September 30

We do more harm than good to young healthy people when we give them things. It encourages them to beg. Always see that they do not depend on what you give them. We must teach them something - needlework, typing, dressmaking. We must also teach them the love of the home - to make beautiful the little they have.

September 29

The fruit of prayer is a clean heart and a clean heart is free to love. The fruit of love is Peace - Unity - Joy.

September 28

Pray for the family with me: Heavenly Father, you have given us a model of life in the Holy Family of Nazareth. Help us, O Loving Father, to make our family another Nazareth where love, peace and joy reign, may it be deeply contemplative, intensely Eucharistic and vibrant with joy. Help us to stay together in joy and sorrow through family prayer. Teach us to see Jesus in the members of our family especially in their distressing disguise.

September 27

Children long for somebody to accept them, to love them, to praise them, to be proud of them. Let us bring the child back to the center of our care and concern. This is the only way the world can survive because our children are the only hope for the future. As older people are called to God, only their children can take their place.

September 26

Cardinal Cooke made me an offer of five hundred dollars a month for each Sister working in Harlem and I said to him: Do you think that God is going to be bankrupt in New York? He provides the means. So why do we worry?

September 25

Love to be true has to begin with God in prayer. If we pray we will be able to love and if we love, we will be able to serve and therefore let us all promise that we will give our hearts to love them for they too have been created for greater things.

September 24

God has created us to love and to be loved, and this is the beginning of prayer - to know that he loves me, that I have been created for greater things.

September 23

The greatest poverty in the world is not the want of food but the want of love. You have the poverty of people who are dissatisfied with what they have, who do not know how to suffer, who give in to despair. The poverty of the heart is often more difficult to relieve and to defeat.

September 22

The Minister of the Imperial Court in Addis Ababa asked me a few searching questions: "What do you want from the Government? Nothing. I have come only to offer my Sisters to work among the poor suffering people. "What will your Sisters do?" "We give wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor." "What qualifications to they have?" "We try to bring tender love and compassion to the unwanted, to the unloved." "Do you preach to the people trying to convert them?" "Our works of love reveal to the suffering poor the love of God for them."

September 21

Every religion believes in eternity - another life. This life on earth is not the end. People who believe it is the end, fear death. If it was properly explained that death was nothing but going home to God, then there would be no fear of death.

September 20

To Him, each one of us is very special, each one a unique creation. We are one world. We are all sisters and brothers in Jesus Christ. We must work for all those who suffer and hear Our Lord say: "I was a refugee and you gave me a home."

September 19

The tide of human suffering grows ever greater. This is especially so of those who are refugees. Theirs is a special kind of suffering. Not only are they forced to suffer famine, persecution, war and natural disaster, but also the horrific plight of being forced to keep on the move. The have nowhere which they can call home and often no one is prepared to listen to their cry for help.

September 18

If you have not the experience, ask. There is no shame in asking, but do not pretend you know when you don't.

September 17

One night in London I went out visiting people with the Sisters. We saw a young boy with long hair, sitting in the street with others. I spoke to him and I said: "You shouldn't be here, you should be with your mother and father, this is not the place for you. The young boy said: "My mother does not want me. Each time I go home, she pushes me out, because she can't bear my long hair." We passed on. When I came back, he was lying flat on the ground. He had overdosed himself. We had to take him to hospital. I could not help but reflect: Here was a child hungry for home, and his mother had no time for him. This is great poverty. This is where you and I must make this world a better world.

September 16

To my helpers and volunteers: Discover the other through direct contact. Go to Kalighat, the Home for the Dying, and learn your lessons, not out of a book, but in the rough and tumble of life, among real people, in a setting you will never forget.

September 15

To know the problem of poverty intellectually is not to understand it. It is not by reading, taking a walk in the slums, admiring and regretting that we come to understand it and to discover what it has of had and good. We have to dive into it, live it, share it.

September 14

The care of the poor and needy is not the responsibility of the State only. It is the responsibility of everyone. Every person must be concerned with his brothers' and sisters' needs.

