December 31

Instead of death and sorrow, let us bring peace and joy to the world. To do this we must beg God for His gift of peace and learn to accept each other as brothers and sisters, children of od. We know the best place for children to learn how to love and to pray is in the family, by seeing the love and prayer of their mother and father. When families are strongly united, children can see God's special love in the love of their father and mother and can grow to make their country a loving, prayerful place.

December 30

At the Silver Jubilee of the Congregation in Calcutta people prayed for us and with us. We went to pray with Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Jews, Anglicans, Protestants, in fact with people of all denominations and religions in eighteen different places. We concentrated on practical devotion. We could get the top people in firms and important members of society to see the poor, befriend them, come in contact with them, learn their condition; then they would serve them with their own hands. The poor were astonished and deeply moved when seeing such well-dressed people come down to serve them. Such an example goes a long way.

December 29

Today, more than ever, we need to pray for the light to know the will of God, for the love to accept the will of God, for the way to do the will of God.

December 28

The most important rule of a well-regulated family, of a family founded on love and unity, is that the children show an unbounded trust in and obedience to their parents. Jesus practiced this for thirty years in Nazareth for we hear nothing of Him but that "he was subject to them," that is, He did what He was told.

December 27

I repeat that the poor, the sufferers from leprosy, the rejected, the alcoholics, whom we serve, are beautiful people. Many of them have wonderful personalities. The experience which we have by serving them, we must pass on to people who have not had that wonderful experience.

December 26

The children in our homes in Calcutta were given an early Christmas treat one year by an international airline which gave them a free one-hour ride. I wish you could have seen the excitement of these 150 children, looking so neat in matching shirts and caps that had been donated for the occasion. How wonderful that our handicapped and malnourished and abandoned children, who would otherwise never have experienced the joy of flying, were given the chance.

December 25

At Christmas, we see Jesus as a little babe - helpless and poor. And He came to love and be loved. How can we love Jesus in the world today? By loving Him in my husband, my wife, my children, my brothers and sisters, my parents, my neighbours and the poor. Let us gather around the poor crib in Bethlehem and make a strong resolution that we will love Jesus in all those we meet every day.

December 24

The poor people are great people. They can teach us so many beautiful things. The other day one of the poor people came to thank us and said: "You people who have evolved chastity, you are the best people to teach us family planning because it is nothing more than self-control out of love for each other."

December 23

Our vocation is to belong to Jesus, not to work for the poor. The work for the poor is our love for God in action. It is your vocation to have a family, to love one another and the service you do is your love for God in action.

December 22

God has blessed our society with many vocations. We have many, many young people who have consecrated their lives to serve Christ in the poorest of the poor - to give their all to him - and it has been a wonderful gift of God to the whole world that through this work, the rich and the poor have come to know each other, to love each other and to share the joy of living by putting their love, their understanding love, into living action.

December 21

I don't know what God is doing. He knows. We do not understand, but one thing I'm sure. He doesn't make a mistake.

December 20

In the Scriptures it is written: "What will profit, if a man says he has faith, but does not have works?" Can faith alone save him? If a brother or a sister is naked and in want of daily food and one of you says to them: "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," yet you do not give them what is necessary for the body, what does it profit? So faith unless it has works is dead in itself.

December 19

I did not know that our work would grow so fast or go so far. I never doubted that it would live but I did not think it would be like this. Doubt I never had because I had this conviction that if God blesses it, it will prosper. Because none of us have got the experience. None of us have got the things the world looks for. This is the miracle of all these little Sisters all around the world. God is using them; as long as any of us have this conviction, we are all right. The work will prosper.

December 18

Be faithful in little things, for in them our strength lies. We may not be able to give much but we can always give the joy that springs in a heart that is in love with God.

December 17

A Hindu woman married to a Parsi, came to ask for my blessings for her three-year-old son who could not speak. I asked the woman: "Is there anything to which you are very attached, something dear to you? The child's mother replied: "Yes, chewing betel. With me it has become a compulsory habit." Give it up. Offer it to God as a sacrifice and pray for your son's cure, I said. She did and three months later he son started to speak and slowly became normal.

December 16

Am I convinced of God's love for me and mine for Him? This conviction is like a sunlight which makes the sap of life rise and the buds of sanctity bloom. This conviction is the rock on which sanctity is built.

December 15

"Lord, make me an instrument of peace" is our motto. The most important part is that we keep the work as His work and that we do not spoil it by any claims. It is impossible, humanly speaking, for our young and inexperienced Sisters to do what they do but for the fact that we are just instruments to do God's work. Our task is to allow Jesus to use us. It is He who is doing the work with us, through us and in us.

December 14

A smile must always be on our lips for any child to whom we offer help, for any to whom we give companionship or medicine. It would be very wrong to offer only our cures; we must offer to all our hearts.

December 13

The 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.

December 12

If you have a sick or lonely person at home, be there. Maybe just to hold a hand, maybe just to give a smile, that is the greatest, the most beautiful work.

December 11

Do I need to pray? Do I want to pray? Remember wherever you may be - Mother Teresa's prayer, love and blessing will always be with you. God bless you.

December 10

Some people came to Calcutta, and before leaving, they begged me: "Tell us something that will help us to live our lives better. And I said: 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 in greater love for each other. And one of them asked me: "Are you married?" I said: Yes, and sometimes I find it very difficult to smile at my spouse, Jesus, because he can be very demanding. This is really something true. And that is where love comes in - when it is demanding, and yet we can give it with joy.

December 9

Today, more and ever, we need to pray for the light to know the will of God, for the love to accept the will of God, for the way to do the will of God.

December 8

These are the few ways we can practice humility: To speak as little as possible of one's self. To mind one's own business. Not to want to manage other people's affairs. To avoid curiosity. To accept contradictions and correction cheerfully. To pass over the mistakes of others. To accept insults and injuries. To accept being slighted, forgotten and disliked. To be kind and gentle even under provocation. Never to stand on one's dignity. To choose always the hardest.

December 7

Maybe in our own family we have somebody who is feeling lonely, who is feeling sick, who is feeling worried. Are we there? Let us know the poor in our own families first. We have old people: they are put in institutions and they are never visited; with less and less time even to smile at each other, with less and less time to be together. Love begins at home, if we can only make our own homes temples of love.

December 6

Sometime ago, two young people came to our house and they gave me a large sum of money to feed the poor. I asked them: "Where did you get so much money?" And they said: "Two days ago we got married and we decided that we were not going to buy a wedding clothes, we were not going to have a wedding feast, we would give you the money to feed the poor." And I asked them again: "But why did you do that? They said: "We love each other so much that we wanted to begin our life together by sharing the joy of loving with the people you serve by making a sacrifice." This love is sanctity and the more we grown in this love, the closer we come to God.

December 5

We need to find God and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is a friend of silence. The more we engage in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life. The essential thing is not what we say but what God says to us and what He says through us.

December 4

If you are discouraged it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own power. Your self-sufficiency, your selfishness and your intellectual pride will inhibit His coming to live in your heart because God cannot fill what is already full. It is as simple as that.

December 3

At the home for the Dying in Kalighat, a visitor wondered at the peace that pervaded everywhere. I told him: "God is here. Casts and creeds mean nothing. It does not matter that they are not of my faith."

December 2

We do not need guns and bombs to bring peace, we need love and compassion. Let us radiate the peace of God and so light His light and extinguish all hatred and love of power in the world and in the hearts of all men.

December 1

Let us pray for peace, joy and love. We are reminded that Jesus came to bring the good news: "My peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you." He came not to give the peace of the world which is only that we do not harm each other. He came to give the peace of heart which comes from loving - from doing good to others.