Summer has always been a fun time for me, and I suspect that is true for most of us. Some of my best memories are spending time with friends at the neighborhood tennis courts and pool, family vacations, camps, cookouts and a more leisurely pace to life.

Not all my summers have been that way, and I am thinking this year about a particular summer a little more than 20 years ago that I wouldn’t call fun, but it was filled with joy and had a permanent effect on me.

That summer, I took a trip to Calcutta (now Kolkata), India. I was pastor of Our Lady of Mercy at the time, and one of our parishioners developed a program called the Mother Teresa Project in which one priest and three seminarians would spend a little more than a month there working directly with the Sisters of Charity and those they serve daily.

I went about three years after Mother Teresa died, but her presence was felt and her influence strong. The commitment of the sisters to service was truly formative for me and for all who were with us.

My prayer life on that trip may have been the best it has ever been. The day began early with morning Mass for the sisters, which I had the privilege of offering. A full day of work was followed in the evening by adoration. I am a big believer in the benefits of structuring your prayer time, and the structure of those two bookends made for a very prayerful and beautiful experience.

I can’t even describe how beautiful it was to work side by side with the sisters. The days were long and not easy, but the presence of the Lord was all around us. We worked in the home for the dying (Kalighat), the home for those with disabilities, a leper colony, and with children and young mothers in various homes. At every place and at all times, the sisters were the epitome of what it means to love and serve unconditionally, without question, holding nothing back.

One of my most vivid memories and special moments came when I was asked to bless the convent where the sisters lived. I was invited upstairs to their room – one room with probably 40 or 50 beds. Above each bed hung a sari, their white and blue habit, and below each bed was a single shoebox containing their possessions.

Let that sink in for a moment. All your possessions are hanging above your bed or underneath it in a shoebox. It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? And yet, the sisters radiated joy, happiness and love to all. Their joy came not from their possessions but from their relationship with the Lord. Loving God and their neighbor were everything to them.

I also enjoyed the chance to mentor a few seminarians early in their journey and help them experience the gifts of prayer and service as well. We often went to the same places during the days for ministry, and we had dinner together every night. That gave us an opportunity to talk about our experiences serving the poor and the lessons we learned each day.

Twenty years later, many of the most profound gifts of that experience remain with me. I think my prayer life is still better in the summertime because of the different schedule. Advent and Lent have been and will be my key periods of devotion to prayer. The Church provides a structure for us that is very helpful in preparing for the Lord’s birth and the Resurrection.

Summer is quieter. It is by no means a vacation from prayer, but it is an opportunity to slow down enough to hear the Lord’s voice and to respond more lovingly. There is time for reflection and thinking more deeply about things important to my vocation and to our service at Catholic Charities.

I am also reminded of the importance of “saying yes,” which is our motto at Catholic Charities. Mother Teresa responded to the Lord with a resounding yes, establishing a community of sisters who take care of those in need in such a beautiful way. Seeing the sisters and their commitment to their work was a beautiful gift I brought back with me.

Twenty years after the trip and 10 years after coming to Catholic Charities, I try my best to bring that same gift to the agency every day. Much of the last decade has been sharing that vision with our staff and those we serve in a way that I hope would make Mother Teresa proud.

I think often about her statement that God does not require us to be successful, only faithful. I see this every day in our clients, staff, volunteers and donors. We are trying to be faithful. We are present. We do the best we can every single day, often with great success, but sometimes partial success or even limited success.

Whatever the result, we persevere in remaining faithful to the ministry of service. We truly recognize Jesus in the poorest of the poor. And we bring that gift of Jesus to all we meet on a daily basis. I thank God for all of you who make this work possible through your time, talent and treasure.

God had a plan when I set out for Calcutta a little over 20 years ago. To this day, I remember the joy of being there despite the heartbreaking conditions. I still feel the wonder of prayer and service joining together and the strong presence of the Lord. This summer, I am recommitting to energizing my prayer life as best I can through my fidelity and energizing my own works of service as well as all we do at Catholic Charities.

Through faithfulness, perseverance and working together, we can make a difference for all.

(Msgr. Enzler serves as the president and CEO of  Catholic Charities of the  Archdiocese of Washington.)