Mary's Gardens Developmental Correspondence
Bonnie Roberson Letters 1981
This "book length" correspondence, and similarly extensive
correspondence (in long process of posting to Website) with Jane
McLaughlin of Woods Hole; Bro. Seán MacNamara of Ireland; and Nanette
Sears of Annapolis, represent Mary's "in house" developmental
activity from 1980 (following that of Bonnie, who had carried it
forward from 1968 until then) through 1965, when the Internet website
and general e-mail correspondence were initiated.)
Because of the book length and unediting of the letters, a listing of
letter contents has been prepared .
John Stokes
January, 2005
LETTER TOPICS
January 3, 1981
- Solar Greenhouse Symbolism of Our Lady - "House of Gold"
January 5, 1981
- More on Solar Greenhouse Symbolism
January 6, 1981
- Our Spiritual House of Wisdom
January 7, 1981
- The Input of Mystics in the Building of God's Kingdom
January 9, 1981
- We are to emulate the Holy Spirit's love of Mary.
January 11, 1981
- The Love of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit and Mary - Fatima Sun
January 14, 1981
- More on Love of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Mary - Fatima Sun
January 18, 1981
- The Breviary, Liturgy of the Hours and Garden re. the Sun
January 21, 1981
- Mary Clothed with the Sun as Mediatrix - as Envisaged at Pentecost
January 22, 1981
- Angican Society of Mary? - Plant Lost from Greenhouse Delays
January 23, 1981
- Mary's Transforation of Nature for God's Kingdom
January 24, 1981
- Mary's Power - Henry Adams' "Prayer to the Virgin of Chartres"
January 25, 1981
- Spiritual Symbolism of Various Energy Forms - Mark of the Cross
January 27, 1981
- Lack of Recourse to Mary in our Times - More on Adversities
January 28, 1981
- Humilty is not to block our aspirations to experience God and Mary
February 1, 1981
- Emulation of Mary's virtuous enabling of God's divine/human sharing
February 2, 1981
- Candlemas - The Entering of the Light of Christ into our Souls
February 4, 1981
- Mary's coming forth "bright...terrible" - Hands of the Living God
February 5, 1981
- Dedication of Solar Greenhouse to Our Lady Clothed With The Sun
February 6, 1981
- Flowers of Our Lady Photos from UK - Lincoln Cathedral Lady Chapel
February 7, 1981
- Holiness, Sacramentals, Symbols - The Hands of the Living God
February 9, 1981
- Mary's Rooting of Her Virtues in, or Projecting of Her Image on us.
February 11, 1981
- Necessity of Miracles in the Divine Plan - Mary's Reparational Mediation
February 17, 1981
- Invisaging Mary as we Pray to Her - Solar Greenhouse Technical Details
February 24, 1981
- Teresa McLean's "Medieval English Gardens - Loss of Religious Sense Today
February 25, 1981
- Our Interior Attunement to Spiritual Flowers and Flower Symbols
February 28, 1981
- Mary's Total Union with God through her Annunciation Immaculateness
THE LETTERS
Boston, MA
January 3, 1981
Dear Bonnie,
Thanks very much for your tape of December 28 which I picked up at
the Post Office yesterday.
As with all your tapes through the years, I made complete notes for
the correspondence file - stopping the tape whenever necessary to
enable my notes to keep up I will reply in the order of the tape and
notes, since it is so full.
First, it was good news that the work of completing the solar
greenhouse was expected to start on Monday, and I sincerely hope it
is well advanced or completed by now.
Your perception that the solar greenhouse should be dedicated to Our
Lady of Guadeloupe, as the woman clothed with the Sun, at its formal,
priestly, blessing strikes me as so right. I hadn't thought about
dedication and blessing that specifically, but it is a joy to me that
I have written so much (because I have thought so much) about the
woman clothed with the Sun, who comes forth as the morning rising,
fair as the moon, bright as the sun, and terrible as an army set in
battle array.
Yes, our thoughts are so much together, as we each examine different
facets of the one radiant reality.
As I write, a further thought has formed which further ties Mary and
the solar greenhouse. Since all earthly cities, cathedrals, houses
and other structures symbolize and mirror Mary as the City of God and
House of Gold - so does your solar greenhouse. Your solar greenhouse
itself can be seen as a symbol of Mary as Mystical City and House of
Gold - and as you enter it, this can symbolize our mystical rising
within the heavenly city - just as our entering our outdoor Mary
Gardens symbolizes our entry into the terrestrial and heavenly
paradises of the New Eden, the Garden Enclosed.
St. Peter speaks of us a being "living stones" in the heavenly city -
which I understand mystically as the upper, heavenly, terminus of the
resurrection vortex, tower of ivory, ladder to heaven or spiritual
vessel through which our soul flows up to heaven. Our souls become
living stones in the walls or buildings of Mary, the Mystical City of
God - and as living stones, they are more like "cells", each
reproducing in miniature the entire city. I believe it is the doors
and gates of the living stones of the "upper ends" of our heavenly
vessels of our souls that are to "lift up" and "grow higher", that
the King of Glory may "enter", per Psalm 24.
There are obvious correspondences to lifting or opening up the solar
greenhouse shades or blinds to let the sun in in daytime, etc.
The inclusion of both pilgrim and rosemary within the meanings of
both romero and pereguina (perigrino, na) must, I am sure, have some
profound historical connection and origin - which our research will
uncover. One "lead" which initially comes to mind is that the Flight
into Egypt was indeed a kind of pilgrimage, or at least a "traveling
on a religious account" - and it is with the Flight that the rosemary
is legendarily associated. In any case, this is a starting point for
having a rosemary plant before the Pilgrim Virgin in your solar
greenhouse. As I recall, the central message of the Pilgrim Virgin
is one of going out into the world in a call to reparation; and the
Flight into Egypt was certainly a going out into the world. The
Flight and the call to reparation both have to do with Mary's
sorrows, earthly and heavenly. This is a truly beautiful fruit of
your research, Bonnie - a real joy.
While I've been sort of working on the heavenly end of the research
just now, this in now way diminishes my equal joy with the beautiful
cultural and linguistic expressions of love for Mary.
