Free Printable St. Teresa of Calcutta "Wash the Dishes..."

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please read my disclosure policy.

inside: Printable St. Teresa of Calcutta Quote “Wash the Dishes…”

If you’re anything like me, you loathe coming home to a big pile of dishes.

Perhaps your daughters decided to pop popcorn and watch the old Disney Cinderella together. And the boys realized they were ravenous so they emptied the fridge of leftovers.

No one cleaned up after themselves.

My home was a disaster, popcorn was scattered everywhere, and filthy plates were piled next to the sink.

Printable St. Teresa of Calcutta Quote

I don’t have the best attitude at these times. Then I ran across a beautiful quote from St. Teresa of Calcutta.

Wash the plate not because it is dirty nor because you are told to wash it, but because you love the person who will use it next.

Isn’t that beautiful! And what a lovely reminder it is for us and our children about doing chores from Mother Teresa.

Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity and served the poorest of the poor in Calcutta.

We do chores, not because the house is dirty. Not because we’re told to do it. But because we love the people in the house.

I’m going to repeat that… because we love the people in the house.

Doing the little things shows the people in our lives that we care about them. Kids don’t need to wait until their adult life begins to start helping others. We don’t need to head out to places on the other side of the world to make a difference.

So when the kids leave a huge mess in the kitchen, one that’s going to take an hour to clean up, I shouldn’t focus on washing the dishes simply because they’re dirty. I shouldn’t moan and groan about being left with all the work.

Instead, it’s all about cleaning the kitchen because I love the people in the house.

And because I have no intention of allowing my children to leave such a mess for their future spouses, I call them in to help.

And we clean the kitchen together.

The quote is an attitude-changing quote. Imagine reading it before you begin to do morning and evening chores every day. A simple reminder that we’re doing this because we love the people in the house. It’s a reminder I want for myself.

A reminder that small things which are done with great love matter. Human beings tend to forget this. And it’s a beautiful quote to ponder during my Holy Hours. Sometimes you can make the biggest difference by looking around and caring for the little issues that pop up during the day.

Saint Teresa of Calcutta Quote as Kitchen Decor

So I created a printable of the quote to frame and hang on the wall. It’s a digital file, pdf to be exact, that you can download.

Download the quote and then print it on a regular sheet of 8.5X11 paper. And frame it.

Then hang the Saint Teresa of Calcutta Quote over the kitchen sink as a reminder for you and your children of why you wash the dishes. It’s a beautiful piece of kitchen decor that will remind your family about how ordinary things done with extraordinary love make a difference in our broken world.

Everyday tasks are a beautiful way to tell the people around us that we love them. And this beautiful reminder can hang as a physical item in your kitchen. You and your family will be inspired to wash the plates and do the chores not because the plates need to be washed and the chores need to be done, but because you love your family.

So remind your family each day that instead of worrying whether or not their siblings are doing their share of the chores, they should…