A news website has posted an old video of Mother Teresa, whose commentary on abortion was always poignant and inspiring.
“But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because Jesus said, ‘If you receive a little child, you receive me,’” she is famous for saying. “So every abortion is the denial of receiving Jesus, is the neglect of receiving Jesus. It is really a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.”
CNS News has posted the video and a transcript of her remarks in a commentary. Some of them appear below:
She explained (see video), “[I]f we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?”
Mother Teresa continued, “How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, her free time, to respect the life of her child.
“For the child is the greatest gift of God to the family because it has been created to love and to be loved,” she said. “The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble — so abortion just leads to more abortion.”
“Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love one another, but to use any violence to get what they want,” said Mother Teresa. “This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.”