Thank you, too, for researching out the eyelash, fringes equivalence
in the Spanish word castania. While I obtained the name Lady-Fringes
for Begonia heracleifoira from Graf's Exotica II and III, he must
have gotten it from the Spanish. I see from Hortus 2 that it is a
Mexican plant. In glancing through my Mexican research folder, I
don't see casania anywhere. Now that we're looking for it, we may
find it.
It does occur to me that the "eyelashes" or "fringes" of Begonia
heracleifolia might come from its hairy leaves - although the points
on the leaves are so striking, and also the basis for the name "star
begonia", that I suspect that the points might have been seen as
large fringes or edging. Anyway, as I look at the leaf borders of
the Alchemilla vulgaris Lady's Mantle, I now see its fringes, and
also Our Lady's Eyelashes.
I may have the book Symbolism in Floral Arrangement in New Hope; I'm
not sure. I have a somewhat similar book, Floral art for Religious
Events, by Leon J. Tolle, Jr. Hearthside Press, New York, 1969, which
was researched through a grant from the Florists' Transworld Delivery
Association, and lists the feasts of various Christian churches, and
also Jewish holy days, together with Christian and Jewish flower
symbols.
I will look forward to receiving the Xerox copies you plan to make -
transportation and arthritis permitting - and also to receiving
whatever books you wish to send. I will be happy to reimburse you
for any books you might be able to get for me by moving fast, before
you have a chance to check with me. Don't worry about my being
"beholden" to you.
They did have Tagetes lucida (and also T. patula) in both the Oxford
and Paris botanical gardens. The French common name for Marigold is
"Star of India". I have the T. lucida plant from Logee's in my small
sunny window, and we'll see what happens.
It's really striking how "far" I feel from the plants in that other
window, in a room I don't otherwise regularly use, and which is kept
locked - as compared to the plants in my study windowsill Mary
Garden, which I live with through the day. I see the others mostly
once a day, when I water them.
I enclose a photo I took today of the Queen's Tears, (Bilbergia
nutans), from that window. The pendant flower cluster has now
bloomed, gradually - you can see one in bloom now - sort of
fuchsia-like in form - at the lower right. The main reason for the
photo is my discovery that as each spent bloom starts to close and
wither, a little liquid "tear" forms, somewhat as with Tradescantia
Virginiana, Our Lady's Tears. In this case, the "tear" is more
"sticky", and if you look closely, perhaps with a magnifying glass,
you may be able to see one, like a little white dot, about _' (on the
photo) up from the tip of the lower left-hand spent bloom. Actually
this was glistening in the sun, but the camera didn't quite catch
this.
Thanks very much for the research reference on the Trinity symbolism
of the Aloe. What strikes me especially about this symbolism is the
emergence of each new leaf from between the previous two, like the
Holy Spirit processing from the Father and the Son - to me a much
more dynamic Trinitarian symbol than that of the various trefoils and
the shamrock.
There are hundreds of geraniums around this neighborhood in warm
weather - in pots, window boxes and beds - and I never paid much
attention to them. Neither did I when I had them in my Chestnut Hill
Mary Garden, and in pots on the terrace there. It has been living
with the one plant I have here as a windowsill plant, with the pot
pretty much at my eye level, as I sit at my desk, that has enabled
this plant to "get to me". And, now, as the Advent bloom head is
beginning to wither, a new one with seven buds is shooting up. Maybe
the fact that I let it rest for month this summer, while away, has
something to do with its vigor now.
While I only have 1 hour a day of sun for December and January, I am
convinced that the general brightness of the sky and of the reflected
light from the brick building across the street contributes the
equivalent of several more hours. Just about everything seems to
keep growing foliage, and the Cyclamens, like the Geranium, just keep
blooming and blooming, as does my African Violets and wax Begonia. I
recently got a small, yellow double-flowered "Riker" Begonia from a
Cambridge florist, Kupersmith, which I will use for my "Gold Rose"
symbolism. Kupersmith's front window and inside tables are just
"loaded" with Aloe veras, large and small, and that's where I got my
Rosemary, in the middle of winter.
Regarding the research, I have a card file for legends, just like the
names, where I make the briefest notation - like "Nativity Legend",
or "Flight into Egypt Legend", and the abbreviated name of the book ,
with page number. Then I keep a card file of the reference books,
alphabetically by abbreviated name, or usually the abbreviated
author's name (Except that this is the one file I can't find,
although I can reproduce just about all of it).
One other thing I can't find is a tape I made back in the early 50's
of an interview with the then "keeper" of the tower bells at Woods
Hole - Wallace K. butler. Did I ever make a copy of this for you (I
hope)?
I really appreciate your tapes, Bonnie, and this last one (even
though you had a lot of trouble getting the recorder to work right,
you said, although it wasn't apparent from the tape) was back in your
chatty, free-flowing style, communicating all you love.
It has been indispensable to me to be able to write to you of all my
"introspective research" as it has proceeded - knowing that I am
dealing with matter of the profoundest importance to both of us, and
to Mary's Gardens, even if some of it is a bit speculative and "far
out".
The symbolism of Our Lady Clothed with the Sun, as patroness of the
Solar Greenhouse' and the House of Gold - City of God symbolism of
the Solar Greenhouse itself; together with the Pilgrim Virgin concept
of going out to the world with Our Lady, and the Pilgrim Rosemary -
are potent vehicles of God's power for moving forward the Church and
the Peaceable Kingdom in the coming Age of Mary, and I am overjoyed
to be part of it with you.
Sincerely, in Our Lady,
+
Boston, MA
January 3, 1981
Epiphany
Dear Bonnie,
Since writing you yesterday, I have had a few more thoughts about the
solar greenhouse symbolism I would like to pass on to you.
First, as I have mentioned before, I believe, I find a striking
symbol of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Vriesea x mariae, of which there
are tow color photographs in Exotica 3, on pages 397 an d407. I am
convinced that the naming of this hybrid (of V. inflata) came from
this association - unconsciously if not consciously - because of the
resemblance of the yellow-orange inflorescence of the golden rays of
the sun surrounding the figure of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I obtained
a plant form Reoccurs back in 1964-1965 which bloomed with only east
light. I propose that it "goes with" your Figure of Our Lady of
Guadalupe, much as the Rosemary goes with the Pilgrim Virgin.
