70 tweets by St. Teresa of Calcutta (from “A Simple Path”)

1. Without prayer I could not work for even half an hour.
2. In our house, Christ is head of our family and He makes all the decisions.
3. We can cure physical diseases with medicine but the only cure for loneliness, despair and hopelessness is love.
4. I always say that love starts at home: family first, and then your own town or city.
5. You don’t have to come to India to give love to others – the street you live in can be your Nirmal Hriday.
6. I do not agree with the big way of doing things – love needs to start with an individual.
7. I always remind the sisters and brothers that our day is made up of 24 hours with Jesus.
8. We need the Eucharist because unless we are given Jesus we cannot give to Him.
9. Knowledge of yourself produces humility, and knowledge of God produces love.
10. Love has no meaning if it isn’t shared.
11. We must go on loving and loving and giving and giving until it hurts – the way Jesus did.
12. If you judge others, then you are not giving love. Instead, try to help them by seeing their needs and acting to meet them.
13. Prayer in action is love, and love in action is service.
14. If an ill person wants medicine, then give him medicine, if he needs comfort, then comfort him.
15. Governments do not usually offer love. I just do what I can do: the rest is not my business.
16. The password of the early Christians was joy.
17. When we hurt the poor, and we hurt each other, we’re hurting God.
18. We all must take the time to be silent and to contemplate, especially those who live in big cities like London and New York. 
19. I always begin my prayer in silence, for it is in the silence of the heart that God speaks
20. You can pray at work – work doesn’t have to stop prayer and prayer doesn’t have to stop work.
21. It is a beautiful gift of God that we may go to Confession full of sin and come out perfectly pure.
22. Love begins at home and that is why it is important to pray together.
23. If you pray together you will stay together and love each other as God loves each one of you.
24. If you don’t believe in God you can help others by doing works of love, and the fruit of these works are the extra graces that come into your soul.
25. Jesus is my Everything. I am doing it to Jesus and therefore the results are His, not mine.
26. If He has given you great wealth, make use of it, try to share it with others, with those who don’t have anything.
27. We don’t accept even one rupee for the work we do, as we do our work for Jesus.
28. Everybody has something good inside them. Some hide it, some neglect it, but it is there.
29. If we are close to God we spread joy and love to everybody around us.
30. Unborn children are among the poorest of the poor. They are so close to God.
31. I always ask doctors at hospitals in India never to kill an unborn child. If there is no-one who wants it, I’ll take it.
32. Every life is precious to God, whatever the circumstances.
33. God’s love for us is greater than all the conflicts, which will pass.
34. I like the ones who are simple, like St Theresa of Lisieux. I chose her as my namesake because she did ordinary things with extraordinary love.
35. I have not known anyone die in fear if they have witnessed the love of God.
36. The great disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy, it is being unwanted, unloved and uncared for.
37. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty – it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality.
38. When you know how much God is in love with you then you can only live your life radiating that love.
39. To get to love a person, you must contact that person, become close.
40. If you expect something in return, then it isn’t love because true love is loving without conditions and expectations.
41. People with AIDS have awakened the tender love in those who have perhaps shut it out and forgotten it.
42. They [the poor] are hungry for dignity and to be treated as we are treated. They are hungry for our love.
43. It is not how much you do but how much love you put into the doing and sharing with others that is important.
44. This giving until it hurts – this sacrifice – is also what I call love in action.
45. Do ordinary things with extraordinary love: little things like caring for the sick, the lonely and the unwanted, washing and cleaning for them.
46. You must give what will cost you something. Then your gift becomes a sacrifice, which will have value before God.
47. God loves a cheerful giver. She or he gives best who gives with a smile.
48. If you are always ready to say yes to God, you will naturally have a smile for all and be able, with God’s blessing, to give until it hurts.
49. A joyful heart is the result of a heart burning with love.
50. We don’t need to look for happiness: if we have love for others we’ll be given it.
51. We feel what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean, but that ocean would be less without that drop.
52. Works of love are always works of peace.
53. Whenever you share love with others, you’ll notice the peace that comes to you and to them.
54. There is joy in loving God, great happiness in loving Him.
55. It must be harder to be happy if you are wealthy because you may find it difficult to see God: you’ll have too many other things to think about.
56. If God has given you this gift of wealth, then use it for His purpose – help others, help the poor, create jobs.
57. The world would be a much better place if everyone smiled more.
58. Be joyous that God loves you.
59. I have only one message of peace and that is to love one another as God loves each one of you.
60. By blood and origin, I am all Albanian. My citizenship is Indian. I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the whole world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the heart of Jesus.
61. Our work is to encourage Christians and non-Christians to do works of love.
62. Every work of love, done with a full heart, always bring people closer to God.
63. We are all women who have the ability to make use of this love. We should not be ashamed of loving Jesus with our emotions.
64. Our aim is to quench the infinite thirst of Jesus Christ on the Cross for love of souls.
65. We serve Jesus in the poor, we nurse Him, feed Him, clothe Him, visit Him.
66. Can you truly know the poor unless you live like them?
67. Poverty is a wonderful gift because it gives us freedom – it means we have fewer obstacles to God.
68. Without our suffering our work would be just social work.
69. Pray to be able to forgive those who have hurt you or whom you don’t like, and forgive as you have been forgiven.
70. People ask me what advice do I have for a married couple struggling in their relationship – I always answer ‘pray and forgive’

A Simple Path

Teresa of Calcutta

Ballantine Books, 1995

240 pages