Make the most of your opportunities during summer

I hope that your summer is going well.  
Many of us are busy on a daily basis. I hope that you soon find yourself with more free time.  I also hope that we take advantage of the extra time on our hands and spend it with family and friends.  Summer can afford us with opportunities for time with family that we normally don’t have.  We have many daily obligations that time with loved ones can be hard to come by.  Make some memories with your family and draw closer to one another.
The other opportunity we have during the summer is to spend time with the Lord.  I can get lost in my daily duties—I mean to pray, but it is easy to put prayer as our lowest priority. During this period, can we make time for prayer?  Can we make a morning offering of our day? Can we spend some time reading the Word of God? Can we make it to daily Mass in addition to fulfilling our Sunday obligation?  Can we make time to get to Confession? Almost every parish has regularly scheduled times that a priest is available for hearing confessions.
Maybe you can spend some time reading a spiritual book.  Here are a few recommendations:
• “Rediscover the Saints” by Matthew Kelly is an easy read that introduces the reader to many of the great saints.
• “The Screwtape Letters” by C. S. Lewis is a very engaging fictional communication between a demonic tempter (like a guardian angel, but whose job is to make sure that the Christian does not go to heaven) and his supervisor. There are a lot of insights into the Christian life by looking through this lens.
• “Hail Holy Queen” by Scott Hahn who seeks to explain Mary’s role in salvation history and how that role is prefigured in the Scriptures.
• “Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist: Unlocking the Secrets of the Last Supper” by Brandt Pitre and Scott Hahn     who seek to help us better understand the Mass by showing the roots of our worship in the Old Testament.
— Pat Arensberg is the Director of the Office for Evangelization and Family Life. Email him at [email protected]