Also, I don't know if you have the indulgence prayer (500 days) to
Our Lady of Guadalupe:
"Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mystical Rose, make intercession for
Holy Church, protect the sovereign Pontiff, help all those who invoke
the in their necessities, and since the art the ever Virgin Mary and
Mother of the true God obtain for us from they most holy Son the
grace of keeping our faith, or sweet hope in the midst of the
bitterness of life, of burning charity, and the precious gift of
final perseverance. Amen."
I enclose a Xerox copy of this prayer card - and, also, some other
small leaflets from De Guadalupe, in Los Angeles, which I picked up
from their booth at the 1976 Eucharist Congress exhibit in
Philadelphia. They had on display at the booth a 6 ft enlargement of
the original Our Lady of Guadalupe painting which was breathtaking,
and really gave the full impact of the floral and leaf patterns on
her dress or smock, not of this worked. I recall stopping before it
and praying for quite some time. And next to the large wheat and
grapes monstrance and consecrated Host, of which I sent you a slide
photo: it was the "high Point" of the entire visit to the Congress -
together with an ecumenical service I attended, where Cardinal John
Krol of Philadelphia washed the feet of a number of bishops and
clergymen of various denominations, including, I believe, the present
Pope, then Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, who attended the conference.
Another thought is that Mary's "coming forth as the morning rising,
fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in
battle array", from her Rest in the bosom of the Trinity is in effect
a "pilgrimage". She comes forth to us at Guadalupe, Paris, La
Salette, Lourdes, Knock, Fatima, Beauring, Banneux, etc. as a
pilgrim, and as manifested in the Pilgrim Virgin, of Fatima.
In other words, Bonnie, there is a definite "pilgrimage" link between
the heavenly Woman clothed in the Sun, "coming forth", and her "going
forth" as the Pilgrim Virgin - or as Mary Garden Missionary.
Just for the record, I should make note that Canticles 6,9, "Who is
she that cometh forth", etc. is incorporated in the Little Office of
the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Roman Rite as the "Little Chapter"
prayer at Prime (Morning Prayer). It is also incorporated in the
daily Legion of Mary Prayer, as antiphon for the Magnificat.
Mary on pilgrimage also recalls her other travels, with their various
legends and symbolical flowers: the Visitation, Nativity, Flight into
Egypt, (Return from Egypt), (To Ephesus with St. John), the
Assumption, and her various Appearances. Also included should be the
Way of the Cross, in Jerusalem.
As for the solar greenhouse itself, in addition to the symbolism I
mentioned in my letter yesterday, there is also the following
symbolism of spiritual modalities:
Light, Glory - Sunlight
Grace - Irrigating, Spraying, Misting
Word, Pneum - Plant Growth Symbolisms
Power, Strength - Heat Storage and Convection
- which can also be seen as corresponding to Christ, Mary, the Holy
Spirit and the Father.
In the work, and pilgrimage, of renewing the face of the earth and
building the Peaceable Kingdom, we need the dynamism of God's Light,
Grace, Word and Power - and the solar greenhouse gives us the "feel"
for this, the feel for how the shining of God's countenance on the
soul is mirrored, diffracted and distributed according to these
different spiritual modalities.
Psalm 67:2,3
"O God, be gracious and bless us
and let your face shed its light upon us.
So will your ways be known upon earth
and all nations learn your saving help."
It is ultimately we, who from the Rest of the shining of God's
countenance on the "greenhouse of our souls" , are to come, and to
go, forth, with Our Lady as pilgrims or missionaries, diffracting and
distributing:
- the reparation, of the Cross of Christ
- the cleansing of the heavenly fire of Mary and John the Baptist
- the conduiting and infusion of the grace of Mary
- the liberation through the Holy Spirit in Baptism
- the breathing, sowing and planting of the word of Christ
- the strengthening, of the power of the Father
- the thanksgiving and praise of angels, souls and the Church.
through the spire, birds, lights, flowers, fruits, branches of our
Tree of Life, Christ - mirroring the Father, in the union of the Holy
Spirit.
Sincerely, in Our Lady,
Boston, MA
January 5, 1981
Dear Bonnie
A few more thoughts about the symbolism of the solar greenhouse.
In addition to the religious "house" symbolism having to do with our
soul's mystical ascent to heaven, and the opening at gates and doors
(and blinds) to let the glory of the shining of God's countenance
enter through our soul's heavenly house to irradiate the mirroring
and diffracting soul - about which I wrote on January 3 and 4 - there
is all the symbolism having to do with the earthly pilgrimage to the
Temple, and which has significance not only for our own salvation and
sanctification, but for those who come to, or "make pilgrimages" to
our house.
The Old Testament is filled with this symbolism, but perhaps the most
pertinent passages are Psalms 120 to 134 which were known as the
Pilgrim Psalms, Gradual Psalms or Psalms of Ascents or of the Steps -
and 9 of which (120-128) are included in the Liturgy of the Hours
for recitation every day by Christians.
These were the Psalms recited by Pilgrims as they "went up" to
Jerusalem, up Mt. Zion, and up the steps of the Temple.
(Incidentally, I am using the present official numbering of the
Psalms, used by the Church and by the Hebrew bible. Previous to
Vatican II, the Septuagint numbering would be 119 to 133).
The Pilgrim Psalms take us all the way from leaving the "world" (120)
to Heavenly Rest (131-134) - LOOKING BACK AND FORTH FROM THE WORLD
AND THE TEMPLE AS THEY GO.
Part of the symbolism has to do with the mystical building of our own
interior house or temple as we go along, and this is the dimension
that perhaps applies most to your solar greenhouse. You have already
been living Psalm 127 very intensely:
"If the Lord does not build the house,
in vain do its builders labour;
"In vain is your earlier rising,
your going later to rest,
you who toil for the bread you eat:
when he pours gifts on his beloved
while they slumber."
The spiritual toil of ascending to the temple, or of building it, and
of building our interior temple, is massive - and it occurs to me
that you might find these psalms more insightful now, on a sort of
"welcome to the club" basis.
