Mother Teresa: All for Jesus 

As we should expect, Mother Teresa’s idea of holiness was simple and direct. For her, sanctity begins with humility and ends with surrender to God’s will. 

“You know, I’m only a little pencil in the hand of God, a God who is about to write a love letter to the world,” she was fond of saying.cii Mother understood that the path to holiness lies in following St. John the Baptist’s advice: “He must increase; I must decrease” (John 3:30). She learned that the more she emptied herself, the more her mystical spouse—Jesus Christ—could fill and empower her. She was to be Jesus’ hands, feet, voice, and smile. Mother Teresa then became God’s “love letter,” and that letter allowed us a peek at heaven. 

Mother Teresa’s daily encounter with the risen Lord Jesus began with Mass and a holy hour. She and her fellow Missionaries of Charity followed a rigorous schedule, rising at 4:40 a.m. They attended community prayer in the chapel at 5 a.m., followed by household chores and Mass. After breakfast, they went to work at their missionary assignments before returning for lunch, midday prayer, a thirty-minute nap, prayer in the chapel, and then afternoon tea. After that, more prayer and spiritual reading, then more missionary work, followed by an hour of prayer before dinner. Each day concluded with night prayers.

“We try to pray through our work by doing it with Jesus, for Jesus, to Jesus,” Mother said. “That helps us to put our whole heart and soul into doing it. The dying, the cripple, the [mentally ill], the unwanted, the unloved—they are Jesus in disguise.”

Mother began her ministry to the sick and dying not by waiting for them to come to her but by seeking them out on the streets of Calcutta (and, before long, the world). Like Jesus searching for lost sinners or the shepherd looking for his lost sheep, Mother would walk the streets looking for men and women in distress. To seek out the forgotten and abandoned is to embrace the heart of God, who always takes the initiative to love and rescue His children. It is an expression of divine mercy, which refuses to remain indifferent when a single person is suffering or lost. For Mother, Jesus was first—and it was Jesus she found in those she cared for. She had an uncanny ability to see the destitute that her colleagues missed. 

Mother Teresa was in a car on her way to New Delhi in 1999 to meet with John Paul II during his three-day visit to India. Along the way, she noticed a person with leprosy at the side of the road. She ordered the driver to pull the car over. She got out and started to minister to the leper. 

When Mother returned to the car after conversing at length with the impoverished man, one of the Indian cardinals gently chided the nun for keeping the Vicar of Christ waiting. She calmly replied: “Yes, I know, but I met Christ on the road.”

“All for Jesus” was another of Mother Teresa’s mantras. When things were difficult, she bore her sufferings for her Savior by reminding herself and her companions that their toil and sufferings were for the Lord. She had a pure, childlike desire to please Jesus and his mother. She often left this inscription on her books: “Be all for Jesus through Mary.” Her fondest desire was to imitate Jesus’ first and most perfect disciple—his mother. “Let our gratitude be our strong resolution to be only all for Jesus through Mary,” she wrote in 1990. “Let us be pure and humble like Mary, and we are sure to be holy like Jesus.”cvi 

Reporters and friends often asked Mother to define prayer. Again, the answer was simple: “God speaks to me—and I speak to him. It’s that simple. That is prayer.” She continued, “If I pray to Jesus, then it’s from my heart to Jesus’ Heart. When I pray to the Mother of God, then it’s from my heart to Mary’s heart. When I pray to my guardian angel, then it’s also heart to heart.

Dive into the beautiful friendship between John Paul II and Mother Teresa in Icons of Mercy by Patrick Novecosky. Order your copy today!