This year Presvytera and I are gardening more. We have planted a lot of perennial flowers and some vegetables—peas, kale, potatoes, zucchini, cucumbers and tomatoes—and we have young fruit trees that are starting to produce fruit this year. So gardening is on my mind.
Water is on my mind too. Each new plant and every garden bed needs water, and it must be watered frequently and reliably, either with an irrigation system and a timer, or with consistent hand watering. If we go out of town, the watering must continue, lest we return from a trip to find a sad scene: drooping snapdragons, wilted kale, and curled-up roses.
Our soul needs watering too. The Church has been watering us since early spring, through our annual spiritual rainfall of Great Lent, Pascha, and Pentecost. Drinking from the divine waters, we have all, to some degree, been affected by this profound time: The joyful-sorrow (harmolipi) of the Lenten services, the gravity of Holy Week, the 40 days of chanting, “Christ is risen!” and the joyous feasts of Ascension and Pentecost. We have been watered indeed, and the divine seeds have been planted.
The Gospel reading on the great feast of Pentecost reminds us of the source of this spiritual spring—our Lord Jesus Christ:
“On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, ‘If anyone thirst, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me as the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ Now this He said about the Spirit, which those who believed in Him were to receive.” (John 7:37-39)
Jesus gives us the “water” of the Holy Spirit to nourish our noetic heart. During the spiritual contest of Great Lent, this watering was more consistent, when we participated in frequent services, rigorous fasting, and other ascetical disciplines. But perhaps after Pascha we became lackadaisical and lost our spiritual vigilance. So the Church, our Mother, has given us the great feasts after the Leavetaking of Pascha—Ascension and Pentecost—to help us once again water our souls with living water, cultivating the seed of God’s grace.
Now it’s summertime, with all of the joys that this season contains—longer days, vacations, outdoor activities, gardening, and more. How will we water the garden of our soul? There is an impulse in us to “take a vacation” from the spiritual and ascetical life during summer. Everything in our culture reinforces this, giving us many reasons to abandon self-restraint, to enter a vacation mode in which we “pause” our spiritual life for a few weeks or months and enter a mode of self-indulgence.
When we take a holiday from the spiritual life, our soul becomes dried out and thirsty and a dwelling place of the weeds of the passions. This is because we have an unrelenting enemy! For our adversary, the devil, there is no summer or winter, no vacation days or PTO; there is just all-out war, all the time, every day. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, [remaining] steadfast in the faith.” (1 Peter 5:8-9)
This is why, when we let our guard down, our soul becomes parched and desolate, habitable only by the thorns and thistles. The spiritual fruit we have received in the preceding months—in Lent and Pascha—dries out and falls off the branch.
As we enter into summer, let us keep up the consistent watering of our soul. Here is some practical advice for the summertime:
· Pray daily in the quiet, undistracted presence of your icons.
· Celebrate the many summer saints (coming to their Liturgies when possible): St. John the Baptist, St. Paisios, St. John Maximovich, St. Elizabeth, St. Panteleimon, St. Anna, St. Phanourios, St. Paraskevi, and the Holy Dormition of Panagia.
· Confess your sins. Your spiritual fathers are still available for confession in the summer months.
· Follow the fasts that the Church, our Mother, prescribes. Truly this prescription will heal many passions! With zeal and exactness, observe the Apostles Fast (June 16-28) and the Dormition Fast (August 1-14).
· When you travel, keep your prayers. The adversary tempts us into “vacation mode” when we travel, so that he can sow his harmful tares into our soul. If you let down your guard, neglecting prayer, the enemy will do his damage. Instead, bring icons and a prayer rope on your trip and plan ahead how you will make time for quiet prayer—wherever you are staying.
The summer has come! Let us not take a “summer break” in the spiritual life. Water your soul consistently, so that the seeds that were planted in the Lenten spring will bear much fruit, “some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
May our loving Lord bless, guide, and protect you, wherever you go!
