Summer is a time of rest. Life seems to be slowing down except for our spiritual life. In fact the latter is heavily engaged with the fiercest spiritual warfares ever during the summer season. When the mind is left idle or not occupied enough it unfortunately ends up being an easy prey for Satan’s attacks. In this perspective one can better appreciate what common spiritual wisdom says: “In summer the evil one works overtime. So involve yourself in any kind of activity that keeps you occupied!”
The mind is the preferred place where Satan likes to attack through his malicious temptations. And since sin is the cancer of the spirit, as Thomas Merton put it, Satan tries to do his best to aggrandise the fantasy of the person. During temptation Jesus counseled us to pray. “Pray that you may not enter into temptation” (Lk 22, 40). With prayer the mind is protected by God’s presence against any destructive thoughts and urges that spoil our God given capacity of living a fruitful abundant life.
St John of Karpathos said: “Fire makes iron impossible to touch, and likewise frequent prayer renders the intellect more forceful in its warfare against the enemy. That is why the demons strive with all their strength to make us slothful in attentiveness to prayer, for they know that prayer is the intellect’s invincible weapon against them”. Such a powerful Godly wisdom needs no further comments! So let us take up the attitude of continual prayer as exhorted to us by Saint Paul in his first letter to the Thessalonians. “Pray constantly” (1 Thes 5, 17).
In his Angelus address of 15 July, 2007, precisely at Lorenzago di Cardore in Belluno, nothern Italy, Pope Benedict XVI said that the period of vacations is a graced time for spiritual renewal. “Every good Christian knows that vacations are an appropriate time for relaxation and also the nourishment of the spirit through more extended periods of prayer and meditation, in order to grow in one’s personal relationship with Christ and to conform increasingly to his teachings”.
May our vacations this year be an excellent opportunity for us to praise God and ask for his continual assistance in order that we may grow and mature in his tender fatherly loving care.
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap
San Gwann