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Interview with Mother Teresa

Time: What did you do this morning?
Mother Teresa: Pray.
Time: When did you start?
Mother Teresa: Half-past four
Time: And after prayer
Mother Teresa: We try to pray through our work by doing it with Jesus, for Jesus,
to Jesus. That helps us to put our whole heart and soul into doing it. The dying, the
cripple, the mental, the unwanted, the unloved they are Jesus in disguise.
Time: People know you as a sort of religious social worker. Do they understand
the spiritual basis of your work?
Mother Teresa: I don't know. But I give them a chance to come and touch the
poor. Everybody has to experience that. So many young people give up everything
to do just that. This is something so completely unbelievable in the world, no? And
yet it is wonderful. Our volunteers go back different people.
Time: Does the fact that you are a woman make your message more
understandable?
Mother Teresa: I never think like that.
Time: But don't you think the world responds better to a mother?
Mother Teresa: People are responding not because of me, but because of what
we're doing. Before, people were speaking much about the poor, but now more and
more people are speaking to the poor. That's the great difference. The work has
created this. The presence of the poor is known now, especially the poorest of the
poor, the unwanted, the loved, the uncared-for. Before, nobody bothered about the
people in the street. We have picked up from the streets of Calcutta 54,000 people,
and 23,000 something have died in that one room [at Kalighat].
Time: Why have you been so successful?
Mother Teresa: Jesus made Himself the bread of life to give us life. That's where
we begin the day, with Mass. And we end the day with Adoration of the Blessed
Sacrament. I don't think that I could do this work for even one week if I didn't
have four hours of prayer every day.
Time: Humble as you are, it must be an extraordinary thing to be a vehicle of
God's grace in the world.
Mother Teresa: But it is His work. I think God wants to show His greatness by
using nothingness.
Time: You are nothingness?

Mother Teresa: I'm very sure of that.

Time: You feel you have no special qualities?
Mother Teresa: I don't think so. I don't claim anything of the work. It's His work.
I'm like a little pencil in His hand. That's all. He does the thinking. He does the
writing. The pencil has nothing to do it. The pencil has only to be allowed to be
used. In human terms, the success of our work should not have happened, no? That
is a sign that it's His work, and that He is using others as instruments - all our
Sisters. None of us could produce this. Yet see what He has done.
Time: What is God's greatest gift to you?
Mother Teresa: The poor people.
Time: How are they a gift?
Mother Teresa: I have an opportunity to be with Jesus 24 hours a day.
Time: Here in Calcutta, have you created a real change?
Mother Teresa: I think so. People are aware of the presence and also many, many,
many Hindu people share with us. They come and feed the people and they serve
the people. Now we never see a person lying there in the street dying. It has
created a worldwide awareness of the poor.
Time: Beyond showing the poor to the world, have you conveyed any message
about how to work with the poor?
Mother Teresa: You must make them feel loved and wanted. They are Jesus for
me. I believe in that much more than doing big things for them.
Time: What's your greatest hope here in India?
Mother Teresa: To give Jesus to all.
Time: But you do not evangelize in the conventional sense of the term.
Mother Teresa: I'm evangelizing by my works of love.
Time: Is that the best way?
Mother Teresa: For us, yes. For somebody else, something else. I'm evangelizing
the way God wants me to. Jesus said go and preach to all the nations. We are now
in so many nations preaching the Gospel by our works of love. "By the love that
you have for one another will they know you are my disciples." That's the
preaching that we are doing, and I think that is more real.
Time: Friends of yours say that you are disappointed that your work has not
brought more conversions in this great Hindu nation.
Mother Teresa: Missionaries don't think of that. They only want to proclaim the
Word of God. Numbers have nothing to do with it. But the people are putting
prayer into action by coming and serving the people. Continually people are
coming to feed and serve, so many, you go and see. Everywhere people are
helping. We don't know the future. But the door is already open to Christ. There