The experiences and truths involved of course apply equally to your
efforts to "build" your Hagerman Chapel, as your temple of worship.
They symbolism of building our interior spiritual house is also part
of the Roman liturgy for the dedication of a Church. In the new
Liturgy of the Hours this has been very much abbreviated, retaining
only the passage of St. Augustine's used in the Third and Sixth Days
within the Octave in the old Roman Breviary:
"This is our house of prayer, but we too are a house of
God
"The work we see complete in this building is physical;
it should find its spiritual counterpart in your hearts.
We see here the finished product of stone and wood; so
too your lives should reveal the handiwork of God's grace."
Other passages from St. Augustine, in the Breviary, are:
"Whenever - we keep the festival of an altar or temple,
if our minds be faithful and attentive, and our lives
just and holy, all that is done in temples made with
hands, will be fulfilled in a spiritual building also
within us."
"Since, without antecedent merits, we have by the grace
of God been found worthy to become his temples, let us
then labor with his aid as much as we can, lest the Lord
should find in his temple, that is in our very selves,
aught that may offend the eyes of his majesty."
(Dedication, Lesson iv.)
"Jerusalem, which is built as a city (pg. 122) - When
David spoke these words, the city was no longer being
built, but was complete. He spoke therefore, of some
other city, which is now being built, unto which run in
faith living stones; of which Peter saith: be you also
as living stones built up, a spiritual house; that is, a
holy temple of God. What does the expressions: Be you as
living stones built up mean? Thou livest, if thou believest:
but if thou believest, thou art made the temple of God;
for the Apostle Paul says: The temple of God is holy: which
you are."
(Second Day within the Octave, Lesson iv.)
and,
"When an earthly foundation is laid the walls are built
upon them; and the weight of the walls tends to the lowest
part, because the foundation was laid of the lowest part.
But if our foundation is in heaven, let us build so as to
tend towards heaven. Since we are being built up spiritually,
our foundation is placed at the highest part. Let us
therefore run thither, let us be built up there, for of this
same Jerusalem it is said: Our feet were standing in thy
courts, O Jerusalem." (Ps. 122) ) (Second Day within the
Octave, Lesson vi)
I thought you should have this information for your meditation,
Bonnie, and also so you would have the tradition on which my thoughts
have been based.
Sincerely, in Our Lady,
+
Boston, MA
January 6, 1981
Dear Bonnie,
When I was at Widener Library last night I Xeroxed the pages on
Romero and Peregrino from the four Spanish dictionaries there
(enclosed):
Alonso, Martin, Enciclopedia Del Idioina, Madrid, 1958.
*Corominos, J., Diccionario Critico Etimologica De La Lenqua
Castelluna, Madrid.
Libreria Editorila Argos, Diccionario De La Lengua, Barcelona
1977.
Real Academia Espanola, Diccionario De La Lengua Espanola,
Madrid, 1970.
* Romero only (no section on Peregrino).
It was a nice little providential touch that Argos included an
illustration of a Guadalupe Peregrino, and that the page with Romero
illustrated one of the old reliquary Madonnas, virgen de Ger, of the
kind to which pilgrimages were made.
These sources distinguish two different etymological roots for the
two meanings of Romero (Rosemary - Ros marinos, and Pilgrim - Roma).
However, the way languages work at the popular, oral, level is
something else, and I feel sure the Rosemary/Pilgrim association must
have been a living thing.
In any case Romero clearly and indisputably has both meanings in all
the dictionaries we have found thus far, so we are on unassailably
solid grounds for vivifying this association.
With further respect to the symbolism of the solar greenhouse, I want
to thank you for the inspiration your love for it has been to me,
just the way your outdoor Mary Garden was twenty years ago, and
especially your love for it - and also your love for the dish Mary
Gardens.
There just isn't any question in my mind that implicitly or
explicitly, unconsciously or consciously, love for plants in
containers manifests love for Mary's virtues in our souls; love for
gardens manifests love for Mary as Terrestrial and Heavenly Paradise;
love for shrubs and trees manifests love for Mary's Son, the Tree of
Life and of Mary as Mystical Rose; and love for plant houses
manifests love for Mary, the House of Wisdom, House of Gold and City
of God.
The fact that you so much want a house for your plants which you love
so much, and that you want all this for Mary, and that the
providential opportunity has come, and with its crosses, is to me a
profound spiritual event for you and Ernie.
And all that has been very inspiring to me - not only in general, and
personally, but very specifically in terms of my own life, work and
writing.
To give a concrete example: I had some major insights 3 or 4 years
ago about our interior, spiritual, "house of wisdom", but even though
I wrote a chapter about it in my book manuscript, something still
wasn't quite clear - until in the middle of writing you yesterday.
The Scriptural passage involved is Proverbs 9, 1-3:
"Wisdom built her a house, she has set up her seven
columns. She has slain her victims, mingled her wine,
and set her table. She has sent her maids to invite to
the tower, and to the walls of the city."
What I wrote, intuitively was (10-63):
"As distinct from the flowering stem which took root
and blossomed in the vital body and spiritual heart,
rising from the bottom to the top - the crystalline,
mirroring, seven stories of the house of wisdom seemed
to be illuminated from the top proceeding downwards."
But it wasn't until I was copying for you the passages from St.
Augustine yesterday (which I had read myriads of times) that I saw
the fuller scriptural and mystical basis for this:
"Since we are being built up spiritually, our foundation
is placed at the highest part."
Late yesterday afternoon it came to me. Like the ladder to heaven,
our spiritual tower or vessel conduiting our soul mystically to
heaven descends and is suspended from the top downwards - not built
from the bottom upwards like a spire on a church. This is Mary, our
Spiritual Vessel and Tower of Ivory (Litany of Laredo)- a Tower of
the Mystical City of God which extends downwards, like a heavenly
mine shaft - such that we can be "invited to the tower, and to the
walls of the city" - and to the "courts of the Lord", where we are to
lift up the "doors" and "gates" higher to let in the "King of Glory -
into the "heavenly greenhouse of our soul" at the top of our tower,
as "living stones".
So, you see, Bonnie, my attempt to assimilate the meaning of your
love for this solar greenhouse is bearing much fruit, for which,
again, I thank you.
