Pope Benedict’s vacation advice from a recent general
audience: “We must set aside time in life for God, to open our life to God with
a thought, a meditation, a small prayer and not to forget Sunday is the day of
the Lord.” And in another place he said: “He who neglects contemplation is
deprived of the vision of the light of God; he who is carried away with worry
and allows his thoughts to be crushed by the tumult of the things of the world
is condemned to the absolute impossibility of penetrating the secrets of the
invisible God …While at work, with its frenetic rhythms, and during vacation,
we have to reserve moments for God. [We have to] open our lives up to him,
directing a thought to him, a reflection, a brief prayer. And above all, we
mustn’t forget that Sunday is the day of Our Lord, the day of the liturgy, [the
day] to perceive in the beauty of our churches, in the sacred music and in the
Word of God, the same beauty of our God, allowing him to enter into our being.
Only in this way is our life made great; it is truly made a life.”