may not be a big conversion like that, but we don't know what is happening in the
soul.
Time: What do you think of Hinduism?
Mother Teresa: I love all religions, but I am in love with my own. No discussion.
That's what we have to prove to them. Seeing what I do, they realize that I am in
love with Jesus.
Time: And they should love Jesus too?
Mother Teresa: Naturally, if they want peace, if they want joy, let them find
Jesus. If people become better Hindus, better Moslems, better Buddhists by our
acts of love, then there is something else growing there. They come closer and
closer to God. When they come closer, they have to choose.
Time: You and John Paul II, among other Church leaders, have spoken out against
certain lifestyles in the West, against materialism and abortion. How alarmed are
you?
Mother Teresa: I always say one thing: If a mother can kill her own child, then
what is left of the West to be destroyed? It is difficult to explain , but it is just that.
Time: When you spoke at Harvard University a few years ago, you said abortion
was a great evil and people booed. What did you think when people booed you?
Mother Teresa: I offered it to our Lord. It's all for Him, no? I let Him say what He
wants.
Time: But these people who booed you would say that they also only want the
best for women?
Mother Teresa: That may be. But we must tell the truth.
Time: And that is?
Mother Teresa: We have no right to kill. Thou shalt not kill, a commandment of
God. And still should we kill the helpless one, the little one? You see we get so
excited because people are throwing bombs and so many are being killed. For the
grown ups, there is so much excitement in the world. But that little one in the
womb, not even a sound? He cannot even escape. That child is the poorest of the
poor.
Time: Is materialism in the West an equally serious problem?
Mother Teresa: I don't know. I have so many things to think about. I pray lots
about that, but I am not occupied by that. Take our congregation for example, we
have very little, so we have nothing to be preoccupied with. The more you have,
the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free
you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not a mortification, a penance. It is joyful
freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. This is the only fan in the
whole house. It doesn't matter how hot it is, and it is for the guests. But we are
perfectly happy.
Time: How do you find rich people then?

Mother Teresa: I find the rich much poorer. Sometimes they are more lonely
inside. They are never satisfied. They always need something more. I don't say all
of them are like that. Everybody is not the same. I find that poverty hard to
remove. The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for
bread.
Time: What is the saddest place you've ever visited?
Mother Teresa: I don't know. I can't remember. It's a sad thing to see people
suffer., especially the broken family, unloved, uncared for. It's a big sadness; it's
always the children who suffer most when there is no love in the family. That's a
terrible suffering. Very difficult because you can do nothing. That is the great
poverty. You feel helpless. But if you pick up a person dying of hunger, you give
him food and it is finished.
Time: Why has your order grown so quickly?
Mother Teresa: When I as young people why they want to join us, they say they
want the life of prayer, the life of poverty and the life of service to the poorest of
the poor. One very rich girl wrote to me and said for a very long time she had been
longing to become a nun. When she met us, she said I won't have to give up
anything even if I give up everything. You see, that is the mentality of the young
today. We have many vocations.
Time: There's been some criticism of the very severe regimen under which you
and your Sisters live.
Mother Teresa: We chose that. That is the difference between us and the poor.
Because what will bring us closer to our poor people? How can we be truthful to
them if we lead a different life? If we have everything possible that money can
give, that the world can give, then what is our connection to the poor? What
language will I speak to them? Now if the people tell me it is so hot, I can say you
come and see my room.
Time: Just as hot?
Mother Teresa: Much hotter even, because there is a kitchen underneath. A man
came and stayed here as a cook at the children's home. He was rich before and
became very poor. Lost everything. He came and said, "Mother Teresa, I cannot
eat that food." I said, "I am eating it every day." He looked at me and said, "You
eat it too? All right, I will eat it also." And he left perfectly happy. Now if I could
not tell him the truth, that man would have remained bitter. He would never have
accepted his poverty. He would never have accepted to have that food when he
was used to other kinds of food. That helped him to forgive, to forget.
Time: What's the most joyful place that you have ever visited?
Mother Teresa: Kalighat. When the people die in peace, in the love of God, it is a
wonderful thing. To see our poor people happy together with their families, these
are beautiful things. The real poor know what is joy.
Time: There are people who would say that it's an illusion to think of the poor as
joyous, that they must be given housing, raised up.
Mother Teresa: The material is not the only thing that gives joy. Something
greater than that, the deep sense of peace in the heart. They are content. That is the

great difference between rich and poor.

