From the book, “Mother Teresa of Calcutta”. . . .
In her speech at the United Nations in New York, Mother Teresa told simple little stories, just as she did in all her catechism lessons, in her heavily English, as in the following:
I never forget, some time ago, two young people came to our house and gave me lots of money. And I asked them “Where did you get so much money?” And they said, “Two days ago we got married. Before marriage, we decided we will not buy wedding clothes. We will not have [a] wedding feast. We will give you that money.” And I know in our country, in a Hindu family, what that means, not to have wedding clothes, not to have a wedding feast. So again I asked, “But why? Why did you do like that?” And they said, “We loved each other so much that we wanted to share the joy of loving with the people you serve.” How do we experience the joy of loving? How do we experience that? By giving until it hurts.
When I was going to Ethiopia, little children [in Calcutta] came to me. They heard I was going there. And they came. They had come to know from the Sisters how much the children are suffering in Ethiopia. And they came and each one gave something, very, very small money. And some, whatever they had, they gave. And a little boy came to me and said, “I have nothing, I have no money, I have nothing. But I have this piece of chocolate. And you give that, take that with you and you give it to the children in Ethiopia.” That little child loved with a great love, because I think that was the first time he had a piece of chocolate in his hand. And he gave it. He gave it with joy to be able to share, to remove a little [of] the suffering of someone in far Ethiopia. This is the joy of loving: to give until it hurts. It hurt Jesus to love us, for He dies on the cross, to teach us how to love. And this is the way we too must love: until it hurts.1
- Mother Teresa, “One Strong Resolution: I Will Love” (Address to the United Nations on the occasion of its 40th Anniversary, October 26, 1985).
(Posts with a preamble asterisk * are for a more general audience and not specific to the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
