Prayer before a Holiday

I hope that during these summer days you might be able to get a break – or at least a change of usual routine to enable some rest, relaxation and time for reflection and prayer. Here is a prayer you can say, by Dominican priest, Fr. Peter Cameron OP, and a short extract from an Angelus address by Pope Francis. These are found in a longer article in the July 2022 edition of Magnificat.

Loving Father, during this time of rest and relaxation, please repair in me whatever is weary or broken, and revive my drooping spirit. Let this holiday be a graced time of recollection and rejuvenation, of deeper self-awareness and eager self-giving. May it be an occasion of refreshment and reinvigoration, a time to reclaim my friendship with Jesus Christ, who is Lord now and for ever. Amen.

“The summer season is a providential time to cultivate our task of seeking and encountering the Lord. In this period, students are free of scholastic commitments and many families take their holidays; it is important that in the period of rest and disengagement from daily activities, we can reinforce our strengths of body and soul, by deepening our spiritual journey… May Mary our Mother and the Mother of God help us to be in harmony with the Word of God, so that Christ may become light and lodestar throughout our life. Let us entrust to her the holidays of all, so that they may be peaceful and fruitful, but above all the summer of those who cannot go on holiday due to impediments of age, to reasons of health or of work, to economic restrictions or other problems, so that it may be a time of eased tension, gladdened by the presence of friends and of happy moments” (Pope Francis).