Mother Teresa on Prayer

Mother Teresa on Prayer

The first requirement for prayer is silence. People of prayer are people of silence.

Silence will teach us a lot. It will teach us to speak with Christ and to speak joyfully to our brothers and sisters.

Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at his disposition, and listening to his voice in the depths of our hearts.

Every day at communion time, I communicate two of my feelings to Jesus. One is gratefulness, because he has helped me to persevere until today. The other is a request: teach me to pray.

Prayer begets faith, faith begets love, and love begets service on behalf of the poor.

I believe that politicians spend too little time on their knees. I am convinced that they would be better politicians if they were to do so.

There are some people who, in order not to pray, use as an excuse the fact that life is so hectic that it prevents them from praying. This cannot be. Prayer does not demand that we interrupt our work, but we continue working as if it were a prayer. It is not necessary to always be meditating, nor to consciously experience the sensation that we are talking to God, no matter how nice this would be. What matters are being with him, living in him, in his will. To love with a pure heart, to love everybody, especially to love the poor, is a twenty-four hour prayer.

 31/10/2008