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Mother Teresa's Secret Fire: The Encounter That Changed Her Life and How It Can Transform Your Own
Celebrate the 100th anniversary of Mother Teresa's birth with the book she wanted written.
The great frustration in any national crisis is the sense of impotence, the inability of the individual to make a difference. And yet, we do have power, our choices do matter.
In the end, Mother Teresa showed us the power of one the power of a single person, clinging to the Creator, to handle enormous change and turn it to good, and to become a luminous force in the darkest of times.
Her lessons can prepare us, as no political plan or economic program ever can, to navigate the trials that await us with grace, and even to turn them into blessing. This is true change that lasts. This is genuine recovery, from the inside out.
"Anyone wanting to live and love without fear will want to read Secret Fire." ----Jim Towey, former Director, White House Office of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives
"Secret Fire speaks to Mother Teresa's deepest motivations." --Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C., Postulator, Director, Mother Teresa Center, Editor, Come, be My Light
The great frustration in any national crisis is the sense of impotence, the inability of the individual to make a difference. And yet, we do have power, our choices do matter.
In the end, Mother Teresa showed us the power of one the power of a single person, clinging to the Creator, to handle enormous change and turn it to good, and to become a luminous force in the darkest of times.
Her lessons can prepare us, as no political plan or economic program ever can, to navigate the trials that await us with grace, and even to turn them into blessing. This is true change that lasts. This is genuine recovery, from the inside out.
"Anyone wanting to live and love without fear will want to read Secret Fire." ----Jim Towey, former Director, White House Office of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives
"Secret Fire speaks to Mother Teresa's deepest motivations." --Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C., Postulator, Director, Mother Teresa Center, Editor, Come, be My Light
313 pages, Hardcover
First published May 28, 2007
33 people are currently reading
370 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Langford
4 books6 followersFr. Joseph Langford, saw the book about Mother Teresa of Calcutta, “Something Beautiful for God”; the photo on the cover of the book touched him profoundly and from that moment he had a great desire to know her and her charism and to adapt it to the life of the priest. After his ordination to the priesthood, he founded, together with Mother Teresa, the Corpus Christi Movement for diocesan priests who wished to participate and live the spirituality of Mother Teresa of Calcutta in their priestly life. his Movement began to grow and to spread among priests in various parts of the world until on July 16, 1983, the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Father Joseph had the inspiration to ask Mother Teresa to found a community of priests in the charism of the Missionaries of Charity. Mother Teresa accepted to carry out this project which began in the city of New York as the Corpus Christi Fraternity. Soon became the religious congregation of the Missionaries of Charity Fathers.
In 1986 Father Joseph wrote the meditation, “I Thirst for you,” which has been translated into many languages and distributed throughout the world. This meditation is an expression of the spiritual sentiments that marked his life and his pastoral work. Fr. Langford spent most of the rest of his life working among the poorest of the poor in Tijuana, Mexico. He also wrote and published two important books, one about the Virgin Mary, and the second, “Secret Fire,” a profound meditation on the mystery of the thirst of Jesus, the center of Mother Teresa’s spirituality.
In 1986 Father Joseph wrote the meditation, “I Thirst for you,” which has been translated into many languages and distributed throughout the world. This meditation is an expression of the spiritual sentiments that marked his life and his pastoral work. Fr. Langford spent most of the rest of his life working among the poorest of the poor in Tijuana, Mexico. He also wrote and published two important books, one about the Virgin Mary, and the second, “Secret Fire,” a profound meditation on the mystery of the thirst of Jesus, the center of Mother Teresa’s spirituality.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
September 8, 2014
This book had me in tears during most of the time I was reading it. It was as close as I have come in a long time to experiencing the Divine Presence, what I recognize as ‘the Light of Christ’. I will undoubtedly keep it near at hand for whenever I want to talk to God, whether feeling unable to pray or just when I’m longing to get close to Him.
