“A Simple Path” by Saint Mother Teresa

Written by: Julio Lago

Who is a good Christian? Who is a good follower of Christ? How do we know we are good Catholics? In Matthew 16:24 Jesus himself gives us the answer: “Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’” It is as simple as that, is it not?

To be a good Catholic, a good Christian, can be complicated…, some time ago, I heard in the Catholic radio: “ … in order to be a good Catholic you should own and know four books: the Bible, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Code of Canon Law and the Liturgy of the Hours”. The Bible has 1,189 chapters, the Catechism of the Catholic Church has 2,865 paragraphs, the Code of Canon Law has 1,752 laws, the Liturgy of the Hours has approximately 50,000 prayers. These are the “basics”, apparently, there are thirty millions of pontifical documents in the Vatican archives, without considering the documents published by the conferences of bishops in each country. I always looked at this collection of information as an example of the riches of our Church, the consequence of being an alive organism that grows, reproduces and transforms itself. However, it is not by reading and understanding all these bodies of knowledge that one becomes a faithful follower of Our Lord, a goodCatholicc. History and many of our parish experiences show us that there are many people with great knowledge, but not necessarily the ability and spiritual disposition to put it into practice like God wants.

Certainly, we have the cases of many saints that with relatively little knowledge have made great impact in the Church, the Kingdom of God and the world in general, through martyrdom and works of mercy. Someone may think that all these body of knowledge is not needed, so why was it written in the first place?

Maybe being a good catholic is about patiently waiting for the Holy Spirit to act in us, so He can take us to the path we must go. This is called quietism: to think everything depends on God (which is true) and that as a consequence we do not need to take action.

Our protestant brother would say: “Sola fides” and “Sola Escriptura”. This means, faith alone can save us and we do not need any rules beyond what is written in the Bible. At an extreme, we could say works are not necessary. We know this is not true, because the same Bible in the New Testament clearly explains that faith with no works is dead (James 2:17).

Someone else, may say, the answer is in contemplative prayer, the sacraments, the Church Tradition, the liturgy, the church movements (like the focolare, the charismatic or the Opus Dei). And undoubtedly, all of these have helped to the construction of the Kingdom of God and the Great Commission: “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…” (Matthew 18:16-20).

Others could say, it is the presence of Our Holy Mother and her gentle guidance through apparitions, and private revelations that made the difference for them and that it is the devotion to the Virgin which makes us good catholics and we would be wrong to minimize the influence of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, in the Church and intercessor, mediator and dispenser of grace.

So, with all these options and variety of choices, how do we know what to do in order to save us? What does it mean to follow Jesus?

For me in particular, the clarity of the way forward (to follow Jesus), started while attending to a spiritual retreat at the beginning of 2013. The retreat was based in the spirituality of Mother Teresa of Calcutta (now a saint) and the contents of the book we review today.

The book is called “A Simple Path”, written by Mother Teresa of Calcutta and compiled by Lucinda Vardey. Written in 1995.

This little book, with only 180 pages, has six chapters. Each chapter contains a brief explanation, many comments from the Missionaries of Charity (the religious order Mother Teresa founded) and practical examples that help to understand the central message of the book, which is this:

“The fruit of silence is prayer

The fruit of prayer is faith

The fruit of faith is love

The fruit of love is service

The fruit of service is peace”

It is that simple, there is nothing else, and all its contents are summarized in these five brief statements. There are only three more comments I would like to add:

First, it is truth everything starts with silence and listening to God, but this does not mean that you need to wait for the voice of God to be clearly understood to start acting. Sometimes, the best way to start is help with an apostolate, help the needy or answer in kindness to our neighbor. The steps Mother Teresa proposes do not need to be consecutive and do not need to follow an exact order. This means, you do not need to wait until you have a perfect prayer life to have faith or to be of service to others. However, it is very difficult to be persevere in service and find peace, if we do not have the sustenance of a prayer life, faith and love within us.

The second point is that we may have preconceived ideas of what is silence, prayer, faith, love, service and peace, this is one reason that is convenient to read this book to revisit these concepts, for example: sometimes we think that peace is not fighting with anybody, being left alone and not bothering the others, or we may think that peace is an exhilarating joy similar to euphoria. But the peace Mother Theresa, our Holy Mother the Church and Jesus Christ refers to, is not the “cheap” peace achieved by avoiding conflict at all costs, it is the peace that comes from knowing that in each and every moment we are doing what God wants from us and that we are in communion with Him.

Finally, a warning, if you are starting your journey of faith, while reading this book, you may feel that is is necessary for you to go to the streets and help the poor and needy, you may feel that you are not doing enough for the others (it may well be true). However, what God wants from you, is different from what God wants from me, and it is different from what God wanted from the people that gave their testimony in the book. One thing is for sure, today (not tomorrow), what God wants from you is that we become Christ for the other and that we see Christ in each person we meet, answering His love with small acts of kindness made with great love.

I amply recommend you to read this book to find the true peace that comes from following Christ (the simple way).