Time: But what about those people who are oppressed? Who are taken advantage
of?
Mother Teresa: There will always be people like that. That is why we must come
and share the joy of loving with them.
Time: Should the Church's role be just to make the poor as joyous in Christ as
they can be made?
Mother Teresa: You and I, we are the Church, no? We have to share with our
people. Suffering today is because people are hoarding, not giving, not sharing.
Jesus made it very clear. Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do it to
me. Give a glass of water, you give it to me. Receive a little child, you receive me.
Clear.
Time: If you speak to a political leader who could do more for his people, do you
tell him that he must do better?
Mother Teresa: I don't say it like that. I say share the joy of loving with your
people. Because a politician maybe cannot do the feeding as I do. But he should be
clear in his mind to give proper rules and proper regulations to help his people.
Time: It is my job to keep politicians honest, and your job to share joy with the
poor.
Mother Teresa: Exactly. And it is to be for the good of the people and the glory of
God. This will be really fruitful. Like a man says to me that you are spoiling the
people by giving them fish to eat. You have to give them a rod to catch the fish.
And I said my people cannot even stand, still less hold a rod. But I will give them
the fish to eat, and when they are strong enough, I will hand them over to you. And
you give them the rod to catch the fish. That is a beautiful combination, no?
Time: Feminist Catholic nuns sometimes say that you should pour your energy
into getting the Vatican to ordain women.
Mother Teresa: That does not touch me.
Time: What do you think of the feminist movement among nuns in the West?
Mother Teresa: I think we should be more busy with our Lord than with all that,
more busy with Jesus and proclaiming His Word. What a woman can give, no man
can give. That is why God has created them separately. Nuns, women, any woman.
Woman is created to be the heart of the family, the heart of love. If we miss that,
we miss everything. They give that love in the family or they give it in service,
that is what their creation is for.
Time: The world wants to know more about you.
Mother Teresa: No, no. Let them come to know the poor. I want them to love the
poor. I want them to try to find the poor in their own families first, to bring peace
and joy and love in the family first.
Time: Malcolm Muggeridge once said that if you had not become a Sister and not

found Christ's love, you would be a very hard woman. Do you think that is true?
Mother Teresa: I don't know. I have no time to think about these things.
Time: People who work with you say that you are unstoppable. You always get
what you want.
Mother Teresa: That's right. All for Jesus.
Time: And if they have a problem with that?
Mother Teresa: For example, I went to a person recently who would not give me
what I needed. I said God bless you, and I went on. He called me back and said
what would you say if I give you that thing. I said I will give you a "God bless
you" and a big smile. That is all. So he said then come, I will give it to you. We
must live the simplicity of the Gospel.
Time: You once met Haile Mariam Mengistu, the much feared communist leader
of Ethiopia and an avowed atheist. You asked him if he said his prayers. Why did
you risk that?
Mother Teresa: He is one more child of God. When I went to China, one of the
top officials asked me, "What is a communist to you?" I said, "A child of God."
Then the next morning the newspapers reported that Mother Teresa said
communists are children of God. I was happy because after a long, long time the
name God was printed in the papers in China. Beautiful.
Time: Are you ever been afraid?
Mother Teresa: No, I am only afraid of offending God. We are all human beings,
that is our weakness, no? The devil would do anything to destroy us, to take us
away from Jesus.
Time: Where do you see the devil at work?
Mother Teresa: Everywhere. When a person is longing to come closer to God he
puts temptation in the way to destroy the desire. Sin comes everywhere, in the best
of places.
Time: What is your greatest fear?
Mother Teresa: I have Jesus, I have no fear.
Time: What is your greatest disappointment?
Mother Teresa: I do the will of God, no? In doing the will of God there is no
disappointment.
Time: Do your work and spiritual life become easier with time?
Mother Teresa: Yes, the closer we come to Jesus, the more we become the work.
Because you know to whom you are doing it, with whom you are doing it and for
whom you are doing it. That is very clear. That is why we need a clean heart to see
God.

Time: What are your plans for the future?

Mother Teresa: I just take one day. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not come.
We have only today to love Jesus.
Time: And the future of the order?
Mother Teresa: It is His concern.