Mother Teresa had a special magnetism (the world’s word) or deep relationship with the Divine which drew people to her. They sensed something about her which they could not name and yet many experienced profound spiritual conversions as a result of knowing and/or working with her. After her death it came out that she actually lived in spiritual darkness for most of her public life. ‘Spiritual darkness’ isn’t well understood by most people, even those of faith. Mother Teresa herself didn’t comprehend what was happening to her for years. She thought she had been abandoned by God because the close intimacy she had known with Him prior to her September 10, 1946 ‘call within a call’ seemed to evaporate overnight. Her darkness, which she embraced for the sake of the One she loved as well as His children, allowed her to become God’s light to those living in poverty.
In Mother Teresa’s Secret Fire Joseph Langford, founder of her Missionaries of Charities Fathers has written a beautiful guide to Mother Teresa’s spirituality. What was so special about her? It can be summed up in the two words which are seen under every crucifix in all the Missionary of Charity buildings, “I Thirst”, words Our Lord said from the cross. These enigmatic words are often thought to be in reference to physical thirst. And yet if you read the Scripture verse, it says, ‘After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.”’ John 19:28 Langford goes on to give many references to Old Testament texts about God thirsting for us and the soul thirsting for God. Thirst is central to our relationship with God and expresses a deeper meaning even than love. God thirsts for each and every one of us with a thirst beyond anything we can ever imagine. He longs and pines for us especially that we thirst for Him as He does for us. This, according to Langford, is Mother Teresa’s message to our modern world. It’s not different from the Gospel message but the intensity of God’s longing for each of us and especially the emphasis on this particular text is unique.
Personally I found reading any portion of this book to be a prayerful, meditative experience.
Langford’s ten qualities of God’s thirst for us, when taken and applied to oneself are so beautiful, they can transform and heal. They are as follows:
1. INFINITE LONGING: The Father loves all of mankind with the same love, the same magnitude and the same intensity, with which he loves his divine Son. He cannot love any less.
2. GOD’S DELIGHT: In all our life, no one will ever love us as God does – nor love us with a love so undeterred by our imperfections. His is a love that delights in us, that finds joy in loving us.
3. PRESENCE: God is present to each of us with the totality of his being. No part of the God-head is ever absent, or distracted, from any of us – so much so that even “the hairs of your head are all numbered” (Lk 12:7).
4. REACHING OUT IN MERCY: God’s thirst for us is a relentless, never regretted resolve to be with us in our wandering – to seek us out and bring us back, and once we have returned, to shower us with blessings greater than those we have lost.
5. FAITHFUL LOVE: God’s fidelity is his thirst for us acted out in real time – as he immerses himself in the details of our life, and pursues us with his love. The divine faithfulness is his longing for us applied in the here and now, even when our present is made up of weakness and sin.
6. DIVINE HUMILITY – THE MYSTERY OF GOD’S SELF-EMPTYING: The opposite of love is not hatred but pride, the source of all hatred. Therefore there can be no love without humility – since love and pride cannot coexist. Humility is the matrix of love, the unseen well-spring of all self-giving, human and divine. The extreme example of humility, the Son of God, clothed himself not only in our flesh but also in our sin.
7. THE DIVINE TENDERNESS: God is moved not only by the overall tenor of our lives, but by every single movement of our heart. Our smallest return of his love has more impact and importance with God than we will ever know. God not only welcomes our love but yearns to be loved by us. He wants us to love him in the same way he loves us–that is, to thirst for him, even as he thirst for us.*
8. INTIMACY AND UNION: No matter how close human spouses may come, they can never truly dwell one within another, inseparable, their souls forever merged. While the soul was created for, longs for, this ultimate kind of union, it is only symbolized and prepared for in marriage. The true inter-dwelling of lover and beloved takes place only in our relationship with God. Only God’s love is capable of penetrating and being perceived directly by the human soul – and, not uncommonly, even to the point of overwhelming the senses.