September 13

Many people are deeply concerned with the children of India, with the children of Africa where quite a few die of hunger. Many people are also concerned about all the violence in this great country of the United States. These concerns are very good. But often these same people are not concerned with the millions who are being killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today - abortion, which brings people to such blindness.

September 12

One day while I was working, a sister came in and said: "A tourist wants to see you; he is the person who came the other day." I said: Tell him to go and work in Kalighat. The Sister replied that he said he had gone there yesterday. Yes, I said, he can go again today; the poor are still there.

September 11

Our expanding knowledge does not dim our faith, it only shows the size of God's creation. Often we cannot understand. There is a beautiful example in the life of St.Augustine who was struggling to understand God, to understand the Trinity, to understand the magnitude of God's creation. His human mind could not grasp it. Then he came upon a small boy who was trying to fill water in a hole in the ground. St.Augustine asked him what he was doing and the boy said: "I am trying to fill this hole with water." St.Augustine said that it was impossible. Then the child who, in truth, was an angel, said: "It is still easier to put the ocean into this hole than for you to understand the mystery of God."

September 10

I was travelling by train to Darjeeling when I heard the voice of God. I was sure it was God's voice. I was certain He was calling me. The message was clear. I must leave the convent to help the poor by living among them. This was a command, something to be done, something definite. The call was something between God and me. What matters is that God calls each of us in a different way. In those difficult, dramatic days I was certain that this was God's doing and not mine and I am still certain. And it was the work of God. I knew that the world would benefit from it.

September 9

What made me start my work, what inspired me and kept me going during so many years? Jesus. We do it for Jesus. I take Jesus at His word and He never lets me down. He said: "Ask and you will receive." So I ask. If it is for His glory He will grant it, if not, let us forget about it. God knows what is good for us.

September 8

To my co-workers: Keep giving Jesus to your people, not by words but by your example, by being in love with Jesus, by radiating His holiness and spreading His fragrance of love everywhere you go. Just keep the joy of Jesus as your strength. Be happy and at peace. You belong to him. Tell him: "I am yours - and if you cut me to pieces, every single piece will be only yours."

September 7

Where is God? We believe He is everywhere - He is the creator, He is everything. But where is He to my human eyes? To make it possible for me to see the face of God with my human eyes, He has made Himself the hungry one, the naked one, the homeless one, the lonely one and He says: "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren you do it to me." Gandhiji has said: "He who serves the poor serves God."

September 6

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 on 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 a the thought of helping others.

September 5

We must be able to make a distinction between self-knowledge and sin. Self-knowledge will help one to rise up, whereas sin is a weakness that leads to repeated sin and despondency. Deep confidence and trust will come through self-knowledge. Then you will turn to Jesus to support you in your weakness whereas if you think you are strong, you will not need our Lord.

September 4

To students: The wise observation by Pope Pius XII that the direction that society will take tomorrow depends mainly on the minds and hearts of today's university students, is an invitation to you to be aware of the privilege and the responsibility that so many of you have today, as young people in an institute of learning. The university offers you a whole array of excellent means for completing your formation. You must not, however, think of yourself alone. You are called to build up human society. As university students you have at your disposal abundant means that you must learn to know and appreciate fully.

September 3

The presence of the nuclear bomb in the world has created fear and distrust among nations as it is one more weapon to destroy human life, which is God's beautiful presence in the world. How can peace be established? Only if we love each other. The greedy who are fighting for power and money do not know love and love alone can help establish peace in the family, society and in the world.

September 2

Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be a living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting. To children, to the poor, to all who suffer and are lonely, give always a happy smile. Give them not only your care, but also your heart.

September 1

The other day I received 15 dollars from　a man who has been on his back for twenty years and the only part that he can move is his right hand. And the only companion that he enjoys is smoking. And he said to me:"I do not smoke for one week, and I send you this money." It must have been a terrible sacrifice for him but see how beautiful, how he shared. And with that money I brought bread and I gave to those who are hungry with a joy on both sides. He was giving and the poor were receiving