THis is long but worth it.
Edward W. Desmond in 1989 for Time magazine
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>.
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>Time: What did you do this morning?
>
>Mother Teresa: Pray.
>
>Time: When did you start?
>
>Mother Teresa: Half-past four
>
>Time: And after prayer
>
>Mother Teresa: We try to pray through our work by doing it with
>Jesus, for Jesus, to Jesus. That helps us to put our whole heart and soul
>into doing it. The dying, the cripple, the mental, the unwanted, the
>unloved
>they are Jesus in disguise.
>
>Time: People know you as a sort of religious social worker. Do they
>understand the spiritual basis of your work?
>
>Mother Teresa: I don't know. But I give them a chance to come and
>touch the poor. Everybody has to experience that. So many young people give
>up everything to do just that. This is something so completely unbelievable
>in the world, no? And yet it is wonderful. Our volunteers go back different
>people.
>
>Time: Does the fact that you are a woman make your message more
>understandable?
>
>Mother Teresa: I never think like that.
>
>Time: But don't you think the world responds better to a mother?
>
>Mother Teresa: People are responding not because of me, but because
>of what we're doing. Before, people were speaking much about the poor, but
>now more and more people are speaking to the poor. That's the great
>difference. The work has created this. The presence of the poor is known
>now, especially the poorest of the poor, the unwanted, the loved, the
>uncared-for. Before, nobody bothered about the people in the street. We
>have picked up from the streets of Calcutta 54,000 people, and 23,000
>something have died in that one room [at Kalighat].
>
>Time: Why have you been so successful?
>
>Mother Teresa: Jesus made Himself the bread of life to give us life.
>That's where we begin the day, with Mass. And we end the day with Adoration
>of the Blessed Sacrament. I don't think that I could do this work for even
>one week if I didn't have four hours of prayer every day.
>
>Time: Humble as you are, it must be an extraordinary thing to be a
>vehicle of God's grace in the world.
>
>Mother Teresa: But it is His work. I think God wants to show His
>greatness by using nothingness.
>
>Time: You are nothingness?
>
>Mother Teresa: I'm very sure of that.
>
>Time: You feel you have no special qualities?
>
>Mother Teresa: I don't think so. I don't claim anything of the work.
>It's His work. I'm like a little pencil in His hand. That's all. He does
>the
>thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do it. The pencil
>has only to be allowed to be used. In human terms, the success of our work
>should not have happened, no? That is a sign that it's His work, and that
>He
>is using others as instruments - all our Sisters. None of us could produce
>this. Yet see what He has done.
>
>Time: What is God's greatest gift to you?
>
>Mother Teresa: The poor people.
>
>Time: How are they a gift?
>
>Mother Teresa: I have an opportunity to be with Jesus 24 hours a
>day.
>
>Time: Here in Calcutta, have you created a real change?
>
>Mother Teresa: I think so. People are aware of the presence and also
>many, many, many Hindu people share with us. They come and feed the people
>and they serve the people. Now we never see a person lying there in the
>street dying. It has created a worldwide awareness of the poor.
>
>Time: Beyond showing the poor to the world, have you conveyed any
>message about how to work with the poor?
>
>Mother Teresa: You must make them feel loved and wanted. They are
>Jesus for me. I believe in that much more than doing big things for them.
>
>Time: What's your greatest hope here in India?
>
>Mother Teresa: To give Jesus to all.
>
>Time: But you do not evangelize in the conventional sense of the
>term.
>
>Mother Teresa: I'm evangelizing by my works of love.
>
>Time: Is that the best way?
>
>Mother Teresa: For us, yes. For somebody else, something else. I'm
>evangelizing the way God wants me to. Jesus said go and preach to all the
>nations. We are now in so many nations preaching the Gospel by our works of
>love. "By the love that you have for one another will they know you are my
>disciples." That's the preaching that we are doing, and I think that is
>more
>real.
>
>Time: Friends of yours say that you are disappointed that your work
>has not brought more conversions in this great Hindu nation.
>
>Mother Teresa: Missionaries don't think of that. They only want to
>proclaim the Word of God. Numbers have nothing to do with it. But the
>people
>are putting prayer into action by coming and serving the people.
>Continually
>people are coming to feed and serve, so many, you go and see. Everywhere
>people are helping. We don't know the future. But the door is already open
>to Christ. There may not be a big conversion like that, but we don't know
>what is happening in the soul.
>
>Time: What do you think of Hinduism?
>
>Mother Teresa: I love all religions, but I am in love with my own.
>No discussion. That
