Insight from Mother Teresa on Poverty

There are 50 cards in the Mother Teresa Wisdom Deck, each with a different insight or inspiration. The cards are great to have for times when you could benefit from the wisdom of one of the wisest women ever to be on this earth (who couldn’t benefit?), or even just during a low time when you could use a new way of thinking about the world.

The wisdom of the five cards we chose to give you here is about poverty:

* A person who is attached to riches, who lives with the worry of riches, is actually very poor. If he puts his money at the service of others, then he is rich, very rich.

* Abandonment is an awful poverty. There are poor people everywhere, but the deepest poverty is not being loved.

* There are thousands of people dying for a piece of bread. There are thousands upon thousands dying for a bit of love.

* We have no right to judge the rich. What we desire is not a class struggle, but a class encounter, in which the rich save the poor and the poor save the rich.

* Riches, both material and spiritual, can choke you if you do not use them fairly. The result is uncontrollable dissatisfaction. Poverty is freedom, so that possessions don’t keep us from sharing or giving of ourselves.

Read more: Spirit, Inspiration

Adapted from Mother Teresa Wisdom Deck by Mother Teresa (New World Library, 2005). Copyright (c) 2005 by Mother Teresa. Reprinted by permission of New World Library.
Adapted from Mother Teresa Wisdom Deck by Mother Teresa (New World Library, 2005).

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Teresa C.

5:07PM PDT on Mar 14, 2012

What a magnificent human being she was!...and I think she hit it dead-on (no surprise)--what the world is starving for is simply "love". Look what is done to our environment, our animals, our people--if love overran our world the way hate and greed have, what would the world look like?
For the greedy, hate-filled 1% who are demolishing our planet--definitely time for tough-love!

send a green star

Brenda T.

3:32AM PST on Mar 2, 2012

The great St. Teresa of Avila ,After whom Mother Teresa is named, said
"Christ has no body now on earth but ours,
No hands but ours,
No feet but ours.
Ours are the eyes through which to look out Christ's compassion to the world.
Ours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good.
Ours are the hands with which He is to bless men now."

If you want to be a Christian today, look at the words Christ spoke as recorded in the Gospels, and leave bigotry behind. Do not judge your fellow human beings. Love them instead.

3:25AM PST on Mar 2, 2012

Now she represents the very best in Catholicism!! She truly understood the meaning of being a Christian! And, she put it into practice. No judgemental , selfrighteousness. Just compassion for others.

Danuta W.

1:57AM PST on Mar 2, 2012

Thanks for the interesting article.

Anna M.

11:40AM PST on Mar 1, 2012

love love love that's the answer!

Teresa W.

8:00AM PST on Mar 1, 2012

mhmmm....

bharathi A.

3:10PM PST on Feb 10, 2012

I love Mother Teresa.

Samantha H.

9:58AM PST on Feb 2, 2012

I love Mother Teresa. :)

Deb L.

12:27AM PST on Jan 29, 2012

Wow, what a relief. I just read a long diatribe some Jack Ass just wrote about Poverty being "A learned helplessness" and all we have to do is snap out of it 'cuz our Ferrari is waiting. I wonder if Mother Teresa would agree?

Mary Beth M.

12:45PM PST on Jan 19, 2012

Beautiful words from a beautiful soul!