Conference yukon::christian_v7

410.0. "Mother Teresa's recent speech" by KOLBE::eje (Eric James Ewanco) Sun Feb 20 1994 08:00

The following is a transcript of the speech given by Mother Teresa at a
White House prayer breakfast (the one that make Bill Clinton squirm). I
thought many of you would enjoy it.

WHATEVER YOU DID UNTO ONE OF THE LEAST, YOU DID UNTO ME

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

On the last day, Jesus will say to those on His right hand, "Come, enter
the Kingdom.  For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you
gave me drink, I was sick and you visited me."  Then Jesus will turn to
those on His left hand and say, "Depart from me because I was hungry and
you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me to drink, I was
sick and you did not visit me."  These will ask Him, "When did we see You
hungry, or thirsty or sick and did not come to Your help?"  And Jesus will
answer them, "Whatever you neglected to do unto one of these least of
these, you neglected to do unto Me!"

As we have gathered here to pray together, I think it will be beautiful if
we begin with a prayer that expresses very well what Jesus wants us to do
for the least.  St. Francis of Assisi understood very well these words of
Jesus and His life is very well expressed by a prayer.  And this prayer,
which we say every day after Holy Communion, always surprises me very
much, because it is very fitting for each one of us.  And I always wonder
whether 800 years ago when St. Francis lived, they had the same
difficulties that we have today.  I think that some of you already have
this prayer of peace - so we will pray it together.

Let us thank God for the opportunity He has given us today to have come
here to pray together.  We have come here especially to pray for peace, joy
and love.  We are reminded that Jesus came to bring the good news to the
poor.  He had told us what is that good news when He said: "My peace I
leave with you, My peace I give unto you."  He came not to give the peace
of the world which is only that we don't bother each other.  He came to
give the peace of heart which comes from loving - from doing good to
others.

And God loved the world so much that He gave His son - it was a giving.
God gave His son to the Virgin Mary, and what did she do with Him?  As soon
as Jesus came into Mary's life, immediately she went in haste to give that
good news.  And as she came into the house of her cousin, Elizabeth,
Scripture tells us that the unborn child - the child in the womb of
Elizabeth - leapt with joy.  While still in the womb of Mary - Jesus brought
peace to John the Baptist who leapt for joy in the womb of Elizabeth.

And as if that were not enough, as if it were not enough that God the Son
should become one of us and bring peace and joy while still in the womb of
Mary, Jesus also died on the Cross to show that greater love.  He died for
you and for me, and for the leper and for that man dying of hunger and
that naked person lying in the street, no only of Calcutta, but of Africa,
and everywhere.  Our Sisters serve these poor people in 105 countries
throughout the world.  Jesus insisted that we love one another as He loves
each one of us.  Jesus gave His life to love us and He tells us that we
also have to give whatever it takes to do good to one another.  And in the
Gospel Jesus says very clearly: "Love as I have loved you."

Jesus died on the Cross because that is what it took for Him to do good to
us - to save us from our selfishness in sin.  He gave up everything to do
the Father's will - to show us that we too must be willing to give up
everything to do God's will - to love one another as He loves each of us.
If we are not willing to give whatever it takes to do good to one another,
sin is still in us.  That is why we too must give to each other until it
hurts.

It is not enough for us to say: "I love God," but I also have to love my
neighbor.  St. John says that you are a liar if you say you love God and
you don't love your neighbor.  How can you love God whom you do not see, if
you do not love your neighbor whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you
live?  And so it is very important for us to realize that love, to be true,
has to hurt.  I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm other
people and, in fact, to do good to them.  This requires that I be willing
to give until it hurts.  Otherwise, there is not true love in me and I
bring injustice, not peace, to those around me.

