Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta

Our poor people are great people, a very lovable people, They don't need our pity and sympathy. They need our understanding love and they need our respect. We need to tell the poor that they are somebody to us that they, too, have been created, by the same loving hand of God, to love and be loved.

But still, everything is for Jesus; so like that everything is beautiful, even though it is difficult.

She knows how to suffer and at the same time how to laugh.

Jesus wants me to tell you again...how much is the love He has for each one of you-beyond all what you can imagine...Not only He loves you, even more--He longs for you. He misses you when you don't come close. He thirsts for you. He loves you always, even when you don't feel worthy...

The smile that covered a "multitude of pains" was no hypocritical mask. She was trying to hide her sufferings - even from God! - so as not to make others, especially the poor, suffer because of them. When she promised to do "a little extra praying & smiling" for one of her friends, she was alluding to an acutely painful and costly sacrifice: to pray when prayer was so difficult and to smile when her interior pain was agonizing.

Cheerfulness is a sign of a generous and mortified person who forgetting all things, even herself, tries to please her God in all she does for souls. Cheerfulness is often a cloak which hides a life of sacrifice and a continual union with God.

To commit herself to becoming "an apostle of Joy" when humanly speaking she might have felt at the brink of despair, was heroic indeed. She could do so because her joy was rooted in the certitude of the ultimate goodness of God's loving plan for her. And though her faith in this truth did not touch her soul with consolation, she ventured to meet the challenges of life with a smile. Her one lever was her blind trust in God.

There is so much deep contradiction in my soul. Such deep longing for God - so deep that it is painful - a suffering continual - and yet not wanted by God - repulsed - empty - no faith - no love - no zeal. Souls hold no attraction - Heaven means nothing - to me it looks like an empty place - the thought of it means nothing to me and yet this torturing longing for God. Pray for me please that I keep smiling at Him in spite of everything. For I am only His - so He has every right over me. I am perfectly happy to be nobody even to God. . . . Your devoted child in J.C. M. Teresa

What mattered to her was that she loved God, whether or not He granted her the consolation and joy of His felt presence.

To the good God nothing is little because He is so great and we so small- that is why He stoops down and takes the trouble to make those little things for us- to give us a chance to prove our love for Him.

For the first time in this 11 years--I have come to love the darkness--for I believe now that it is a part, a very, very small part of Jesus' dakness and pain on earth. You have taught me to accept it [as] a "spiritual side of 'your work'"... (Mother Teresa, quoated in Kolodiejchuk, p. 208).

The burning zeal....that had led her to India had apparently vanished. At the same time....she clung steadfastly to the faith she professed, and without a drop of consolation, labored wholeheartedly in her daily service....of the poor.

to bring souls to God- and God to souls.

Why must we give ourselves fully to God? Because God has given Himself to us. If God who owes nothing to us is ready to impart to us no less than Himself, shall we answer with just a fraction of ourselves? To give ourselves fully to God is a means of receiving God Himself. I for God and God for me. I live for God and give up my own self, and in this way induce God to live for me. Therefore to possess God we must allow Him to possess our soul.

Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love. … The smaller the thing, the greater must be our love.

The Particular End is to carry Christ into the homes and streets of the slums, among the sick, dying, the beggars and the little street children. The sick will be nursed as far as possible in their poor homes. The little children will have a school in the slums. The beggars will be sought and visited in their holes outside the town or on the streets. She would later elaborate and broaden the text to read, “Our particular mission is to labour at the salvation and sanctification of the poorest of the poor, not only in the slums, but also all over the world wherever they may be.

If you could know how happy I am, as Jesus' little spouse. No one....could I envy, because I am enjoying my complete happiness, even when I suffer something for my beloved Spouse.

She encouraged others to smile in suffering as she herself did.

Keep thou my feet I do not ask to see The distant scene—one step enough for me. [Cardinal John Henry Newman]

Very often I feel like a little pencil in God’s Hands. He does the writing, He does the thinking, He does the movement, I have only to be the pencil.” Mother Teresa’s speech in Rome, March 7, 1979.

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.

True love is surrender. The more we love the more we surrender. If we really love souls we must be ready to take their place, to take their sins upon us and face the anger of God. It is only thus that we make ourselves their means and them our end. We must be living holocausts, for the world needs us as such. For by giving the little we possess, we give all—and that there is no limit to the love that prompts us to give.

God is in love with us and keeps giving Himself to the world—through you—through me. … May you continue to be the sunshine of His love to your people and thus make your life something truly beautiful for God.

The assurance that “Christ’s love is stronger than all that we have or are” had helped her not to succumb to the interior darkness and the pain of nothingness. It was in this state, when she felt that in her heart there was “no faith—no love—no trust”74 that she had formulated the prayer “Jesus in my heart, I believe in your faithful love for me. I love you.” Later she would alter the prayer by replacing “faithful” with “tender.

Suffering, pain—failure—is but a kiss of Jesus, a sign that you have come so close to Jesus on the Cross that He can kiss you.—So my child be happy…. Do not be discouraged…so smile back…For you it is a most beautiful chance of becoming fully & totally all for Jesus.

Sorrow, suffering, Eileen, is but a kiss of Jesus—a sign that you have come so close to Jesus that He can kiss you.—I think this is the most beautiful definition of suffering.—So let us be happy when Jesus stoops down to kiss us.—I hope we are close enough that He can do it.

Love Jesus—live with Jesus that you may live for Jesus. M. Teresa45