July: Ordinary Time and the Hidden Holy
July is the heart of Ordinary Time: that long stretch in the Church year without major feasts or fasts. Green vestments return, symbolising growth, life, and the slow work of becoming. Nothing dramatic happens liturgically. And perhaps that is the point.
Faith isn’t only found in mountaintop moments or candlelit vigils. It’s found in washing up after breakfast, in walking the same footpath to work, in tending children or gardens or ageing parents. Ordinary Time asks us: What if holiness is not rare, but woven quietly through everyday life?
God does not seem in a hurry. Trees grow ring by ring, bread rises under a cloth, lives are shaped in kitchens and bus stops and fields. July invites us to lean into that slowness, to live in the knowledge that God is here, in the midst of all.
From the Earth
The land is generous now. Honeysuckle curls through hedgerows, blackberries begin to blush on their stems, and fields lie golden with hay. The air hums with bees, and warm rain gives way to sudden sunlight. Swallows and house martins skim low over fields, stitching summer air.
Everything is ripening, not in haste, but in quiet abundance. July is the month where the earth does not strive; it simply bears fruit.
Those Who Went Before
St Swithun (Feast Day: 15th July)
St Swithun, a 9th-century bishop of Winchester, is remembered less for miracles than for humility. He asked to be buried outside, so that rain might fall on his grave and ordinary people could walk across it on their way into the cathedral.
After his bones were later moved indoors, legend says it rained for forty days, hence the old saying, “St Swithin’s Day if thou dost rain, for forty days it will remain…”
Swithun is a saint of weather, of quiet service, of paths trodden by everyday feet. He reminds us that God is not only found in sanctuaries, but in rain puddles, market squares, and summer clouds.
A Prayer in Action
Choose one simple task in your home or community, something easily ignored or unloved, and do it as an act of prayer. It might be:
Weeding the edges of a shared garden or path
Repairing something instead of throwing it away
Picking up litter on your street or local park
Cleaning the sink, the kettle, the doorstep slowly, without rush
As you do it, pray quietly:
“Christ, be present in this ordinary work. Make it holy.”
Not every prayer needs lofty ritual. Some prayers look like mending, sweeping, or noticing.
“Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
