July: In the Presence of the Gardener
July sits in the fullness of summer: long days, softened evenings, and hedgerows full of life. Nothing feels rushed, yet everything is alive. In the Church, this is still Ordinary Time, but July carries a quiet invitation: not to do more, but to be present. To sit with God the way one sits in a warm garden, unhurried, watchful, at peace.
In many ways, the heart of July belongs to the morning of resurrection, to the garden where Mary Magdalene wept outside an empty tomb. She did not recognise Jesus at first. It was only when He said her name that she knew. July invites us into that same posture: watchfulness, tenderness, a willingness to linger even when we don’t understand.
This is not a loud month. It is the month of listening, of believing God might still walk in gardens and call us by name.
From the Earth
The land is lush and generous. Brambles thicken with early green blackberries, honeysuckle curls through hedges, and the first wheat heads turn from green to gold. Butterflies drift over thistles and clover, and bees bury themselves in lavender, foxgloves, and thyme.
Swallows and house martins stitch the sky. Lakes and rivers lie still in the heat, broken only by dragonflies and the occasional splash of a fish. Hay bales dot the fields like punctuation marks, pauses in the poem of the land.
Those Who Went Before
St Mary Magdalene (Feast Day: 22nd July)
Mary Magdalene has been misunderstood for centuries: labelled, rewritten, reduced. But Scripture shows her clearly: a woman who stayed. She followed Jesus when others walked away, stood by the cross when others hid, and went to the tomb when all hope seemed lost.
She was not looking for a miracle that Easter morning, only to tend a broken body. But instead, she became the first witness of resurrection. She mistook Him for a gardener, a mistake that perhaps tells more truth than error. Christ tends souls like soil. He grows life from darkness. He calls us by name.
Mary teaches us that devotion is not loud. It is presence. It is being there: even when you’re tired, even when you don’t understand, even when the world says it’s hopeless.
A Prayer in Action
Create a small space this month: a windowsill, garden nook, a pot of herbs on a step. Sit there each day, even just for a minute or two. No phone. No agenda. Simply be there. Look, listen, breathe.
As you sit, pray quietly (or not at all):
“Speak, Lord, I am here.”
Or simply say His name and wait.
It is enough just to be in the garden.
“Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’
She turned toward Him and cried out, ‘Rabboni!’”
