Called to Practice the Art of Sabbath

The following is a guest post from Lisa Lytwyn of the Catholic Student Center at the University of Maryland

I was recently on a zoom call with a group of campus ministers. We were sharing best practices and struggles around scheduling. Multiple people shared that they experience guilt over taking time off be it a comp day after retreat, having a regular day off or even just pulling the trigger on vacation plans.

This got me thinking and praying. Where does this guilt stem from? 

Culturally, we are up against the American work ethic. Simply described: work, work, work and work some more. There isn’t much encouragement or space for time off in this mentality. Add in the status of business that is pervasive and it’s no wonder anyone, in any job, struggles to take time off. 

I think there is deeper issue here, a spiritual one. Satan does not want us to work in ministry, to serve the Church, to build up the Body of Christ on our campuses. But we have already said yes to this call. Another tactic must be utilized – the temptation to give up our Sabbath. Cue up the guilt!

We feel guilty for even entertaining the idea of a day without emails, meetings, total availability to our students. If we give into this temptation, we eventually become depleted and even exhausted. We continue to show up and serve, but we are scraping the bottom of the barrel to do so.

Having a regular Sabbath day where we set aside time for extra prayer, for rest, for family, for the things that fill you, allows us to minister from the overflow of God’s love in our lives. The barrel is full! God gives us the Sabbath because we need to be re-created on a regular basis! What a beautiful, ordered way to live. As campus ministers, we need to embrace this gift. You may work every Sunday, or a lot of weekends. Your Sabbath may need to be on Tuesday or Friday or spread out on several mornings, but for heaven’s sake, don’t give it up entirely!

Every campus minister I know works really hard. That’s a good thing – we take our call to ministry seriously and we love the Lord and our students deeply. My invitation is to take the call to Sabbath seriously too!