Life in the Spirit: St Teresa of Calcutta

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This small, 88 page book was first published in the US in 1983 by Kathryn Spink, the author of The Miracle of Love, which describes St Teresa's Missionaries of Charity, founded in 1948.  Life in the Spirit contains about 30 short Scripture selections, each with reflection, meditation, and prayer primarily by St Teresa.  I am still reading and find them fascinating, usually inspirational, thought provoking, sometimes difficult.  The book begins with these words of St Teresa:
     My secret is quite simple.  I pray and through my prayer I become one in love with Christ and see that praying to Him is to love Him, and that means to fulfill His Words.  Remember the words of St Matthew's Gospel:
     I was hungry and you gave me no food,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink...
     My poor ones in the world's slums are like the suffering Christ.  In them God's Son lives and dies, and through them God shows me His true face.  Prayer for me means becoming twenty-four hours a day with the Will of Jesus to live for Him, through Him, and with Him...

 

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St Teresa's prayer on the first page of this book concluded as follows:
If we pray we will believe
if we believe we will love
if we love we will serve.

Only then can we put our love for God
into living action through service of Christ
in the distressing disguise of the poor.

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A brief foreword by Ann Blaikie, International Link for the Co-Workers of St Teresa, concludes as follows:
From the prayers of two or three (of us with Our Lord Jesus Christ) will come forth fruits of love: support in prayer, comfort for the troubled, growth of understanding, compassion, forgiveness, deepening of community, faith, and hope.
"Love to pray," says Mother Teresa, "feel often during the day the need for prayer and take trouble to pray"...an intense inner life is there for our gathering and no limits are set.
Our prayer would be that all who read this beautiful book and meditate upon the texts will grow in ever-deepening love for God our Father and in ever-more understanding love for one another, our brothers, sisters, sons and daughters.  This way is love, is peace, is joy.