Mother Teresa - In the Heart of the World: Thoughts, Stories & Prayers

Mother Teresa

19101997

Thoughts, Stories & Prayers

Edited by Becky Benenate

N EW W ORLD L IBRARY
N OVATO , C ALIFORNIA

New World Library
14 Pamaron Way
Novato, California 94949

Copyright 1997 by New World Library

Originally published as The Mother Teresa Reader, A Life for God,
compiled by LaVonne Neff, which was derived from works compiled
and edited by Henry Dietrich, Jose Luis Gonzalez-Balado, and
Angelo Scolozzi, published by Servant Publications, Inc., 1995.

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means
electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the
publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Chapter opening quotations reprinted by permission from
Works of Love Are Works of Peace by Michael Collopy,
published by Ignatius Press, San Francisco, California.

Text design: Aaron Kenedi

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Teresa, Mother, 1910 1997
[Mother Teresa reader]
In the heart of the world : thoughts, stories & prayers
Mother Teresa : edited by Becky Benenate
p. cm.
originally published: Mother Teresa reader.
Servant Publications, 1995.
ISBN 978-1-57731-065-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Meditations. I. Benenate, Becky. II. Title.

First hardcover printing, 1997
First paperback printing, March 2010
Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper
New World Library is a proud member of the Green Press Initiative.
ISBN 978-1-57731-900-9

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

We will never know how much
just a simple smile will do.

Let us not use bombs and guns to overcome the world. Let us use love and compassion. Peace begins with a smile. Smile five times a day at someone you dont really want to smile at at all. Do it for peace. Let us radiate the peace of God and so light His light and extinguish in the world and in the hearts of all men all hatred and love for power. Smile at one another. It is not always easy. Sometimes I find it hard to smile at my sisters, but then I pray.

God loves the world through you and through me. Are we that love and that compassion? Christ came to be His Fathers compassion. God is loving the world through you and through me and through all those who are His love and compassion in the world.

There is much suffering in the world very much. Material suffering is suffering from hunger, suffering from homelessness, from all kinds of disease, but I still think that the greatest suffering is being lonely, feeling unloved, just having no one. I have come more and more to realize that being unwanted is the worst disease that any human being can ever experience.

In these times of development, the whole world runs and is hurried. But there are some who fall down on the way and have no strength to go ahead. These are the ones we must care about.

Let us be very sincere in our dealings with each other and have the courage to accept each other as we are. Do not be surprised at or become preoccupied with each others failure; rather see and find the good in each other, for each one of us is created in the image of God. Jesus has said it beautifully: I am the vine; you are the branches. The life-giving sap that flows from the vine through each of the branches is the same.

Be kind in your actions. Do not think that you are the only one who can do efficient work, work worth showing. This makes you harsh in your judgment of others who may not have the same talents. Do your best and trust that others do their best. And be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.

The Gospels remind us that Jesus, before He taught the people, felt compassion for the multitudes that followed after Him. Sometimes He felt it even to the point of forgetting to eat. How did He put His compassion into practice? He multiplied the loaves of bread and the fish to satisfy their hunger. He gave them food to eat until they couldnt eat any more, and twelve full baskets were left over. Only then did He teach them.

In loving one another through our works we bring an increase of grace and a growth in divine love.

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

In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.

There is a very holy priest, who is also one of the best theologians in India right now. I know him very well, and I said to him, Father, you talk all day about God. How close you must be to God! And do you know what he said to me? He said, I may be talking much about God, but I may be talking very little to God. And then he explained, I may be rattling off so many words and may be saying many good things, but deep down I do not have the time to listen. Because in the silence of the heart, God speaks.

We cannot put ourselves directly in the presence of God if we do not practice internal and external silence.

In silence we will find new energy and true unity. Silence gives us a new outlook on everything.

The essential thing is not what we say but what God says to us and through us. In that silence, He will listen to us; there He will speak to our soul, and there we will hear His voice.

Listen in silence because if your heart is full of other things you cannot hear the voice of God. But when you have listened to the voice of God in the stillness of your heart, then your heart is filled with God.

The contemplatives and ascetics of all ages and religions have sought God in the silence and solitude of the desert, forest, and mountains. Jesus himself spent forty days in the desert and the mountains, communing for long hours with the Father in the silence of the night.