By Brody McCurdy, excerpted from the Life Teen website.
… Summertime! The time for hanging out with friends, vegging out on the couch, taking cool trips, and of course bingeing on all the shows and movies that homework/studying prevented you from watching.
But when it comes to our spiritual lives, summertime can be a time of spiritual dryness – a time when we fall off our spiritual path – especially when some youth groups don’t meet as often, if at all during the two months of summer break.
… I challenged myself to investigate the best ways to pre-vent a summer vacation from turning into a temporary vacation from God …
- Shoot for the Moon
Forgive me if I sound like a DIY self-improvement book, but one of the keys to accomplishing anything – in this case staying spiritually fit during the summer – is setting goals for yourself …
Set reasonable goals for yourself, like making a commitment to pray a decade of the rosary every day or reading a small part of the Bible every morning, and be creative.
- Gather
…A great way to continue and deepen in our faith journey during the summer is to form a community of friends with whom we can build trust and establish relationships. In this way we can create a group of people (or even just one person) that can hold one another accountable, support one another, pray together, have fun and enjoy each other’s company.
- Answer the Call to Serve
… Jesus calls on us to be His hands and feet to our neighbors and local communities by completing the Spiritual and Physical Works of mercy.
With no school, summer is a great time to meet Christ face to face out in the community through various volunteering opportunities like helping out at your church’s Vacation Bible School and/or CCD, or volunteering at a soup kitchen that serves the less fortunate in your area.
- Read Books for the Soul
Reading the Word of God is an essential part in any Christian’s spiritual journey, and thankfully it is the most widely available book in the world. But for many of us, we treat the Bible more as a paperweight than as the inspired Word of God, and it sits on a counter or bookshelf, untouched, unread, and unused. Make this the summer that changes that.
.. But you don’t have to stop there. Because Christianity has been around for 2,000 years, there have been countless books written by amazing Christians who have gone before us. These authors, many of them saints, have walked the walk and have talked the talk and can help us do the same.
- Stay Connected
… Below I’ve listed some of the best stuff I’ve found around the web to make Christ a part of your internet/social media experience:
- Apps: Daily Bible, iRosary, Laudate, 40 Day spiritual Workout and Steubenville App
- Facebook Pages: Ask a Catholic Nun, Ask a Catholic Priest, Word on Fire and Catholic Memes
- Websites: Real Life Catholic and Church Pop
(Read Brody’s full article on the Life Teen blog.)