Sincerely, in Our Lady,
+
Boston, MA
January 7, 1981
Dear Bonnie,
After my suggestions of the last four days regarding the various
possible mystical symbolisms of the solar greenhouse, I suppose I
should attempt to bring things "back down to earth", since this is
where the action is.
And what the action is for us, as I see it, is that if we are to help
make Mary better known and loved, so that Jesus will be better known
and loved, we are first and foremost ever to increase our love for
Mary as mirrored in our daily lives.
This was the key thing that I sensed about your outdoor Mary Garden,
as I wrote in "Aves":
"From the religious meaning of the plants, their
arrangement around the central statue of the Virgin and
Child, and their careful cultivation, visitors immediately
sensed this was a very special kind of garden, a garden of
peace and prayer and love, a garden with a fullness of
meaning and beauty not to be found in the usual herb or
flower garden."
But, how are we to communicate to others the message for our times of
Mary's appearances at Guadalupe, Paris, La Salette, Lourdes, Knock,
Fatima, Bauraing and Banneux - of the urgent need for increased
fidelity to the duties of our state in life; reparation for sin; and
sanctification of our daily lives through praying the Rosary and
devotion to her Immaculate Heart?
As I write, Bonnie, I see three points of focus here:
The very fact of Mary's coming forth from her heavenly rest, as the
Woman Clothed with the Sun, to make her various pilgrimages to earth
to bring this message, in love,
The continual increase of global dangers to humanity such as nuclear
weapons and radiation, pollution, toxic wastes, depletion of
resources, disease, starvation, armaments, immorality, drugs, etc.
and the evident incapacity of rational, secular, scientific humanism
to deal with the, and belief in the power of obedience, reparation,
sanctification and prayer to move God to establish the necessary
world climate of justice, love and wisdom, and to be instrumental to
this climate, so that we humans can build the earthly Peaceable
Kingdom.
Your planned use of the figures of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the
Pilgrim Virgin of Fatima as focal, together with the symbolical
flowers, speak directly and forcefully to the first point - as can
smaller figures of Our Lady of Grace (Paris), La Salette, Lourdes and
Knock (sent by Brother Sean).
These are also no doubt figures of Our Lady of Bauraing and Banneux -
although these appearances are less well known in the U.S. (except
for their inclusion with the other six in John J. Delaney's book, "A
Woman Clothed with the Sun").
The second point is spoken to by the solar greenhouse itself, with
its energy saving, and its concrete example of what an individual
family can do in a practical, concrete, way to demonstrate God's
providential provision of a sufficiency of material goods for all -
if as stewards of God's Creation we proceed with right reason,
justice, peace, initiative and community cooperation.
The third point is one which can be met with simple faith - But, with
all the explorations, of our times, of parapsychology, psychism,
various religions, etc., I believe it is also time for a further
development of our Christian mystical tradition, in contemporary
terms, so that it can be specifically asserted that the mystical
rising of the soul to heavenly Rest in God can be and is his desired
mirror and instrument for distributing the power of his love, justice
and wisdom into the world, for an era of peace - to show forth and
share his glory.
It is to this last need, as I perceive it, that much of my recent
thought and writing has been directed, Bonnie, I am totally
convinced that a movement to heighten mystical life, through Mary,
the Mystical Rose, is indispensable to the establishment of the world
love, justice and peace, which I know must come, in order that God's
name be properly hallowed.
It has been observed that mystics are not special kinds of persons,
but that every person is a special kind of mystic. We all start out
on the climb of Mt. Zion - but each with the illuminations from a
different starting point at the base.
And I consider this a dimension of the sanctification of our daily
lives, through the praying of the Rosary and devotion to Mary's
Immaculate Heart - as called for by Mary in her pilgrimage
appearances on earth.
In connection with the role of flowers and mysticism in this, I was
edified to re-read Our Lady's words at Fatima:
"To all those who embrace devotion to my Immaculate Heart I promise
salvation, and their souls will be loved by God as flowers placed by
me before his throne."
Sincerely, in Our Lady,
+
Boston, MA
January 9, 1981
Dear Bonnie,
As long as I can I'll try to keep putting my thoughts about Mary's
Gardens and your "Greenhouse Full of Aves" into letters for you. At
the moment, they're flowing almost faster than I can write letters.
At this point I want to carry further the thought that it is
basically our love of Mary, and our utter faith and hope that her
intercession for us and nurturing of us are an integral and
fundamental part of God's divine plan for establishing peace on earth
- that are to inspire, move and "convert" others to devotion and
consecration to Mary - as we strive to make Mary better known and
loved, through Mary's Gardens, and our lives.
Last night, in a flash of insight, I saw that this is what the prayer
"Come, Holy Ghost", understood more deeply, calls for:
"Come Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of thy faithful and
kindle in them the fire of thy love: send forth thy spirit
and they shall be created and thou shall renew the face
of the earth; O God, who in the light of the Holy Ghost
didst enlighten the hearts of the faithful, grant that
in the same light we may be truly wise and ever rejoice
in thy consolation. Thou, O Lord, will open my lips, and
my tongue shall announce thy praise; incline to my aid, O
God' O Lord make haste to help me."
Clearly, "thy love", the love of the Holy Spirit, is especially his
love for Mary, his spouse = so that we are praying here for a
kindling of our love for Mary, from the fire of his love.
Secondly, it is by our moral, ascetical and mystical formation or
"creation" according to Mary's virtues and gifts - as her "mirrors",
or as "other Marys" - that the Holy Spirit is able to use us as
instruments in his renewal of the face of the earth, as he used her.
This applies especially, I believe, to our formation or creation
according to her excellences = her immaculateness, humility,
openness, immolative love, obedience, fruitfulness and preservation.
(I must mention at this point the symbolism which I saw in your
preserving of all the fruits, vegetables and herbs of your and
Ernie's garden. I suggest that for possible use in an article you
should have a reproducible photo taken with storage shelves of
massive amounts of your preserves.)
So, we are praying that we may become formed or created like Mary by
the Holy Spirit so that He my use us in the re-creation or renewal of
the face of the earth.
