Love like Mother Teresa

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

—Mother Teresa

My interpretation

Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and Bharat Ratna, Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. She dedicated her whole life to the service of the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying.

Many great leaders considered Mother Teresa to be the ultimate symbol of selfless love because of her life-long devotion to the cause of the downtrodden and helpless. She gave love without question.

Mother Teresa believed that there is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation than for bread. In fact, she was convinced that love was the answer to all the problems we face on planet Earth. When she received the Nobel Prize she was asked, “What can we do to promote world peace?” She answered, “Go home and love your family.”

Love like Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa view of love was unique in many ways. In the above quote, she says that that judging others makes us incapable of loving them. This is because when we judge someone, we begin to analyse that person’s rights and wrongs, vices and virtues. Authentic love has no scope for analysis. It is unconditional—it’s when we love “in spite of” and not “because of”.

When we judge and analyse, we are unwittingly putting conditions on our love. We are thinking or saying, “If you behave in the way I approve, only then I will love you.” Mother Teresa is asking us to give up our need to judge people so that we can begin to love truly.

In her lifetime, Mother Teresa said several times, in different ways, that the hunger for love was greater than the hunger for food. I reckon she would’ve seen that the human race is so preoccupied with judging, that it has no time to love.

A mother’s love comes as close to being unconditional as it can. When a baby is born, a mother only gives love, without judgement and expectation. Perhaps that is why this epitome of love was called “Mother”.