If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent

“If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it,” said Mother Teresa, the saint of Calcutta whose life was itself a lamp of compassion in a world shadowed by indifference. Her words carry the rhythm of both divine truth and human tenderness — a reminder that love, like a flame, cannot live on intention alone. It must be nourished by action, by the steady and humble pouring of the heart’s own oil: kindness, patience, forgiveness, and service. For the lamp of love, once lit, is not a thing that burns by itself; it requires care, devotion, and renewal, lest its light grow dim.

The origin of this quote lies in the heart of Mother Teresa’s mission — among the sick, the dying, and the forgotten in the streets of India. She saw with her own eyes how easily words without deeds crumble into dust. “If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out,” she said, not as a poet or philosopher, but as one who lived love in motion. To her, love unspoken, love ungiven, was not love at all. The message must go forth — not as mere sound, but as presence, as service, as action. The oil of the lamp must be poured again and again, each act of care renewing the flame that warms the world.

Her imagery of the lamp is ancient, and timeless. In the temples of old, lamps burned through the night as symbols of divine watchfulness. But every priest, every devotee, knew this: the lamp will die unless the oil is tended. So too with the heart. Love, in its purity, is not a single act or fleeting emotion. It is endurance. It is the daily tending of something sacred — the decision to give light even when the darkness seems endless. Mother Teresa’s lamp is not one of grandeur; it is small, humble, often trembling against the winds of the world. Yet, in her hands, it illuminated millions.

Think of her life’s work. In the poorest quarters of Calcutta, she knelt beside those whom society had abandoned — lepers, beggars, the dying — and she spoke no sermons. Her sermon was the gentle touch, the bandaged wound, the whispered prayer. In that simplicity, she sent forth her love message, again and again, through the quiet oil of service. She understood that the flame of love, if not shared, flickers into self-absorption. To keep it alive, it must be given. It must warm others. For love is not a possession to be hoarded; it is a current to be passed onward.

And yet, her words also carry a warning. For how many of us seek to live by love, and yet forget to refuel the spirit that sustains it? The heart grows weary. The flame sputters. We burn ourselves empty trying to do good, forgetting that the oil of love must be replenished — through prayer, through rest, through the grace of giving and receiving. Mother Teresa knew that no flame burns forever without care. Even the holiest heart must return again and again to the source of love — to God, to silence, to gratitude. To keep a lamp burning, one must not only pour out but also be filled.

Her teaching, therefore, is twofold: first, that love must be expressed; second, that love must be sustained. Words without deeds are hollow, but deeds without renewal are doomed to exhaustion. The balance of giving and receiving, of burning and replenishing, is what allows love to endure across the years, across the generations. Each act of compassion is oil for the flame. Each moment of humility, each gesture of patience, adds brightness to the light that drives back the cold of despair.

So, dear listener, take this wisdom as your guide. If there is love in your heart, send it out — through kindness, through truth, through the courage to care. Speak it, live it, give it — for only love shared becomes love real. But do not forget the lamp itself. Tend it daily. Feed it with moments of stillness, with gratitude, with the remembrance that the source of all love is divine. Let your flame burn not in pride, but in service — small but steady, fragile yet eternal.

And when the nights of your life grow long, when the winds of fear and fatigue threaten to extinguish your light, remember Mother Teresa’s eternal counsel: keep putting oil in the lamp. For even the smallest flame, tended with devotion, can pierce the darkness — and its warmth, carried from heart to heart, becomes the everlasting message of love that no shadow can overcome.