Mother Teresa: In the Heart of the World

What Does the "Hail Mary" Mean?

When you look at the inner workings of electrical things, you often see small and big wires, new and old, cheap and expensive, all lined up. Until the current passes through them, there will be no light.

That wire is you and me. The current is God. We have the power to let the current pass through us, use us, produce the light of the world. Or we can refuse to be used and allow darkness to spread.

Our Lady was the most wonderful wire. She allowed God to fill her. By her surrender — "Be it done to me according to the word" — she became "full of grace." "Full of grace" means full of God. The moment she was filled by this current, by the grace of God, she went in haste to Elizabeth's house to connect the wire, John, to the current, Jesus. As His mother said, "This child, John, leaped up with joy at your voice."

Let us ask Our Lady to come into our lives also and make the current use us to go around the world — especially in our own communities — so that we can continue connecting the wires of the hearts of men and women with the current of love.

What Does the 'Holy, Holy, Holy' Prayer Mean?

To become holy we need humility and prayer. Jesus taught us how to pray, and He also told us to learn from Him to be meek and humble of heart. Both humility and prayer grow from an ear, mind, and tongue that have lived in silence with God, for in the silence of the heart God speaks.

Be faithful in little things, for in them your strength lies. To the good God nothing is little, because He is so great and we are so small. That is why He stoops down and takes the trouble to make those little things for us — to give us a chance to prove our love for Him. Because He makes them, they are very great. He cannot make anything small; his creations are infinite.

Shine Through Me

Help me speak your fragrance wherever I go.
Flood my soul with your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly
that my life may be only a radiance of yours.
Shine through me and be so in me that every soul
I come in contact with may feel your presence in my soul.
Let them look up, and see no longer me,
but only Jesus!
Stay with me and then I will begin to shine as you
shine, so to shine as to be a light to others.
The light, O Jesus, will be all from you;
none of it will be mine.
It will be you, shining on others through me.
Let me thus praise you in the way that you love
best, by shining on those around me.
Let me preach to you without preaching, not by
words but by example,
by the catching force,
the sympathetic influence of what I do,
the evident fullness of the love my heart bears for you.
Amen.

What Does the "Shine Through" Prayer Mean?

Every day, after holy communion, my sisters and I recite the prayer above, which was composed by Car-dinal Newman.

One thing I ask of you: Never be afraid of giving. There is a deep joy in giving, since what we receive is much more than what we give.

Don't search for Jesus in far lands — He is not there. He is close to you; He is with you. Just keep the lamp burning and you will always see Him. Keep on filling the lamp with all these little drops of love, and you will see how sweet is the Lord you love.

The fullness of our heart is expressed in our eyes, in our touch, in what we write, in what we say, in the way we walk, the way we receive, the way we serve. That is the fullness of our heart expressing itself in many different ways.

I wish to live in this world, which is so far from God, which has turned so much from the light of Jesus, to help them, our poor — to take upon me something of their sufferings. For only by being one with them can we redeem them — that is, by bringing God into their lives and bringing them to God. Even God cannot force Himself on anyone who does not want Him. Faith is a gift.