A s part of this formation we are to become so spiritually attuned
that we are ever open, receptive, and obediently responsive to the
consolations, movements and promptings of the Holy Spirit, that we
ever rejoice in this, like Mary in the Magnificat.
Finally, we are to pray to the Holy Spirit that through our
attunement to him, he will open our lips to announce his praise - his
praise of Mary, his spouse.
In short we pray to the Holy Spirit that in our work for Mary, our
hearts may be kindled with his love for Mary, and our works and
actions may announce and proclaim his praise of Mary - so that hearts
will be moved.
My second series of thoughts had to do with devotion and consecration
to Mary's Immaculate Heart, as she called for at Fatima, etc.
While formally this calls for an act of consecration, in practice it
necessarily, as I see it, calls for a mystical love of Mary and God -
because our consecrated heart increasingly, as we are formed and
created by the Holy Spirit, mirrors her heart, which in turn mirrors
Christ's heart, which in turn mirrors the Father's heart, love and
mercy.
It is basic to the religious and mystical life that at a certain
point we become mystically betrothed, and then married, to Jesus - as
expressed in religious vows, and as symbolized by the wedding rings
worn by religious. Sheeben in his classical work on Mariology speaks
of Mary's mystical marriage to Jesus in terms of her "bridal
motherhood."
I believe that Mary was mystically married to Jesus at the Wedding
Feast in Cana (which symbolized it), when, following his initially
seemingly negative response to her intercession regarding the wine,
she made an act of faith in the love of his heart for hers (which
might be a definition of marriage), saying to the servants: " Do
whatever he tells you."
Thus, when we mystically are married to Christ, our heart becomes
united with Mary's in this, and with all others so married, which is
why the church is spoken of as the Bride of Christ.
Our heart remains united to Mary's after her assumption into heaven -
and now. It is through the union of our heart with Mary's that we
are especially moved to do what she wants us to do for Jesus, to whom
her heart is united - as I wrote in my letter of November 26-27, 1980
regarding the symbolism of the red and pink cyclamens - and in my
letter of November 17-18, 1980 regarding Mary's Gold as a symbolism
of Mary's Golden Heart, of Our Lady of Buauraing.
Finally the mystical rising of our heart - and spirit, soul, mind,
and spiritual body - to heaven, and its flowering there, opens it to
the reception of the mystical power of God's love, which renews the
face of the earth.
Sincerely, in Our Lady,
+
Boston, MA
January 11, 1981
Baptism of Our Lady
Dear Bonnie,
While looking at the stem and foliage of my Oleander plant (not in
bloom) yesterday, I realized, suddenly, how much more it now
signified to me through the plant, vine and tree symbolism of wisdom,
per Sirach/Ecclesiasticus 24:12-31, since this became clearer to me
through my Christmas Tree meditations on the Tree of Life, per my
letter of December 31, 1980.
Then I remembered the Rose of Sharon (Canticles 2:1) trees I saw this
summer in the Jardin Des Plantes in Paris, which were pruned to the
Christmas tree shape - possibly to re-enforce this symbolism. I
enclose two slide photos of these I took for you - of a pink one and
a white one - although at the time I took them I saw them to be more
of horticultural than symbolical interest.
I have had some further thoughts on Mary as the Mystical Rose of
God's Power, following those I passed on in my letter of January 8th
- about the praying of the "come Holy Ghost" that we may be formed or
created by the Holy Spirit in accordance with the excellences and the
mystical rising and coming forth of Mary, as his instruments for the
renewal of the face of the earth - and about mystically rising to
heaven with the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
A re-statement of the mysticism of Mary's Immaculate Heart might be:
Filled with the Holy Spirit's love for Mary,
Our hearts mirror the love of Mary's Heart,
Which mirrors the love of Jesus' Heart,
Which mirrors the love of the Father's Heart.
- such that our hearts are filled with the love of the Holy Spirit,
Mary, Jesus and the Father - since mirrored love is love.
To put this in some sort of context, I think it well to quote some
excerpts from Saint Bonaventure from the Liturgy of the Hours for the
feast of the Sacred Heart:
"It was a divine decree that permitted one of the
soldiers to open (Jesus') sacred side with a lance - the
blood and water which poured out at that moment were the
price of our salvation. Flowing from the secret abyss of
Our Lord's heart as from a fountain, this stream gave the
sacraments of the Church the power to confer the life of
grace, while for those already living in Christ it became
a spring of living water welling up to life everlasting.
"Arise, then, beloved of Christ! - Press your lips to the
fountain, draw water from the wells of your Savior; for
this is the spring flowing out of the middle of paradise,
dividing into four rivers, inundating devout hearts,
watering the whole earth and making it fertile"
From this envisioning of our "creation" by the Holy Spirit, after the
model of Mary's excellences, so that we may be his instruments of
renewal - and of our mystical rising to heaven in the love of Mary's
Immaculate Heart - there necessarily comes, as I see it, Bonnie, a
consideration of just how we are mystically to come forth with Mary
from the divine abyss of the Trinitarian Godhead, "as the morning
rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set
in battle array" - in a mirroring of the Magnificat.
Here I have to go back to an affirmation of faith, hope and love,
that it is utterly unthinkable to me that the Peaceable Kingdom on
earth would not result from the Father's love of Christ and of the
infinite merits of his redemptive sacrifice on the Cross - and that
the Creator's goodness and attributes would not be totally shown
forth and shared in the creation of a new heaven and a new earth
after Christ turns over his redeemed Kingdom to the Father.
The Peaceable Kingdom and the New Heaven and New Earth are, to me, a
certainty of faith, hope and love. All the prophecies of Isaiah and
the other prophets we have been re-reading in the Advent and
Christmas liturgy about the establishment of the Peaceable Kingdom
are not just some nice re-assuring thoughts, but will come true.
Similarly, all God's help that we pray for in the Psalms is not
symbolic, but real - as the God who delivered Israel from Egypt and
brought it into possession of the Promised Land has, equally, the
power to usher in world peace.
