This is the time of year that I do spring cleaning and it feels good to clean out and give away items that we are no longer using. It’s interesting how I feel like the clutter encumbers me in my temporal life, but also in my spiritual life.

Having stuff and maintaining stuff is a responsibility and a time commitment. The more I can simplify and streamline, the more time I have to give to God and others. I guess i would say that I’m striving to live a low maintenance life on the material front so that I have more time for soul-filling activities, such as praying and reading, spending time with family and friends, being involved in parish life, going to daily Mass, being out in nature and participating in various ministries.

So making more room for God, more room to grow, more room to invite others into my life is a priority in this season of my life. So that same cleaning out is a good practice that also applies to our hearts and minds. This is a time for me to prayerfully consider what past hurts am I holding on to that need to be healed? What does my family need from me this summer? What relationships need nurturing? What spiritual practices do I feel called to, but have not yet made a priority? Do I need to allow for more silence and time to pray and read, to be with God in nature?

St. Augustine said, “Let us leave a little room for reflection in our lives, room too for silence. Let us look within ourselves and see whether there is some delightful hidden place inside where we can be free of noise and argument. Let us hear the Word of God in stillness and perhaps we will then come to understand it.”

I’m inspired to spend more time in that “delightful hidden place inside' with the easy breeziness of summer.

Scripture is a beautiful guidepost on this journey of making more room for God and being filled with Him in new ways. From Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the holy Spirit.”

Also, this is a powerful reminder from 1 Corinthians 3:16, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” Am I asking the indwelling God what He wants from me and and am I asking for His help to do it?

I’m concluding my first year as a student in the Encounter School of Ministry online school and we have a student in our class who is 81 years old. She is still growing in her relationship with God and I’m so inspired by her desire to learn, to go deep, to share and and to make even more room for God in her life.

St. John Paul II said, “What really matters in life is that we are loved by Christ and we love Him in return.”

Lord, help me to really make it that simple — to depend on your love and to love you back, simply and fully, Amen.