“Summer Days are Here “, says the song. Isn’t it wonderful to be able to go outside to enjoy a Summer’s day whether by the seaside, in the mountains, or simply in our back gardens.
I love to just sit at my door and admire the garden and especially the lilac growing by my door. Soon the bees will arrive to buzz around ‘do their thing’. The perfume of the lilac wafts on the evening air and all is right with the world.
It is no wonder that monks love lilac. I once had the opportunity to spend a full week of retreat with some Benedictine friends at their priory in a place called Ganagobie. There there were vast lavender fields, fields that the monks of earlier centuries had won from the hard limestone plateau above the Dordogne River. The monks harvested the lavender for perfume which was sold in the abbey bookstore.
There is a ‘rightness’ about Summer that we appreciate. It feels like we are invited to live differently, to leave the pettiness of our enclosed lives behind and to launch out into God’s wide frontier of nature and landscape.
The call to become a Brother, or, indeed, to any vocation in life, is often experienced in this way. It is like a silent invitation that inspires Summer joy in our hearts.
If it arises for you, welcome it and enjoy it.
Have a great Summer!
