From the Heart Of Mother Teresa

“Unless a life is lived for others, it is not worthwhile”

“God doesn't require us to succeed; he only requires that you try”

“We have not come into the world to be numbered; we have been created for a purpose; for great things: to love and be loved.”

“Intense love does not measure; it just gives”

“If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”

“Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.”

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."

"If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive"

"Keep the joy of loving God in your heart and share this joy with all you meet especially your family. Be holy – let us pray."

"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"

"Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart"

(CNN) -- "The other day I dreamed that I was at the gates of heaven....And St. Peter said, 'Go back to Earth, there are no slums up here.'" These words, once spoken by Mother Teresa, vividly recall the life of the late Roman Catholic nun and missionary known as "the Saint of the Gutters." For Mother Teresa, who devoted her life to the succor of the sick and the outcast, earthly sufferers were nothing less than Christ in "distressing disguise." From an early age, the girl who would become Mother Teresa felt the call to help others. Born August 26, 1910, in Skopje (now in Macedonia), Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was the daughter of Albanian parents -- a grocer and his wife. As a public school student she developed a special interest in overseas missions and, by age 12, realized her vocation was aiding the poor. She was inspired to work in India by reports sent home from Jesuit missionaries in Bengal. And at 18, she left home to join a community of Irish nuns with a mission in Calcutta. Here, she took the name "Sister Teresa," after Saint Teresa of Lisieux, the patroness of missionaries. She spent 17 years teaching and being principal of St. Mary's high school in Calcutta. However, in 1946, her life changed forever. After taking a medical training course to prepare for her new mission, she went into the slums of Calcutta to start a school for children. They called her "Mother Teresa." Through the years, Mother Teresa's fame grew, as did the magnitude of her deeds ...

Highlights of Mother Teresa's life
1910: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu born August 27 in Skopje, in what is now Macedonia, the youngest of three children of an Albanian builder.
1928: Becomes novitiate in Loretto order, which ran mission schools in India, and takes name Sister Teresa.
1929: Arrives in Calcutta to teach at St. Mary's High School.
1937: Takes final vows as a nun.
1946: While riding a train to the mountain town of Darjeeling to recover from suspected tuberculosis, she said she received a calling from God "to serve him among the poorest of the poor."
1947: Permitted to leave her order and moves to Calcutta's slums to set up her first school.
1950: Founds the order of Missionaries of Charity.
1952: Opens Nirmal Hriday, or "Pure Heart," a home for the dying, followed next year by her first orphanage.
1962: Wins her first prize for her humanitarian work: the Padma Shri award for distinguished service. Over the years, she uses the money from such prizes to found dozens of new homes.
1979: Wins Nobel Peace Prize.
1982: Persuades Israelis and Palestinians to stop shooting long enough to rescue 37 retarded children from a hospital in besieged Beirut.
1983: Has a heart attack while in Rome visiting Pope John Paul II.
1985: Awarded Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian award.
1989: Has a second and nearly fatal attack. Doctors implant a pacemaker.
1990: Announces her intention to resign, and a conclave of sisters is called to choose successor. In a secret ballot, Mother Teresa is re-elected with only one dissenting vote -- her own -- and withdraws request to step down.
1991: Suffers pneumonia in Tijuana, Mexico, leading to congestive heart failure, and is hospitalized in La Jolla, California.
1993: Breaks three ribs in fall in May in Rome; hospitalized for malaria in August in New Delhi; undergoes surgery to clear blocked blood vessel in Calcutta in September.
1996: November 16, receives honorary U.S. citizenship.
1996: Falls and breaks collarbone in April; suffers malarial fever and failure of the left heart ventricle in August; treated for a chest infection and recurring heart problems in September. Readmitted to hospital with chest pains and breathing problems
November 22.
1997: March 13, steps down as head of her order.

Among the 124 Awards Received some were:
Padmashree Award (from the President of India) August 1962
Pope John XXIII Peace Prize January 1971
John F. Kennedy International Award September 1971
Jawahalal Nehru Award for International Understanding November 1972 Templeton Prize for "Progress in Religion" April 1973
Nobel Peace Prize December 1979
Bharat Ratna (Jewel of India) March 1980
Order of Merit (from Queen Elizabeth) November 1983
Gold Medal of the Soviet Peace Committee August 1987
United States Congressional Gold Medal June 1997
At the time of Mother Teresa's death, The Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity numbered 3,914 members, and were established in 594 communities in 123 countries of the world. Her work continues under the guidance of Sister Nirmala, Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity Sisters. The order has grown over 4,000 members in 697 foundations in 131 countries of the world.Died: Mother Teresa on September 5, 1997 in Kolkata, India


Love: I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I don't know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will NOT ask, How many good things have you done in your life?, rather he will ask, How much LOVE did you put into what you did?

Love: Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.

Rushing: Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world.

Poverty: We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, na ked and homeless.The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.


Love: Good works are links that form a chain of love

Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go.

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.

We are all pencils in the hand of God. I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.


There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things that we could use.

Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home.

The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.

Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other - it doesn't matter who it is - and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other.

Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

Love until it hurts. Real love is always painful and hurts: then it is real and pure. I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.

We can do no great things; only small things with great love

Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.

I do not pray for success. I ask for faithfulness.

The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.

I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness.

To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love.

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.

If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.




Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. - Mother Teresa