It hurt Jesus to love us.  We have been created in His image for greater
things, to love and to be loved.  We must "put on Christ" as Scripture
tells us.  And so, we have been created to love as He loves us.  Jesus
makes Himself the hungry one, the naked one, the homeless one, the unwanted
one, and He says, "You did it to Me."  On the last day He will say to those
on His right, "whatever you did to the least of these, you did to Me, and He
will also say to those on His left, whatever you neglected to do for the
least of these, you neglected to do it for Me."

When He was dying on the Cross, Jesus said, "I thirst."  Jesus is thirsting
for our love, and this is the thirst of everyone, poor and rich alike.  We
all thirst for the love of others, that they go out of their way to avoid
harming us and to do good to us.  This is the meaning of true love, to give
until it hurts.

I can never forget the experience I had in visiting a home where they kept
all these old parents of sons and daughters who had just put them into an
institution and forgotten them - maybe.  I saw that in that home these old
people had everything - good food, comfortable place, television,
everything, but everyone was looking toward the door.  And I did not see a
single one with a smile on the face.  I turned to Sister and I asked: "Why
do these people who have every comfort here, why are they all looking
toward the door?  Why are they not smiling?"

I am so used to seeing the smiles on our people, even the dying ones smile.
And Sister said: "This is the way it is nearly everyday.  They are
expecting, they are hoping that a son or daughter will come to visit them.
They are hurt because they are forgotten."  And see, this neglect to love
brings spiritual poverty.  Maybe in our own family we have somebody who is
feeling lonely, who is feeling sick, who is feeling worried.  Are we there?
Are we willing to give until it hurts in order to be with our families, or
do we put our own interests first?  These are the questions we must ask
ourselves, especially as we begin this year of the family.  We must
remember that love begins at home and we must also remember that 'the
future of humanity passes through the family.'

I was surprised in the West to see so many young boys and girls given to
drugs.  And I tried to find out why.  Why is it like that, when those in
the West have so many more things than those in the East?  And the answer
was: 'Because there is no one in the family to receive them.'  Our children
depend on us for everything - their health, their nutrition, their
security, their coming to know and love God.  For all of this, they look to
us with trust, hope and expectation.  But often father and mother are so
busy they have no time for their children, or perhaps they are not even
married or have given up on their marriage.  So their children go to the
streets and get involved in drugs or other things.  We are talking of love
of the child, which is were love and peace must begin.  These are the things
that break peace.

But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because
it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child,
murder by the mother herself.  And if we accept that a mother can kill even
her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?  How
do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion?  As always, we must persuade
her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to
give until it hurts.  Jesus gave even His life to love us.  So, the mother
who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give
until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her
child.  The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it
hurts.

By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child
to solve her problems.  And, by abortion, that father is told that he does
not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought
into the world.  The father is likely to put other women into the same
trouble.  So abortion just leads to more abortion.  Any country that
accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence
to get what they want.  This is why the greatest destroyer of love and
peace is abortion.

Many people are very, very concerned with the children of India, with the
children of Africa where quite a few die of hunger, and so on.  Many people
are also concerned about all the violence in this great country of the
United States.  These concerns are very good.  But often these same people
are not concerned with the millions who are being killed by the deliberate
decision of their own mothers.  And this is what is the greatest destroyer
of peace today - abortion which brings people to such blindness.

And for this I appeal in India and I appeal everywhere - "Let us bring the
child back."  The child is God's gift to the family.  Each child is created
in the special image and likeness of God for greater things - to love and
to be loved.  In this year of the family we must bring the child back to
the center of our care and concern.  This is the only way that our world
can survive because our children are the only hope for the future.  As
older people are called to God, only their children can take their places.

But what does God say to us?  He says: "Even if a mother could forget her
child, I will not forget you.  I have carved you in the palm of my hand."
We are carved in the palm of His hand; that unborn child has been carved in
the hand of God from conception and is called by God to love and to be
loved, not only now in this life, but forever.  God can never forget us.

