Spiritual Summer Camp
If you were a summer camp kid, you know the magic. Words fall short of describing the distillation of memory, timelessness, and unbridled fun that is summer camp. Everything is heightened. The sun is hotter against the skin and the lake is fresher when exploded open by a courageous canon ball. Even the cafeteria-style food tastes like a heavenly banquet after hours and hours of outdoor, unplugged freedom. There’s nothing like summer camp.
I imagine Peter, John, and James were experiencing a taste of that heightened state as they were invited by Jesus to climb Mount Tabor and spend some time in prayer together. I bet the air dove deeper into their lungs that day as our Lord led them to a moment in time that would be forever etched on their hearts as it is in the calendar of our Church.
Although Jesus’ was, without question, the most dramatic of transfigurations, there is little doubt an inner transfiguration occurred inside each of His three chosen disciples. A complete change in inner spiritual form. A confirmation by the voice of God himself that the person they were following was God’s chosen Son. The radiance that must have resulted from that revelation! The pleasing incarnation who was climbing mountains and praying with dirty knees in solidarity with all humankind was right there with them. It’s knowledge that can’t help but change a person. A knowledge that should make them glow from the inside out.
It’s hard to imagine that each of us, like the three disciples, are invited by Jesus to our own private session of prayer with Him. Yet, Lent is just that. It’s an invitation to consciously remove ourselves from the everyday expectation of what our day should look like and respond to Jesus’ invitation to pray with Him. I wonder how fruitful our Lent would be if we stopped considering it a Church-wide boot camp and started approaching it as a spiritual summer camp. What if, this Lent, we are being invited to pack lightly, gaze at the same stars as Abraham did, and sing campfire songs as we glow from the inside with the knowledge that the Lord is our light and our salvation? What if this Lent we refused to pitch a tent and swayed in soul-expanding freedom with our Lord, occupying our minds with the imagination of heavenly things and following Jesus wherever He may lead?
Kelly Meraw is the Director of Liturgy, Music, and Pastoral Care for St. John – St. Paul Collaborative in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Kelly earned her Master’s Degree from McGill University, where during her undergraduate studies, she was received into the Catholic Church through the RCIA program at St. Patrick’s Basilica in Montreal, Canada. Kelly brings her deep love of scripture, liturgy, music, and devotion to Church teaching and tradition to her ministry.
In her parishes she leads bible studies; organizes faith sharing circles and social justice initiatives; leads communion, wake and committal services; offers adult faith enrichment programming; and shepherds bereavement ministries.
Currently she finds the undeniable movements of the Holy Spirit and great hope in the process of living as a deeply listening Church. After this first session of the Synod on Synodality she will continue to engage in the communal discernment process offering fulsome and inclusive ways to serve the Church’s current Synod.
