“Hope is but joy. When we really meet the poor, we can feel the joy they can give”. This is a passage from the speech held by Mother Teresa at the meting “The poor are hope” in Milan, on October 18th 1973, which now has been fully published by “Avvenire”. Mother Teresa’s words, along with those she said to the nuns during her visit in Milan, have been collected in the book “Amiamo chi non è amato” (Editrice Missionaria Italiana). “Our work, our job, our serving the poor – Mother Teresa said at the Milan meeting – are but the embodiment of our love of God”. “In the attempt to bring some relief to poor people’s life – she went on –, we freely choose to be as poor as they are, so that we can understand their poverty. For us, poverty is the freedom to serve the poorest of the poor”. “We need a life of prayer to be able to see Christ in the disfigured face of the poor”, added the nun, for whom “we do not think spending our entire life feeding the hungry, dressing the naked, assisting the sick, giving a house to the homeless, teaching to the ignorant, loving the unloved, accepting the unwanted, is a waste of time, because Jesus said: ‘You did it to me’”. On that occasion, Mother Teresa also spoke of the lepers but she admitted that the most serious disease nowadays is not leprosy or tuberculosis, it is loneliness, it is feeling neglected, unloved, unwanted”. “This – she warned – is the cause of the many riots, divisions and wars that afflict us nowadays”. That’s why, she added, “we should all become missionary of charity and bring Christ’s love first to our family, then to our neighbours, so as to extend peace all over the world”.