The following is a letter from Mother Teresa to Thomas Farrell, chairman of the Humanities Dept. at Johnson and Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island. In these words, Mother Teresa expresses her thoughts on helping the poor. She also expresses our own.

May 11,1991,Calcutta

Dear Thomas Farrell,

I have just returned to Calcutta and found your letter. Sorry for the delay. Thank you for your interest in our work of love and for your offer to write an article. Your intention to get donations is good, but it is not in keeping with our charism. We are poor and fully dependent on divine providence which comes to us through the spontaneous sharing of the rich and the poor. If you want to help, share something of yourself-not from your abundance-but until it hurts. Give what costs you,-make a sacrifice-do without something you like, so you may share what you have saved thus with those that do not even have what they need. Then your giving will be truly giving-loving until it hurts. I pray for you that you concentrate more and more on raising funds of love and compassion and to see no one around feels unwanted and unloved. Be God's hands to serve the poor in your spare time and be his heart to love the poorest of the poor all the time.

God bless you,
Mother Teresa

I would like to share with you a statement made to me by a friend who was close to death. She said,"You know, I've done an awful lot of spiritual practice, I've prayed, I've meditated, I've taken vows, I've taken initiations and I think I'm ready to die. But to be perfectly honest, I wish I just had ten years of cancer-free life, just ten years.

So I said, if you could receive that wish, if you could have those ten years, just what would you do with them? And without skipping a beat she said,"I would be kind. I would teach children everything I've ever learned about how life is, and to be strong, and how to be courageous, and how most of all to be loving."

In an article written for the Mission of Love newsletter, Kathy explains how the ideas presented on this page became the guiding principles of the Mission of Love. Her article is entitled:

When you have finished reading the article, just follow the links back to the Mission of Love Homepage.