The concept of a summer spirituality may seem unusual, but the rhythm of the Christian liturgical year can be seen to invite some such phenomenon in our spirituality. The widely acknowledged relationship between the liturgical season of Lent and spring already establishes the beginnings of the connexion between the annual rhythm of nature and liturgical expression.
Easter, as the climax of Lent and spring, bursts upon the northern hemisphere with an eager celebration of light and the promise of early summer. The blossoming trees promise the fruits of a following harvest, through summer and autumn. Meanwhile, the leisurely fifty-day celebration of Eastertide leads up to Pentecost, to mark the release of the energy of the Holy Spirit into time and people; and the splendid feasts which follow, the Holy Trinity, Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Heart of Mary luxuriate in this demonstration of divine graciousness.
All this is reflected in the natural sphere, as spring’s new growth matures with summer, buoyed by the Spirit’s energy of life and the earth produces its good things, in vegetables and soft fruit. All this will climax with the longer lasting fruit of Autumn in the apples and pears, when the feast of Christ the King brings the year to its conclusion. Then the earth will enter into its Winter sleep, when Advent invites us to take stock and to begin again with our wonder at the birth of Life in the Son of God.
Christopher Dillon OSB