9. DIGNITY AND DIVINITY: If God’s love for us is individual (and it is!), it means that no one else on earth, no one else in all of history, can ever take our place in his heart. No one else can satisfy his thirst for love in the way each of us can. No one else can satisfy God’s thirst for me.
10. FATHERHOOD: Mother Teresa’s close relationship to her own father, whom she lost while she was still young, made her painfully aware of the deep soul wound caused by the absence of the father. It was not only in the Third World she saw the father-wound, but also when she visited the more developed nations, she was saddened to see the increasing absence of the father and the distortion of the father’s image, which inevitably affects/damages the image of God as Father. And yet this could not be further from the God whom Jesus revealed and Mother Teresa knew. Whether or not she was conscious of it Mother Teresa lived her life healing our image of God. For those who still feared him, she helped recast our image of the Almighty as one who gives, and keeps on giving, even beyond our capacity to understand or receive. And that is a message so desperately needed today. I know it resonated in my own heart and I have a loving father, with (hopefully) a good image of God as Father.
This book also includes the best lectio divina of the Samaritan Woman at the Well, from the Gospel of John I have ever read. Each verse from this powerful encounter was broken open and explored in beautiful depth. As readers we are invited to enter into the scene becoming the woman, meeting Our LORD face-to-face and receiving his life-giving water. There is so much more I’d love to share from this marvelous book but it would make the review far too long, so I’ll just add this link to a guided meditation (on the ‘I Thirst’ prayer) written by the author and similar to those found in the book.
One other really neat thing happened reference this book. While I have had this book on my shelf for years now—always intending to read it but somehow never getting around to it—the day I finally started it (August 26th) coincidentally turned out to be Mother Teresa’s birthday. Realizing that a chill ran down my back and I knew it was no accident; I wished Mother Teresa a very Happy Birthday!
Next I want to read Mother Teresa: In the Shadow of Our Lady, also by Langford.
*Here Fr. Langford gave an entire Appendix of Scriptural references as well as those by Church Fathers and saints.
Mother Teresa had a special magnetism (the world’s word) or deep relationship with the Divine which drew people to her. They sensed something about her which they could not name and yet many experienced profound spiritual conversions as a result of knowing and/or working with her. After her death it came out that she actually lived in spiritual darkness for most of her public life. ‘Spiritual darkness’ isn’t well understood by most people, even those of faith. Mother Teresa herself didn’t comprehend what was happening to her for years. She thought she had been abandoned by God because the close intimacy she had known with Him prior to her September 10, 1946 ‘call within a call’ seemed to evaporate overnight. Her darkness, which she embraced for the sake of the One she loved as well as His children, allowed her to become God’s light to those living in poverty.
In Mother Teresa’s Secret Fire Joseph Langford, founder of her Missionaries of Charities Fathers has written a beautiful guide to Mother Teresa’s spirituality. What was so special about her? It can be summed up in the two words which are seen under every crucifix in all the Missionary of Charity buildings, “I Thirst”, words Our Lord said from the cross. These enigmatic words are often thought to be in reference to physical thirst. And yet if you read the Scripture verse, it says, ‘After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.”’ John 19:28 Langford goes on to give many references to Old Testament texts about God thirsting for us and the soul thirsting for God. Thirst is central to our relationship with God and expresses a deeper meaning even than love. God thirsts for each and every one of us with a thirst beyond anything we can ever imagine. He longs and pines for us especially that we thirst for Him as He does for us. This, according to Langford, is Mother Teresa’s message to our modern world. It’s not different from the Gospel message but the intensity of God’s longing for each of us and especially the emphasis on this particular text is unique.
Personally I found reading any portion of this book to be a prayerful, meditative experience.
Langford’s ten qualities of God’s thirst for us, when taken and applied to oneself are so beautiful, they can transform and heal. They are as follows:
1. INFINITE LONGING: The Father loves all of mankind with the same love, the same magnitude and the same intensity, with which he loves his divine Son. He cannot love any less.
