Interview with Mother Teresa

This is an excerpt of one of the last interviews with Mother Teresa conducted by Edward W.
Desmond in 1989 for Time magazine. Excerpts from the interview appeared in Time magazine
and the full text of the interview appeared in The National Catholic Register. Photos below copied
from an unknown Infoseek url.

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.

Edward W. Desmond in 1989 for Time magazine

If you want your dreams to be, take your time, grow slowly,
Small beginnings - Greater ends, heartfelt work grows surely

Books by Mother Teresa

(she spells her name Teresa, not Theresa)

The things lightly esteemed by man, God highly honors,

"...a pencil in the hand of God...."