But more than this, our faith, hope and love - and in particular,
the logic of love - tell us that in his goodness and mercy, God must
be offering us some more specific way, some more immediate means,
whereby human hearts may be quickened to take the necessary steps,
required by his justice, to establish the Peaceable Kingdom. And as
we look over the earth for this way and means of quickening our
fulfillment of the redemption of Christ and renewing action of the
Holy Spirit, we see only one certainty - Mary's appearances and
messages in our times, especially Guadalupe, Paris, La Salette,
Lourdes, Knock, Fatima, Bauraing and Banneux.
Yet, what are we to conclude, when even with these certainties of
God's promises - and Mary's messages - the world is in such a
precarious position, not only for peace, but for the very survival of
human culture and society?
We are to conclude, I propose, that those of us who have faith, hope
and love in God's promises and Mary's messages have not yet been
sufficiently formed and created by the Holy Spirit and Mary to
manifest the ways and means of Mary adequately to the world, so that
God's power for peace may be released.
It is my belief, Bonnie, that God's power for peace, to be quickened
and mediated through Mary, is the power of love.
God is love.
Love is power.
God is power.
Mary is God's power.
Mary is God's love.
Love is love, in Mary as in God.
Love is love, in us as in Mary.
Love is power, in Mary as in God.
Love is power, in us as in Mary.
We know that Mary's soul rose mystically to God through love, and
that she then came forth from God in the power of love. If we are to
be formed and created like Mary by the Holy Spirit, are to imitate
Mary, are to be "other Marys", and are to, with others, manifest
God's power of love with Mary sufficiently to establish the Peaceable
Kingdom - then we, too, must mystically rise to God with Mary, and
come forth with Mary from God in the power of love - with Mary to
whom "he that is mighty hath done great things", and who comes forth
in the power of God's love "as the morning rising, fair as the morn,
bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in battle array."
It is my belief that the formal side of Mary's messages have been
widely loved and acted upon. 7,000,000 people were converted through
Guadalupe; millions of miraculous medals have been struck and worn
after the model revealed at Paris; countless cures have occurred at
Lourdes; Pope Pius XII consecrated the world, with special mention of
Russia, to Mary's Immaculate Heart, as requested in one of the
"secrets" of Fatima; and as also subsequently revealed to Lucy of
Fatima, vast numbers of people have made first Saturday communions in
reparation to Mary's Immaculate Heart, through the Reparation Society
and Blue Army, etc. - yet the world in still threatened with nuclear
holocaust, depletion of resources, pollution, energy crises,
widespread crime, drugs and fear, etc. - not to mention poverty,
disease and starvation.
I am convinced that there are vast further stores of God's love and
the power of God's love, awaiting release through a fuller response
to the mystical side of Mary's requests - adequate to overcome even
all these aggravated threats to the establishment of the Peaceable
Kingdom. And it is, I believe, the mystical side of the message of
Fatima that is key here, culminating in the Miracle of the Sun (which
is where your solar greenhouse comes in, Bonnie, if you will bear
with me while I develop these thoughts.)
You will recall that devotion to the Rosary, along with devotion to
Mary's Immaculate Heart, was one of the fundamental requests of Our
Lady of Fatima and that Our Lady appeared to the children there
holding her Rosary beads, as I believe is represented in the Pilgrim
Virgin statue.
At Our Lady's final appearance, she announced to the children "I am
the Lady of the Rosary"; gave the final message "People must amend
their lives, ask pardon for their sins, and not offend Our Lord any
more for He is already too greatly offended"; and as she took leave
of the children she opened her hands, and from them rays of light
extended in the direction of the sun. (I am following the account
here of Msgr. William C. McGrath, promoter of the Pilgrim statue of
Our Lady of Fatima throughout the United States, in A Woman Clothed
with the Sun, John J. Delaney, Editor, Doubleday. 1960)
Then followed the publicly witnessed Miracle of the Sun, wherein the
sun shot out rays of multicolored lights, spun madly on its axis
like a gigantic wheel of fire, hurtled down towards the earth
zigzagging through the sky, poised for a moment and then, in the
same series of swirling motions climbed upwards to its accustomed
place in the heavens, in the course of which some of the children saw
three heavenly tableaux - one of Jesus blessing the multitude; one
of Jesus as an infant with the Holy Family, and one of Our Lady.
Now, the interpretation I have encountered (in my limited reading,
and in the discussions when the Pilgrim Statue was brought to my
parish in Philadelphia) is that the Miracle of the Sun was
experienced by thousands of people, and that this "proved" Our Lady
really appeared and gave messages to the children.
The interpretation I propose is that the gyrating sun was a symbol of
the power of love, of Mary's soul coming forth from the Godhead of
the Trinity "bright as the sun - terrible as an army" - and that
coming just after she announced "I am the Lady of the Rosary", and in
conjunction with the tableaux of Rosary - like meditations, it
signified that the mysteries of the Rosary were to be prayed
mystically, especially the glorious mysteries, so that when we pray
to God in Conclusion "that we may imitate what they contain, and
obtain what they promise", we are praying that our souls, too, may
rise to heaven, in the love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and come
forth from God in the power of his love - "bright" - "terrible" etc.
(Of course, where our soul may be mystically at rest in heaven, then
we may summon it to come forth, in the power of God's love, back down
to its roots in our body - as Jesus summoned Lazarus to "come forth",
in raising him from the dead.)
This insight about the Miracle of the Sun, at Fatima, came to me just
in the course of writing this letter, Bonnie, but I suppose I was
assisted in receiving it by the experience of the dream I had about
the public Christmas tree here in Back Bay, which I wrote you about
in my letter of December 17, 1980:
"I had a dream that the very top point or section of the
tree gyrated up to the stars, and then plummeted back
down to its place on top of the tree. This signifies to
me that my spirit - at least the apex of my soul - had
mystically ascended to heaven, and returned"
I recall that Pope Pius XII reported experiencing the Miracle of the
Sun one day while walking in the Vatican gardens.
What this means for our everyday symbols for meditation, as I see it,
Bonnie, is that the sun's coming forth each day, with the morning
rising, is now much more significantly a symbol of the coming forth
of Mary's soul from God, in the power of love because of the Miracle
of the Sun at Fatima. And the Pilgrim Virgin, in your solar
greenhouse with the sun overhead, is like Our Lady standing at Fatima
with her rosary beads in her hands with the Son overhead calling us
to rise to and come forth from God mystically with ever-increasing
participation in the power of his love.
