As summer draws near, we are about to be bombarded by intense liturgical Feasts – Ascension, Visitation, Pentecost, Trinity, Corpus Christi, Sacred Heart… The combination of those intense     liturgical celebrations with all of the other, non-liturgical celebrations going on these days, the graduations and the weddings and everything else, can make us feel exhausted and overwhelmed.

All the more reason to be intentional about taking time to be alone with the Lord.  There truly is   nothing more important. Here’s how Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI put it when he visited Yonkers back in 2007: What matters most is that you develop your personal relationship with God. That relationship is expressed in prayer.

And here is how Pope Francis put it in his Letter on holiness last year: Finally, though it may seem obvious, we should remember that holiness consists in a habitual openness to the transcendent,   expressed in prayer and adoration. The saints are distinguished by a spirit of prayer and a need for communion with God. They find an exclusive concern with this world to be narrow and stifling, and, amid their own concerns and commitments, they long for God, losing themselves in praise and   contemplation of the Lord. I do not believe in holiness without prayer, even though that prayer need not be lengthy or involve intense emotions.

(Gaudete et Exultate, 147)

Fr John Bartunek, https://rcspirituality.org

May this month of June and these feast days remind us of the most important things in our life: that we are loved by God and we have a call to holiness. God bless!