Mother Teresa of Calcutta — Missionaries of Charity founder and Nobel Peace laureate, who famously lived this verse in the simplest possible way: doing small things with great love.

From the writers we read together

Mother Teresa

Missionaries of Charity; Calcutta, 1910–1997

Paul ends his long, corrective letter to Corinth with this simple instruction. After all the controversy—divisions, immorality, lawsuits, spiritual gifts debates—the final practical word is the shortest: let everything be done in love. All the other instructions collapse into this one.

Mother Teresa made this verse her operating principle. The great thing was not the scale of the work—it was the love behind the work. Washing a wound, feeding a dying man, holding a child—these became acts of worship because they were done with great love. Today, you will do dozens of things. The question for each: am I doing this in love?