The Catholic Meaning of Rest**

** full article posted at:

https://www.magiscenter.com/blog/the-catholic-meaning-of-rest

Summertime has a way of slowing the world down. The days lengthen, the evenings linger, and even the most driven among us feel an invitation to exhale. Families scatter to beaches and cabins, and work rhythms loosen. But the season’s invitation to rest isn’t limited to vacations; it echoes in other corners of life as well.

As one example, I have many friends who are retiring, stepping away from decades-long careers with mixtures of relief, gratitude, and uncertainty. Their rest looks different from a summer week at the lake. While some may feel the joy of release, others likely feel the ache of letting go. But all of them, in their own way, are entering a new form of rest that demands contemplation about who they are and the purpose of their time on this earth.

These two examples—summertime vacations and retirement—represent very different seasons in time and in life. Yet, they ideally share a common thread of renewal. Vacations can become small blessings through which we renew ourselves, our relationships with others, and perhaps even our relationships with creation and our Creator. And retirement is, at its best, a new way of receiving one’s life as a gift (and, hopefully, an opportunity to cultivate one’s own gifts, although that’s a subject for another day).

Check out the rest of the article at:

https://www.magiscenter.com/blog/the-catholic-meaning-of-rest