Daily Meditation: Sunday, August 13, 2006

Holidays, periods of rest are necessary, but what do people …

08/13/2006

Holidays, periods of rest are necessary, but what do people generally want from their holidays? To improve themselves? To engage in a spiritual work which will bring them closer to the Lord? No, they want to give free rein to all the instinctive tendencies they have pent up in themselves throughout the rest of the year. During their holidays they have more time, and since they are in far-off places and among people they do not know, they allow themselves a great deal of licence. This is why, instead of returning from their holidays rested, rejuvenated and radiant, they come back drained, ill and embroiled in impossible situations. Well, I say you are meant to use holidays to purify yourself and to devote yourself to the spiritual work you are not free to engage in during the rest of the year. This doesn’t mean you engage in no spiritual activity during the remaining ten or eleven months; you do, but holidays should allow you to devote yourself to it fully and freely. This is the activity that gives you a real rest, that calms, fortifies, stimulates, beautifies and restores you.