Your inner life also has seasons

The Church paints the year in colors: purple for times of penance, green for ordinary time, white for feasts, red for love and sacrifice. Not the whole year is Easter, nor is it all Lent. There are seasons, and each has its tone. Your inner life works similarly. There will be times of effort and dryness, other gray and ordinary ones, others of clear joy. Expecting to always be in 'celebration mode' leads to frustration; and believing that the gray stage has no value is a mistake. Knowing this brings peace. When it is time for purple, walk through it without dramatizing; when white arrives, enjoy it without guilt. No season lasts forever, and all of them, well lived, shape the same thing: you.