The saints understood something beautiful that the rest of us often miss…
Our souls are a lot like gardens.
Just as a garden requires labor, care, and attentiveness to flourish, so too does the spiritual life demand nurture and vigilance.
St. Teresa of Ávila used the metaphor of a garden to describe the soul’s development in The Interior Castle. She wrote:
“The soul is like a garden enclosed, full of great beauty, abounding in delights, and rich with fruits. The owner of this garden is God Himself.”
Here, Teresa illustrates the soul’s inner life as a garden that must be tended with prayer, meditation, and contemplation. The gardener’s role is to cooperate with God’s grace in rooting out the weeds of sin and planting virtues, just as a gardener cultivates beautiful flowers and edible plants.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux used the imagery of flowers to represent souls. Each soul, like each flower, is unique and contributes its beauty to the splendor of creation, which she considered the garden of the Lord. She encourages us to offer ourselves as “little flowers” to Jesus, reminding us how even the smallest acts, when done with love, are a delight to Him.
Beyond being a useful metaphor, the practical act of gardening can also be a form of prayer.
Repetitive tasks such as planting, weeding, and watering offer a rhythm that lends itself to contemplative silence, in which we can meditate on the word of God and the beauty of the natural world.
Moreover, the patience required in gardening—waiting for seeds to sprout and mature into flowers or fruits—mirrors the patience needed in the spiritual life, where growth and transformation often occur incrementally and beneath the surface. Just as a gardener cannot hurry the growth of a plant, neither can we rush our spiritual growth; both require patience, perseverance, and trust in a fruitful outcome.
There are so many more lessons about both gardening and the spiritual life to be learned! A Catholic Gardener’s Spiritual Almanac explores the riches of the Catholic spiritual tradition in conjunction with all things gardening. Filled with beautiful meditations and scripture passages on a spiritual theme for each month, reflections on the liturgical seasons and feasts, and delightful stories of saints who have special relevance to gardening, this book is the perfect addition to any Catholic library! Order your copy today from The Catholic Company!
