Different seasons of the year highlight basic needs that we all have. For example, it’s heartening to note how many of us recognize and respond to the need for prayer and for spiritual growth during the Lenten Season. Many choose to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation during this time. Persons are highly receptive to participate in opportunities that enable us to grow in our faith and to relate the Faith of the Church to the challenges of daily living.
During much of the year, many of us are engaged in work and/or learning. In a given year, we spend the lion’s share of our time at work or at school. Work, including learning, offers an on-going opportunity to participate in our Lord’s creating work in the world. As we put ourselves wholeheartedly into our work at school and/or at our jobs, we are saying YES to the abilities and skills with which we have been blessed. For many of us, it is in and through our employment that the Lord offers us in the pay that we receive a significant portion of the daily bread for which we pray in the Lord’s Prayer.
From childhood on, many of us associate the summer season with play and recreation. Whether we travel or not, we chomp at the bit to be on vacation. Vacation time is a needed gift from the Lord. Extended times of leisure remind us that as persons, we are a whole lot more than the sum total of all that we do. Instinctively, there is a desire within each of us for recreation. For many of us, vacation time offers us an opportunity to visit and be with persons whom we don’t see all that often. During vacation time, many of us like to explore and do that which is new. Hopefully, vacation time offers opportunities to thank the Lord just for being alive.
Something that we can easily overlook is that at all times, we need to provide for ourselves occasions in our lives for prayer, work and play.
When St. Paul admonishes us to pray without ceasing, he does not intend to say that we should be on our knees at all times. Hopefully, the spirit of prayer gives a distinctive flavor to all that we do. Prayer helps us to appreciate the importance and proper place of play and of work.
Daily prayer helps us to experience going to school and/or work as opportunities to be embraced rather than as ordeals to be endured. Without the spirit of prayer, we can relate to work and to school in ways that hurt ourselves and others. Where prayer is lacking, we can make an idol or god out of what we do. We can fall into the pit of assuming that we are important because of what we do, especially when we compare our achievements with those of others.
Apart from living in the spirit of prayer, even recreational activities can lose their splendor and luster. We can wear ourselves out trying to get so much in during the limited days of vacation that we have. Vacation time was never meant to be a time of heaviness of this nature.
At all times and seasons of the year, there is a need in each of us for prayer, for play and for work/learning, even though at different times during the year, we focus our attention on one of these basic needs. Hopefully, during vacation time, we will recognize a need both for prayer and for work and learning. As we make time daily for each of these basic activities in our lives, we can experience renewed strength and energy at all times of the year in all that we do.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Fr. Nelson Beaver – Pastor