2. GOD’S DELIGHT: In all our life, no one will ever love us as God does – nor love us with a love so undeterred by our imperfections. His is a love that delights in us, that finds joy in loving us.
3. PRESENCE: God is present to each of us with the totality of his being. No part of the God-head is ever absent, or distracted, from any of us – so much so that even “the hairs of your head are all numbered” (Lk 12:7).
4. REACHING OUT IN MERCY: God’s thirst for us is a relentless, never regretted resolve to be with us in our wandering – to seek us out and bring us back, and once we have returned, to shower us with blessings greater than those we have lost.
5. FAITHFUL LOVE: God’s fidelity is his thirst for us acted out in real time – as he immerses himself in the details of our life, and pursues us with his love. The divine faithfulness is his longing for us applied in the here and now, even when our present is made up of weakness and sin.
6. DIVINE HUMILITY – THE MYSTERY OF GOD’S SELF-EMPTYING: The opposite of love is not hatred but pride, the source of all hatred. Therefore there can be no love without humility – since love and pride cannot coexist. Humility is the matrix of love, the unseen well-spring of all self-giving, human and divine. The extreme example of humility, the Son of God, clothed himself not only in our flesh but also in our sin.
7. THE DIVINE TENDERNESS: God is moved not only by the overall tenor of our lives, but by every single movement of our heart. Our smallest return of his love has more impact and importance with God than we will ever know. God not only welcomes our love but yearns to be loved by us. He wants us to love him in the same way he loves us–that is, to thirst for him, even as he thirst for us.*
8. INTIMACY AND UNION: No matter how close human spouses may come, they can never truly dwell one within another, inseparable, their souls forever merged. While the soul was created for, longs for, this ultimate kind of union, it is only symbolized and prepared for in marriage. The true inter-dwelling of lover and beloved takes place only in our relationship with God. Only God’s love is capable of penetrating and being perceived directly by the human soul – and, not uncommonly, even to the point of overwhelming the senses.
9. DIGNITY AND DIVINITY: If God’s love for us is individual (and it is!), it means that no one else on earth, no one else in all of history, can ever take our place in his heart. No one else can satisfy his thirst for love in the way each of us can. No one else can satisfy God’s thirst for me.
10. FATHERHOOD: Mother Teresa’s close relationship to her own father, whom she lost while she was still young, made her painfully aware of the deep soul wound caused by the absence of the father. It was not only in the Third World she saw the father-wound, but also when she visited the more developed nations, she was saddened to see the increasing absence of the father and the distortion of the father’s image, which inevitably affects/damages the image of God as Father. And yet this could not be further from the God whom Jesus revealed and Mother Teresa knew. Whether or not she was conscious of it Mother Teresa lived her life healing our image of God. For those who still feared him, she helped recast our image of the Almighty as one who gives, and keeps on giving, even beyond our capacity to understand or receive. And that is a message so desperately needed today. I know it resonated in my own heart and I have a loving father, with (hopefully) a good image of God as Father.
This book also includes the best lectio divina of the Samaritan Woman at the Well, from the Gospel of John I have ever read. Each verse from this powerful encounter was broken open and explored in beautiful depth. As readers we are invited to enter into the scene becoming the woman, meeting Our LORD face-to-face and receiving his life-giving water. There is so much more I’d love to share from this marvelous book but it would make the review far too long, so I’ll just add this link to a guided meditation (on the ‘I Thirst’ prayer) written by the author and similar to those found in the book.
One other really neat thing happened reference this book. While I have had this book on my shelf for years now—always intending to read it but somehow never getting around to it—the day I finally started it (August 26th) coincidentally turned out to be Mother Teresa’s birthday. Realizing that a chill ran down my back and I knew it was no accident; I wished Mother Teresa a very Happy Birthday!
