Summer has a way of making us comfortable and complacent, but St Michael’s Lent – from the Feast of the Assumption until Michaelmas – reminds us that the Christian life requires deliberate self-denial and that our whole person belongs to Christ. This is a wonderful opportunity to refocus on what matters most: learning to pray with your whole self: mind, body and soul.

Last year, I had the wonderful opportunity to join a group of men at our local church to undertake the 40-day version of St Michael’s Lent from August 12 to the feast of the Archangels, minus Sundays. There were many elements of those 40 days that I found edifying, but the discipline I found harder than I expected – and more rewarding precisely because of its difficulty – was the weekly 2–3am vigil Holy Hour.