The sky and sea were a vibrant blue, and the sun shined brightly between the white and navy umbrellas overhead, just enough to make my light pink rosary beads sparkle. After the hours-long trip the day prior, I was finally basking in Nice’s beachy weather and the Glorious Mysteries. I could finally breathe. I was living simply.
Milan, Italy: 2023
Two bathing suits. Five dresses. A sweatshirt. Some other necessities. My passport and a handful of euros. A journal. My rosary. That’s all I had to my name inside that forty-liter backpack of mine.
I first started backpacking—traveling with only a single backpack—after graduating from my Master’s program. During the last year of my program, I spent hours preparing, praying, researching, and buying just the right backpack, of course, and before I knew it, it was just me, on a plane, headed to Milan, Italy, as my first of many stops.
I landed in Milan, and I was shell-shocked. It’s here, I’m here, and it’s just me and this backpack for two months in Europe. Why did I do this? What am I going to do for two months? And yet, it was the words of Saint Mother Teresa that kept me going: “Live simply so others may simply live,” and I was taking them to heart.
Calcutta, India: 1929
Mother Teresa was brave enough to live simply. In 1929, a year after joining the Sisters of Loreto at the young age of eighteen, Mother Teresa arrived in Calcutta, India, where she would start her life-long mission and meek service to the Lord. Over the next few decades, she would go on to profess her final vows, teach and become principal for St. Mary’s School for Girls, and inspire others with her devout consecration to Christ, owning nothing yet somehow able to give so much to the world.
Within this vocation and the simplicity of her life, Saint Mother Teresa created the space for Jesus to come into her life. It was 1946 when Jesus shared His thirst for Mother Teresa and asked her to love the poor more deeply by establishing the Missionaries of Charity, a new religious community. Within that holy calling, Mother Teresa left teaching with the Sisters of Loreto for aiding the poor slums of Calcutta.
Saint Mother Teresa would aid so many through her obedience, poverty, and charity in the Lord. By the 1990s, the blue-and-white-clad Missionaries of Charity would grow in expansive numbers and reach the spiritual and physical needs of the poor across the world. From India to Albania, Mother Teresa was able to love those people who were unloved and unwanted. Truly, Saint Mother Teresa lived simply, allowing her the space, time, and dedication to focus on others and help them simply live too.
London, England: 2025
That space and simplicity that Saint Mother Teresa pursued and created for others in her work—I was craving that in my life again two years after my backpacking trip to Europe. The clutter and busyness of life were getting out of hand. I was definitely not living simply, nor helping others to simply live at all; instead, I had been focusing on myself of late and all the stuff I owned and wanted and filled my life with. Thankfully, backpacking and Mother Teresa reminded me of this.
Just like my first trip to Europe, I felt refreshed by how much space I had to be the person I wanted to be. I had the time and space to pray my daily prayers and Rosary and to meet and befriend others from around the world, even evangelizing when my hostel-mates had questions about Catholicism. In England, I didn’t spend much time picking out my outfits for the day or buying things like I did at home, because how many clothes did I actually have? And where would I even put all my purchases?
On my last day in London, I remembered the Sunday gospel from my first stop of my trip to Nice, France: “Go on your way . . . Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals” (Luke 10: 3-4).
The disciples lived simply, evangelizing to all the world, and I realized so was I. With a little more than what the disciples brought with them, God had sent me and my backpack on my way to spread His Gospel in the European continent. I had left everything behind, and in the process, I fell back into that decluttered, simple life that allowed me to love better, be more selfless, detach from the things of this world, and personally pilgrimage toward God. Truly I was living simply so others around me could simply live, just like Mother Teresa had urged us and shown us how to do through her mission.
Suddenly, I clearly understood all the changes God wanted for my normal life back at home: swapping clutter with open space, living fully with living simply. I wanted to no longer be distracted by things so I could truly see others instead.
The Homecoming
Any traveler will tell you that the hardest part of traveling is coming back home. And while that is true for me, I also get excited to come back and better my life with all that I learned abroad.
Coming home this past summer, I wanted to find ways to live more simply and hear God and His directions more clearly here and in the now. By donating the clothes and things I don’t use so others may benefit from them and simplifying my life so as to focus on the things that matter. By decluttering my daily life’s agenda so I could love whomever is right in front of me. Even though I physically took off my backpack, I wanted to carry with me the mindset of living simply and having less so others can have more.
Sister, living simply isn’t just for consecrated women or international travelers; God calls all of us to this way of life. I urge you to create the space away from all the things of this world for the Lord to show you how to love others, yourself, and Him better. Even if it’s just for a few minutes, take some time and leave behind the noise, the possessions, the agenda items, the clothes, the awards, and so on. Sometimes you have to so you can see your life more clearly and hear God’s direction more loudly.
Live simply so others may simply live. You never know whose lives you’ll touch, including your own, in the process.
Liz Homick works at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. as the loudest and most talkative librarian in the building. Since backpacking Europe for six weeks after graduating with her Master’s in Library Science, Liz is a huge advocate of solo travel and attending Mass in every language imaginable. She believes in unconditional kindness and existing brightly despite life’s storms.
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