Next I want to read Mother Teresa: In the Shadow of Our Lady, also by Langford.
*Here Fr. Langford gave an entire Appendix of Scriptural references as well as those by Church Fathers and saints.
January 11, 2009
On Christmas Eve I unexpectedly met two of Mother Teresa's nuns. They were standing at the back doors of my church. They are never at my church. I must admit I get sort of depressed at holiday time, being alone and without a family to celebrate with. I made the "mistake" of going to the 4pm Christmas Eve mass. Well, that was packed with kids and parents which just made me feel even more alone. I also like to sit near this beautiful bronze bust of Mother Teresa that was donated to the church. I always sit by it, ponder it and pray. And every Monday night while teaching the RCIA class at church, I sit in a chair that Mother Teresa actually sat in when she visited Baltimore. I sit in it and secretly say "Maybe you will rub off on me!":) Anyway, the church was so crowded I couldn't sit by the statue of her. As I was leaving Mass I was feeling down. When I was heading toward the back doors I saw these these two nuns in white and blue saris standing by the holy water fount. They were full of contagious childlike excitement. They were waving at everyone and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. They were the happiest, most joyful infectious souls you would ever want to meet. People were just walking past them not stopping to talk. Some nodded their heads and smiled but no one engaged them in conversation. Being an admirer of Mother Teresa's nuns for years, I had to say something. So I went up to this tiny little Indian nun and put my arm around her and said. "Mother Teresa nuns are the happiest nuns on the planet." Well, this thrilled her. Ha ha. She looked up at me beaming and said impishly, "Do you know why we are so happy?" I nodded my head. She said, "do you really know why?" I said, "Why?" She said, "Because we LOVE JESSSSUUUUSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! We LOVVVVVVVVVVVVE him COMPLETELY!" The next thing I know they were joined to my hip. They walked outside with me and didn't seem to want to leave me. We talked outside on the street. I told them I how I loved Mother Teresa and that I recently read Come Be My Light regarding Mother Teresa. They said, "Good Good. OH GOOD GOOD! Do you read Secret Fire too?" I told them no. They echoed each other, "You must read. You must read.You read book!" I said, "I will." I ordered a used copy off of Amazon and it just came today. The nuns also want me to come answer their phones and cheer up the men at the house for dying men they run. It's hard to say no to a Mother Teresa nun! I started this book an hour ago and it already moving my heart.
May 17, 2023
This book was like a constant drumroll taking way too long to make its point and also was very repetitive. HOWEVER it was a gift to me to be moved by the life of Mother Theresa - she rly has an effect on you, even just looking at a picture of her.
Quotes:
-God had not sent us a check in our need, but his Son.
-Mother Theresa wanted us to awaken from our sleep, to see the light of Christ’s presence hidden under the veil of human darkness and pain.
-No matter how pious, our thoughts about God are not God. God dwells beyond them and beneath them, in the center of the soul.
Quotes:
-God had not sent us a check in our need, but his Son.
-Mother Theresa wanted us to awaken from our sleep, to see the light of Christ’s presence hidden under the veil of human darkness and pain.
-No matter how pious, our thoughts about God are not God. God dwells beyond them and beneath them, in the center of the soul.
November 5, 2014
I've always felt it was a privilege to have my lifespan overlap Mother Teresa's. I liked getting to know a person who best embodies goodness to me.
Her "encounter" with the divine was not something I knew about and was intriguing to me. I was surprised to read that she admitted she loved comfort too much to be worthy of the calling she received.
Her interpretation of Christ's pronouncement of "I thirst" -- that Christ thirsts for man's love -- is not something that had ever occurred to me. Thought provoking.
The downside of this book was the theological pontification from the author, which made itself the main character and left Mother Teresa in a supporting role. It would have been good as a supplement to Mother Teresa's story had it not been repetitive and upstagerous.
