May 31

Take away your eyes from yourself and rejoice that you have nothing - that you are nothing - that you can do nothing. Give Jesus a big smile each time your nothingness frightens you. Just keep the joy of Jesus as your strength - be happy and at peace, accept whatever He takes with a big smile.

May 30

Thous shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, with thy whole soul and with al thy mind. This is the command of our great God, and He cannot command the impossible.

May 29

My prayer for you will be that you may grow in the likeness of Christ through your kindness, through your compassion and through your healing power that God has entrusted to you. And you pray for us that we may keep doing God's work with great love, that we don't spoil His work.

May 28

To the students of medicine: I beg of you not to add to the millions of doctors already present who are just doing out medicines. You must treat each patient with love and compassion and fulfill all the hopes they come with. Your hands are instruments of peace and are used to restore life while at the same time others use them to cause destruction. Peace in the world is brought about not by force but by love.

May 27

The same is true for our sufferers of leprosy, the same for our crippled, for our unloved, for our uncared. It is the same thing; they need love, they need compassion, they need a human touch. Touch the sufferer of leprosy with your kindness.

May 26

I can give you nothing, I have nothing to give - but what I want from you is that when we look together and we see the poor in our own family, we begin at home to love until it hurts. If we know our own people we will know then who is our next door neighbor. Do we know the people around us? In one of the houses the Sisters visited, a woman living alone had been dead for many days before she was found and the people around her did not even know her name.

May 25

Let us ask our Lady, in a very special way: Mary, mother of Jesus, be a mother to each of us, that we, like you, may be pure in earth, that we, like you, love Jesus; that we, like you, serve the poorest for we are all poor. First let love our neighbors and so fulfill God's desire that we become carriers of His love and compassion.

May 24

When I was invited to China, I was asked, "What is a communist to you?" And I said: A child of God, my brother and my sister. And nobody had another word to say. There was perfect silence. And it is true, because the same loving hand created you, created me, created the man on the street.

May 23

Every human being comes from God. We all know what is the love of God for us. Whatever we believe, we know that if we really want to love, we must learn to forgive. We must radiate God's love.

May 22

Love begins at home; love lives in homes, and that is why there is so much suffering and so much unhappiness in the world today. If we listen to Jesus, He will tell us what Je said before: "Love one other, as I have loved you." He has loved us through suffering, dying on the Cross for us, and so if we are to love one another, if we are to bring that love into life again, we have to begin at home.

May 21

Become holy. Each one of us has a capacity to become holy and the way to holiness is prayer.

May 20

Give a person tender love and care. Your radiating concern, your radiating joy will give that person great hope.

May 19

Whereas you work to bring about peace, why is it you do not work, they ask, to lessen war? If you are working for peace, that peace lessens war. But I won't mix in politics. War is the fruit of politics, and so I don't involve myself, that's all. If I get stuck in politics, I will stop loving. Because I will have to stand by one, and not by all. This is the difference.

May 18

Even though I cannot personally meet and talk to each one of you, you are in my daily prayer. My deep gratitude to you for all the ways in which you help us by serving the poor alongside us, and for all your prayers and sacrifices. Your sufferings accepted in love by Jesus are the source of many graces. You are sharing wholeheartedly in all we do.

May 17

For us to be able to love we need to see, we need to touch, and that is why we read in the Scriptures, Jesus made the poor the hope of salvation for you and for me.

May 16

I think it is very important for us as co-workers to put that understanding love into action. A co-worker is not a name only. A co-worker is not first belonging to something. Any person who carries that love, who shares that love is a co-worker in action. And so let us come to this simple definition of a co-worker: "A co-worker is a person who puts her love for God into living action and service for the poor. Where? In the family first and then for others. We must not neglect our homes and go out before we have started inside and begin with ourselves first. Then, because we have practiced that, we are able to give to others.

May 15

To women: "You and I, being women we have this tremendous thing in us, understanding love. I see that so beautifully in our people, in our poor women, who day after day, meet suffering, accept suffering for the sake of their children. I have seen mothers going without so many things, even resorting to begging, so that the children may have what they need.

May 14

A gentleman once came to me and said that he wanted to give a big donation. After giving the donation, he said, "That is something outside of me,, but I want to give something of me." Sp he comes regularly to the Home for the Dying at Kalighat and talks to the people there who are sick and dying, helps them to bathe and shave. He wanted to give something of himself and now he is giving it.

May 13

Riches can suffocate if they are not used in the right way, whether they are spiritual riches or material.

May 12

It is one thing to say I am a sinner, but let someone else say that about me and then I feel it - I am up in arms. If I am falsely accused I may suffer, whereas if correction be founded on even a small reality - something in me having deserved it - then often it hurts more. We must be happy that our faults are known as they are.

May 11

I could not help but examine my conscience before her. And I asked: What would I say if I was in her place? And my answer was very simple. I would have tried to draw a little attention to myself. I would have said: I am hungry, I am dying, I am cold, I am in pain, or something. She gave me much more than I gave her. This is the greatest love.

May 10

Those who are materially poor can be very wonderful people. One evening we went out and we picked up four people from the street. And one of them was in a most terrible condition. I told the Sisters: You take care of the other three; I will take care of the one who looks worse. So I did for her all that my love can do. I put her in bed, and there was such a beautiful smile on her face. She took hold of my hand, as she said one word only; "Thank you" - and she died.

May 9

When I pick up a hungry person from the street, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread. But a person who is shut out, who feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person who has been thrown out of society - that spiritual poverty is much harder to overcome.

May 8

For me, life is the most beautiful gift of God to mankind, therefore people and nations who destroy life by abortion and euthanasia are the poorest. I do not say legal or illegal, but I think that no human hand should be raised to kill life, since life is God's life in us, even in an unborn child.

May 7

I feel Indian to the most profound depths of my soul. The Missionaries of Charity share in their way of dressing, the way of life of the poorest in this world. Of course India needs technicians, skilled men, economists, doctors, nurses for her development. She needs plans and a general co-ordinated action. Meanwhile, people have to live, they have to be given food to eat, be taken care of and dressed. Our field of work is the present India. While these needs continue, our work will continue.

May 6

We must acknowledge the dignity of the poor, respect them, esteem them, love them, serve them. Often I think they are the ones to whom we owe our greatest gratitude. They teach us by their faith, their resignation, their patience in suffering. They allow us to help them. We should experience not pity but compassion towards the poor.

May 5

What do we ask? "Give us this day our daily bread." What is our daily bread? It is peace and love. Besides the bread for our bodies, we need that other bread for our sous to be able to live. For man does not live on bread alone. And each of us before we pass the prayer on to somebody else, let us put that prayer into life. Let us spread the good news that prayer is our strength.

May 4

Pray at home for only five minutes. Prayer is simple talking to God. He speaks to us, we listen. We speak to Him, He listens. A two-way process: speaking and listening.

May 3

I am sure that all people know deep down inside that the little child in the mother's womb is a human being from the moment of conception, created in the image of God to love and to be loved. Let us pray that nobody wil be afraid to protect that little child, to help that little child to be born. Jesus said: "If you receive a little child in my name, you receive me."

May 2

I appeal to you, young people - you the hope of our country, you the joy of our country, bring that joy with peace in our homes, in our country, and we will be able to be the sunshine of God's love in the whole world.

May 1

People who love each other fully and truly are the happiest people in the world. They may have little, they may have nothing but they are happy people. Everything depends on how we love one another.