I will tell you something beautiful.  We are fighting abortion by adoption
- by care of the mother and adoption for her baby.  We have saved thousands
of lives.  We have sent word to the clinics, to the hospitals and police
stations: "Please don't destroy the child; we will take the child."  So we
always have someone tell the mothers in trouble: "Come, we will take care
of you, we will get a home for your child."  And we have a tremendous
demand from couples who cannot have a child - but I never give a child to a
couple who have done something not to have a child.  Jesus said, "Anyone
who receives a child in my name, receives me."  By adopting a child, these
couples receive Jesus but, by aborting a child, a couple refuses to receive
Jesus.

Please don't kill the child.  I want the child.  Please give me the child.
I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that
child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child.
>From our children's home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3000
children from abortion.  These children have brought such love and joy to
their adopting parents and have grown up so full of love and joy.

I know that couples have to plan their family and for that there is natural
family planning.  The way to plan the family is natural family planning, not
contraception.  In destroying the power of giving life, through
contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self.  This turns
the attention to self and so it destroys the gifts of love in him or her.
In loving, the husband and wife must turn the attention to each other as
happens in natural family planning, and not to self, as happens in
contraception.  Once that living love is destroyed by contraception,
abortion follows very easily.

I also know that there are great problems in the world - that many spouses
do not love each other enough to practice natural family planning.  We
cannot solve all the problems in the world, but let us never bring in the
worst problem of all, and that is to destroy love.  And this is what
happens when we tell people to practice contraception and abortion.

The poor are very great people.  They can teach us so many beautiful things.
Once one of them came to thank us for teaching her natural family planning
and said: "You people who have practiced chastity, you are the best people
to teach us natural family planning because it is nothing more than
self-control out of love for each other."  And what this poor person said
is very true.  These poor people maybe have nothing to eat, maybe they have
not a home to live in, but they can still be great people when they are
spiritually rich.

When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of
rice, a piece of bread.  But a person who is shut out, who feels unwanted,
unloved, terrified, the person who has been thrown out of society - that
spiritual poverty is much harder to overcome.  And abortion, which often
follows from contraception, brings a people to be spiritually poor, and
that is the worst poverty and the most difficult to overcome.

Those who are materially poor can be very wonderful people.  One evening we
went out and we picked up four people from the street.  And one of them was
in a most terrible condition.  I told the Sisters: "You take care of the
other three; I will take care of the one who looks worse."  So I did for
her all that my love can do.  I put her in bed, and there was such a
beautiful smile on her face.  She took hold of my hand, as she said one
word only: "thank you" - and she died.

I could not help but examine my conscience before her.  And I asked: "What
would I say if I were in her place?"  And my answer was very simple.  I
would have tried to draw a little attention to myself.  I would have said:
"I am hungry, I am dying, I am cold, I am in pain," or something.  But she
gave me much more - she gave me her grateful love.  And she died with a
smile on her face.  Then there was the man we picked up from the drain,
half eaten by worms and, after we had brought him to the home, he only
said, "I have lived like an animal in the street, but I am going to die as
an angel, loved and cared for."  Then, after we had removed all the worms
from his body, all he said, with a big smile, was: "Sister, I am going home
to God" - and he died.  It was so wonderful to see the greatness of that
man who could speak like that without blaming anybody, without comparing
anything.  Like an angel - this is the greatness of people who are
spiritually rich even when they are materially poor.

We are not social workers.  We may be doing social work in the eyes of some
people, but we must be contemplatives in the heart of the world.  For we
must bring that presence of God into your family, for the family that prays
together, stays together.  There is so much hatred, so much misery, and we
with our prayer, with our sacrifice, are beginning at home.  Love begins at
home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put into what we
do.

If we are contemplatives in the heart of the world with all its problems,
these problems can never discourage us.  We must always remember what God
tells us in Scripture: "Even if a mother could forget the child in her
womb" - something impossible, but even if she could forget - "I will never
forget you."

And so here I am talking with you.  I want you to find the poor here, right
in your own home first.  And begin love there.  Be that good news to your
own people first.  And find out about your next-door neighbors.  Do you
know who they are?

I had the most extraordinary experience of love of neighbor with a Hindu
family.  A gentleman came to our house and said: "Mother Teresa, there is a
family who have not eaten for so long.  Do something."  So I took some rice
and went there immediately.  And I saw the children - their eyes shining
with hunger.  I don't know if you have ever seen hunger.  But I have seen
it very often.  And the mother of the family took the rice I gave her and
went out.  When she came back, I asked her: "Where did you go?  What did
you do?"  And she gave me a very simple answer: "They are hungry also."
What struck me was that she knew - and who are they?  A Muslim family - and
she knew.  I didn't bring any more rice that evening because I wanted them,
Hindus and Muslims, to enjoy the joy of sharing.

But there were those children, radiating joy, sharing the joy and peace
with their mother because she had the love to give until it hurts.  And you
see this is where love begins - at home in the family.

So, as the example of this family shows, God will never forget us and there
is something you and I can always do.  We can keep the joy of loving Jesus
in our hearts, and share that joy with all we come in contact with.  Let us
make that one point - that no child will be unwanted, unloved, uncared for,
or killed and thrown away.  And give until it hurts - with a smile.

Because I talk so much of giving with a smile, once a professor from the
United States asked me: "Are you married?"  And I said: "Yes, and I find it
sometimes very difficult to smile at my spouse, Jesus, because He can be
very demanding - sometimes."  This is really something true.  And this is
where love comes in - when it is demanding, and yet we can give it with
joy.

One of the most demanding things for me is travelling everywhere - and with
publicity.  I have said to Jesus that if I don't go to heaven for anything
else, I will be going to heaven for all the travelling with all the
publicity, because it has purified me and sacrificed me and made me really
ready to go to heaven.

If we remember that God loves us, and that we can love others as He loves
us, then America can become a sign of peace for the world.  From here, a
sign of care for the weakest of the weak - the unborn child - must go out
to the world.  If you become a burning light of justice and peace in the
world, then really you will be true to what the founders of this country
stood for.  God bless you!

oops! I forgot to check the length of that, I apologize for violating the
note size guidelines.  Unfortunately I guess it's too late to repost it, unless
a moderator wants to delete the note for me and let me repost it (I haven't 
figured out how to delete a topic yet).

Sorry!

    G_d Bless You, Eric!!!!
    
    I'd completely given up on being able to get the text of her speech,
    at least through this venue, and before my account was DISUSER'd.
    
    Just to check things out, I opened CHRISTIAN *one last time*, and your
    Note was the first thing that popped up! I immediately extracted it and
    will download it imminently. What a beautiful parting gift you have 
    given me. It brightened my day, and acted as tangible evidence that the 
    L_rd is thinking of me, even under the current difficult circumstances.
    
    Sh'lom,
    
    Brian

    What a wonderful speech!  Makes me see how little I do in the way of
    helping those in need.  If it made me squirm, I can imagine how much it
    made the pro-abortion folks squirm...Clinton in particular.
    
    Hopefully, some of it will sink in...
    
    I'll be praying that it does.
    
    -steve

    One of the best things about this speech, was the response it got.  I
    heard it on "Focus on the Family", while coming to work last week.  The
    applause went on for minutes - Dr. Dobson enjoyed the fact that the
    President, Vice-President and their wives could only sit and squirm. 
    He reported that they did not applaud.  I would guess the response must
    have been 3 minutes.
    
    

�    He reported that they did not applaud.

Did he make it sound surprised????

    any bets on if Mother Teresa will be back? ;-)
    
    I was also *very* impressed by the speech.
    
    

    One of the members of  our church was invited to attend the National
    Prayer Breakfast.  He reported back firsthand about the speech.  It
    certainly made an impression on him and his fellow attendees!
    
    Another member of the congregation spoke after he was finished and
    shared her testimony re: abortion and receiving God's forgiveness of
    same.  It was a powerful service!  And the service ended by receiving
    communion, which seemed very appropriate...receiving afresh a sense of
    God's grace and how much He has freely forgiven us.
    
    Maranatha!
    
    -greta

    I wish I could've seen that.

    I understand the Mother Theresa met privately with Clinton.
    Afterwards, he looked sullen, probably because Mother Theresa
    speaks what is on her heart.
    
    The good news is Hillary Clinton is a member of a bible study,
    yes a Christian bible study.  Don't forget to pray for the
    Clintons.  God, via the Holy Spirit, is in the business of
    'heart transplants', including those of our President and First
    Lady.

The good news is that Clinton's response indicates that his heart is not hard,
that he's feeling uncomfortable.  This is a sign that he's been convicted, and
that there is still hope.  It means he's thinking about it and isn't fully
resolved on the issue.

Eric

    So what exactly was the Clintons' response to this speech?  Any
    pointers to sources?  Also, I'd like to hear more about Hillary's bible
    study.
    
    thanks,
    Mike

>The good news is that Clinton's response indicates that his heart is not
>hard, that he's feeling uncomfortable.  

I wish that I could agree that this is true.  But as a true politician, he
may have been completely hardened to what she said, but was just realizing
that he couldn't afford to publicly counter Mother Theresa and that he'd look
bad no matter what he did.

I think that's the most likely scenario.  I see no other signs of a softened
heart.

Paul

    I find it hard to believe that he didn't even clap a little.  A
    president should have more class than that.
    
    I will be praying for both he and the first lady, tho.  Hopefully,
    neither of their hearts are hard...
    
    -steve

    During the campaign I heard rumours (and I considered them just
    rumours) from a sister in Alabama that Bill had been under some
    conviction and spoke with a paster about it, but was convinced by
    advisors it was the wrong thing to do.  Maybe, there is always hope
    when the prayers start in earnest.
    
    Had anyone else heard anything like this?
    
    Sparky

 He has had a thing or 2 to say recently about "family values" (the same thing
 that got Dan Quayle laughed out of Washington) recently.






Jim

Although just an iggerant brit, when Bill first came to office, I heard that 
he felt very committed to a promise to a pastor at some time in the past.  
The promise was that he would deal faithfully with the Jews, and not 
penalise them in any way.

I believe that this could indicate a toe-hold which the LORD has to convict 
him when the time is ripe.  I hope and pray so.

								Andrew

    Leo, the gentleman from our church who attended the prayer breakfast,
    had some remarks about Hillary Clinton.
    
    Hillary herself spoke later that day.  She remarked that she believed
    that no matter what she said, she felt that people would misinterpret
    it.  She then went on to share how her own faith has been growing.
    It turns out that she has been participating in a women's bible study
    for several months.  The person who invited her to join was, politically,
    her opponent (i.e. a member of the Republican party).  I can't remember
    this woman's name, but Hillary shared that this woman was truly
    becoming a real friend to her.  This woman (argh...what's her name???)
    had encouraged Hillary to pray for wisdom and discernment.
    
    Leo remarked that from what he heard directly from Hillary, he felt
    that she was more open and teachable to the Truth than what may be
    generally realized.  DO KEEP THIS WOMAN IN PRAYER, as well as the
    women's bible study that she attends.  Pray that the Lord would
    continue to work through the growing friendship with this other
    committed Christian woman for good in Hillary's behalf.
    
    In Him,
    
    -greta
     

Thanks Greta - that's most encouraging news, in an unexpected area!
Certainly a stimulus to prayer.

						Andrew

    it would not be unexpected for Satan to make it seem as though she were
    more closed than she really is...
    not like prayer is gonna hurt, anyway... :-)

    Mother Teresa'a speech is quite something!  Thanks for posting it. 
    When did she give it (approximately)?

>When did she give it?

Almost exactly three weeks ago today.

/john