Her "encounter" with the divine was not something I knew about and was intriguing to me. I was surprised to read that she admitted she loved comfort too much to be worthy of the calling she received.
Her interpretation of Christ's pronouncement of "I thirst" -- that Christ thirsts for man's love -- is not something that had ever occurred to me. Thought provoking.
The downside of this book was the theological pontification from the author, which made itself the main character and left Mother Teresa in a supporting role. It would have been good as a supplement to Mother Teresa's story had it not been repetitive and upstagerous.
March 31, 2015
This was an amazing book that not only told the story of Mother Teresa, but, also provided some insight on how to follow in her footsteps in regards to prayer life. There were ideas dispersed throughout the book that were brand new to me. Take for example her commentary on God the Father:
'Even when we deviate from his original plan, rather than being the end, he makes it instead the beginning of a new plan, and a new path, often more beautiful than the first.'
An inspiring book that I'm sure I will read again….
"They don't know Me -so they don't want Me…" - Jesus to Mother Teresa (1947)
'Even when we deviate from his original plan, rather than being the end, he makes it instead the beginning of a new plan, and a new path, often more beautiful than the first.'
An inspiring book that I'm sure I will read again….
"They don't know Me -so they don't want Me…" - Jesus to Mother Teresa (1947)
October 28, 2019
There were definitely inspirational points. I especially liked chapter 18 meditation on the Sameritan woman. But otherwise I feel like the author is using Mother Theresa as a foil to write the book he wanted to write. I was recommended this by a friend in my men's prayer group who has read it multiple times and found it life changing. The other guys seemed to like it, so maybe I'm the outlier. Based on that, I suggest you read it. I however had no problem putting it down for long stretches of time.
April 9, 2025
Who doesn’t love seeing pictures of Mother Teresa and hearing about her life? I particularly enjoyed the chapters discussing her train ride where she meditated on Jesus’s words, “I thirst”, as well as the spiritual darkness she experienced. Otherwise, I felt like the content was repetitive and the book could have been shorter.
March 21, 2020
I read this in recommended follow-up to “Come Be My Light.” Fr. Joseph Langford gives a more thorough look at St. Teresa of Calcutta’s life and her mission around Jesus’ cry of “I thirst.” A very good place to start for anyone looking to delve into Mother Teresa’s life.
July 2, 2025
I really liked the majority of this text. It started to lose me towards the end when it became more of a devotional because I had become so invested in the typical writing of the text and did not expect it to completely shift. Inspirational story!
February 20, 2021
I was hoping for a biography, but this is not that. I made it 100+ pages in & it just felt repetitive. I have a hard time shelving books, but I'm shelving this one.
July 3, 2022
This book is life changing. I think people think Mother Teresa was just this infallible saint who liked to help people. She was a beautifully troubled reformer!
Read
June 24, 2023This book is not opening
September 21, 2023
On page 189 of 313
August 5, 2024
One of my favorite books!
January 1, 2026
A little slow in parts but overall a very good book. This is one I'll reread.
October 13, 2016
The insight of a remarkable woman who inspires us to love all.
The meaning behind "I Thirst" - God's longing for our love.
Jesus asks Mother Teresa to "Come Be My Light" in 1947.
Radiating Christ - John Henry Newman
Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly,
That my life may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through me, and be so in me
That every soul I come in contact with
May feel Your presence in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus!
Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine,
So to shine as to be a light to others;
The light, O Jesus will be all from You; none of it will be mine;
It will be you, shining on others through me.
Let me thus praise You the way You love best, by shining on those around me.
Let me preach You without preaching, not by words but by my example,
By the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do,
The evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You. Amen.
The meaning behind "I Thirst" - God's longing for our love.
Jesus asks Mother Teresa to "Come Be My Light" in 1947.
Radiating Christ - John Henry Newman
Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly,
That my life may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through me, and be so in me
That every soul I come in contact with
May feel Your presence in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus!
Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine,
So to shine as to be a light to others;
The light, O Jesus will be all from You; none of it will be mine;
It will be you, shining on others through me.
Let me thus praise You the way You love best, by shining on those around me.
Let me preach You without preaching, not by words but by my example,
By the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do,
The evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You. Amen.
January 4, 2010
A quick read and interesting (fyi: I am not a particularly relgious person). Obviously an inspiring woman who shames most of us at least a little. I like how she is portrayed as very human-she had struggles with faith but this didnt shake her perseverence. She also had some deep insight and the book makes much of her insight into the the quote of Jesus "I thirst" to mean that God thirsts for your adoration, much as a parents wants her child's love.
December 31, 2012
con este libro del padre Joseph Langford, empiezo mi conversión. Madre Teresa prefiere rezar y cuidar enfermos a la cual se le llamó. Nos habla del misterio que nos envuelve al ser bautizados. Amar es servir. Y orar para amar. La famosa placa afuera de sus capillas "Tengo sed" nos indica que debemos de dar de beber con agua pura (vida de Gracia) a nuestros hermanos. Y la Sagrada Forma nos hace más sensibles al dolor. PRCAGD
January 3, 2014
Father Joseph Langford had the incredible pleasure of working alongside Mother Teresa. His insights are captured in the book entitled MOTHER TERESA’S SECRET FIRE. The greatest lesson that I look away from this read came from page 230. “All self-seeking is empty – an ultimately futile.” If that advice sounds like a tall order of infinite proportion, Mother Teresa kindly reminds us that “Yesterday is gone; tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”
March 11, 2014
This is one of the best and most profound books I have ever read! It is full of both modern and ancient sources all supporting the same message and goal, and with every page you are taken into an deeper and more intimate encounter with the Love of God. The secrets revealed in this book are of the life changing sort and I would suggest anyone wanting to bring about change in their own life to read this book.
September 22, 2012
Sometimes the writing is a bit repetitive/wordy but this book is special in that the Priest who wrote this book had something very special to convey about Mother Teresa. He was sincerely passionate in that endeavor and that deserves commendation. This book is for everyone when they are ready to read it.
May 10, 2011
I have changed my review mostly because of recent input by a priest form Rome who was Mother Teresa's confessor. He not only doesn't like this book but requests that none of the misionaries of charity read it. It is not part of their recommended reading. I have to respect his better understanding of Mother Teresa and what she really felt.
February 25, 2011
This book is a hard read, it's very repetitive. I am go greatful to of had my dear friend Angela who has had read many books on Mother Teresa to fill in with the back history of her life and her calling. I am glad we did this book in a group setting because I would have not been able to keep myself turning pages.
March 6, 2020
Superfluous, repetitive, and underwhelming account of an extraordinary person
Very repetitive and repeats the same anecdote numerous times over and over again. Wanted to love this one, but felt like a book about such a profound topic would have much greater depth and breadth around it than it did.
Very repetitive and repeats the same anecdote numerous times over and over again. Wanted to love this one, but felt like a book about such a profound topic would have much greater depth and breadth around it than it did.
January 18, 2016
discussion of her Sept 10 encounter with Jesus on the train to Darjeeling and how it affected her calling and her life, explanations of her sharing Jesus's words on the cross: "I thirst"--God thirsts for us and longs for us to love him and be open to Him.
March 12, 2009
Loved it!
September 3, 2009
Transforming indeed! Oh what a Lenten journey... Mother Teresa's Secret Fire book by Joseph Langford, I Thirst cd by Danielle Rose and John's Gospel.
February 19, 2010
Beautiful book with one very important and profound message and that is that God's thirst is for us to thirst for him.
June 24, 2010
This is a must read! This book changed my life!
May 15, 2013
Everyone should read this book. It gives the story about Mother Teresa's life but it also gives meditations and other resources to feel the love that Jesus has for each of us and to love him back.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews