people like you or I. We try to give human dignity back to them. One day a young boy, 15 or 16 years old, came crying and begged me to give him some soap. I knew the family of that boy was rich and had become poor. He said to me: 'My sister goes to high school and every day she is sent back because her sari is not washed and we do not have soap to wash it. Please give me some soap so that she can wash her sari and she can go to school and finish her education.' Now we see the humiliation the family had to suffer because they were poor.

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.

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Kind Courtesy:
The Joy Of Living,
A Guide to Daily Living,
by Mother Teresa,
Viking, 1996.