Summertime Spirituality
Summertime typically offers a more relaxes schedule and opportunities to break from the routine. This season should also be a time to deepen one’s faith and grow in love and relationship with Christ, finding that balance between work and leisure. This blogcast explores “Summertime Spirituality" from the Ad Infinitum blog, written by Erin Donn and read by Fatima Monterrubio Cruess.
It seems that there is something innate in our yearning for summer. As a child and student, I longed for the last day of school when I could trade in my early morning alarms and textbooks for sleeping in and spending time with friends. While summers in adulthood do not usher in quite the same change of schedule or freedom from responsibilities, I nonetheless eagerly await them. What is it that stirs this desire for summertime within us? What lessons of summertime can we bring into our spiritual lives?
In the bustle of daily life it can be hard to find time for any rest, let alone that which truly restores and invigorates us. It is good that we work and labor, but we were not created for that alone. Jesus tells us, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) We can find this rest firstly in times of silence and prayer with our Lord. And, I think we can also find it in the long days of summer. The extra hours of sunlight or the extra days of vacation provide opportunities to lay our burdens of busyness down at the Lord’s feet. Far from eschewing or running away from responsibilities, these times of rest create opportunities to live out the rhythm of work and rest God desires for us.
If summer affords you a bit more time to slow down, take some of these moments to reflect on how you can reorder your days to find a balance of work and rest to live throughout the year. How is the Lord calling you to deeper rest this summer?
For many people the shorter, colder days of winter can be difficult to endure. The desire for the light of summer is tinged with a spiritual longing for a reprieve from the dreariness of winter. We can lift our faces to the sun after months of bundling up and hunching our shoulders against the cold. As composites of body and soul, these changes in the seasons do not just affect our activities, but translate to our emotional and spiritual lives too. While winter may have lent itself to a quiet reflectiveness or melancholy, the light of summer can incline our spirits towards a renewed levity. Even in the heaviest days of winter we know that summer will indeed come; just as in the heavy days of life we know that Christ’s promises of joy will be fulfilled.
Have you noticed that your mood or prayer shifts with the seasons? What hopes are you bringing from the winter depths into this new season of light and warmth?
In all the seasons we experience, whether naturally or interiorly, we are invited to praise and give thanks to God: a task we all know is easier said than done. One beauty of warm, sunny days is that they make that praise a bit easier to offer. It seems to me that we do not have to look quite as far to find joy as we may in the colder months. Summer wells up in us an awareness of God’s goodness. We can simply listen to the waves crashing at the beach, take in a perfect summer sunset, or revel in an afternoon spent outside with good friends. While the earth sings its summer song to the Lord, we can sing our song to Him too (see Psalm 96).
As we continue through the summer months, take time to slow down and praise God in the goodness of the season. In what splendors of summer do you receive God’s love and glimpse His care for you?
Despite all our longings for summer, it can often feel like it slips by too fast. This summer, which only just began seven days ago, I invite you to slow down and rest, shed the layers of life that can weigh us down, and open your heart to notice and receive all the goodness the Lord has in store for you in this season.
Author:
Erin Donn serves as the parish missionary at Immaculate Conception Church in Washington, DC.
Resources:
Listen to On Mission podcast Catholic Feast Days App
Read the Ad Infinitum blog
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