And, we are assisted in seeing Our Lady in the sun, by our long years
of seeing her in flowers - not to mention by the painting or statues
of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Woman Clothed with the Sun.
There are of course many other Marian symbolisms of the sun in Mary's
mystical marriage to Christ the bridegroom (Psalm 19)
"There he has placed a tent for the sun;
it comes forth like a bridegroom coming from his tent,
rejoices like a champion to run its course."
The Mystical City of God, The House of Gold, Mary's Heavenly Fire
However, I also see the sun as symbolizing the light and warmth of
Mary's love which appeal to the deepest in human hearts. The power
of love is ultimately the power to open and to convert human hearts -
to evoke a mirroring response of love. In the solar greenhouse this
is symbolized by the sun's power to make plants grow and bloom. And
the greenhouse itself may be seen as symbolizing Mary's mystical
maternity, nurturing and womb - penetrated by the sun of the Holy
Spirit of God's love and power.
So, Bonnie, whether it is our soul's direct mystical experience of
the power of love, the miraculously gyrating sun's symbolizing of it,
or the sun's warm nurturing of plants into growth and bloom, what we
are dealing with is a greenhouse of love.
With respect to the sun's nurturing of plants as a manifestation of
God's love and power, I have always treasured Jesus' words to Sister
Josepha Mendenez, as reported in The Way of Divine Love, p. 329:
"Ask yourself who suffers? Who is the victim of such
barbarity? It is Jesus Christ, the very Son of God,
maker of heaven and earth and of all things - who causes
the plants to grow and every living thing to prosper -
Who created man, and whose power sustains all things."
The message of Our Lady's appearances, then, is first of all the
message of love - manifested first of all in her own tender, loving,
compassionate appearances (communicated in its very essence by the
silence, and, as it were, rest, of her appearance at Knock), yet also
in the miracles of healing at Lourdes, or of the sun at Fatima - and
also of the sustaining of love, through all the riches of devotion to
the Rosary and to her Immaculate Heart.
Once we truly believe in and experience the power of love, we become
committed to the intensification of this power within us through the
Holy Spirit and Mary; to the performance of concrete acts of love in
all our daily relationships, works and circumstances; and to the
diminishment of all the divisiveness, conflict, power struggles,
violence and other consequences of sin in the world, contrary to
love.
It is to the diminishment of the force of evil in the world that Our
Lady's central message of reparation addresses itself, as another
dimension of love.
As we endeavor to live our daily lives in the positive, constructive,
building side of love - through the obediences, virtues, beatitudes,
mercies, gifts and divine praises - we continue to be buffeted by all
the effects of sin and evil at large in the world. While rational,
secular, scientific, humanistic approaches attempt to block, contain
and oppose these effects, the best they can do is divert them or
re-shuffle them in some way, although more usually they aggravate and
increase them by putting energy into opposing them.
The power of love, on the other hand, by doing good to those who
persecute us, loving our enemies, returning good for evil, turning
the other cheek, etc. "absorbs" and expiates some of the effects of
evil in the world, so that on the overall they are diminished to this
extent, while relationships of love at the same time are being built.
And it is this which actually builds the Peaceable Kingdom - building
in love, and absorbing and the effects of sin and evil in love.
While reparation has the concrete, practical effect of absorbing and
diminishing the effects of sin and evil, its motivation and power
come primarily from the love of God and Our Lady - to whom we wish to
make spiritual reparation for evil, sin and their effects as
offenses to God's love, goodness, justice and mercy.
In this sense, both our positive, constructive acts and works of
love, and our absorptive, expiatory acceptances and sufferings to
take the effects of sin and evil "out of circulation", constitute
reparation to God and Mary - by increasing the effects of love in the
world and diminishing the effects of evil and sin.
It is difficult to practice the beatitudes - to return good for evil
- on a secular, mundane, worldly basis, because we are always
concerned that our adversary or enemy or friendly rival, as the case
may be, will "take advantage of our weakness" - so that we become
engaged in a perpetual balance of power, if not "arms race". It is
only through love of God and loving reparation to God, in the
confidence that the overall increase in love and diminishment of evil
will make possible the building of the Peaceable Kingdom - so that
God's goodness will be justly shown forth, shared and hallowed in
Creation - that we can truly love our enemies.
But also, there is the need for repentance and conversion of
everyone, ourselves included, to the extent that we are not acting
fully out of love of God - which is another central part of Our
Lady's Message to the world.
And here, especially, is where it is imperative for us to mirror,
manifest and respond to God's love.
It is my belief - stemming from a belief in the goodness of God and
of Creation - that deep down within everyone there is a basic
conviction - coming from the life force itself - that meaning and
purpose and love underlie everything else in the universe - whether
they formally believe in God or not.
At the present time, this basic belief in meaning, purpose and love
had widely been mistakenly applied either to immediate sensate or
dominance gratification (the flesh); to modern, secular, scientific
humanism whereby it is believed all our problems can be solved by
natural means (the world); or to some psychic or occult or magical
belief and practice (the Devil).
While it is possible to point out various reasons why these mistaken
approaches are in error, I believe that what is essential to
repentance and conversion is the adequate presentation of the power
of Divine love - as the only true satisfaction of this inherent
yearning in everyone for meaning, purpose, and love.
It is here, Bonnie, as I see it, that we need recourse to every
prayerful, sacramental, mystical, and cultural means available to us
to increase our mirroring and manifestation of, and response to, the
Divine Love.
Part of the message of Fatima was a vision of hell and of earthly
annihilation, as the consequences awaiting the world if there are not
repentance and conversion. This quickened the children to an
intensification of their previously lukewarm faith - which they
nevertheless had. In our times, we are rapidly creating our own
vision of hell, and we need to be there with an alternate vision and
life of heavenly love, for others to turn to when this vision of hell
causes their mistaken beliefs in the flesh, the world or the devil to
fall away before their basic, inherent, endowed instinct and
conviction as to the basic meaning, purpose, and love underlying
life.
Inadequate as we may feel in front of this overall situation, if we
have the power of faith, hope and love, we know that we have the
means available to us to increase this power so that we may keep the
faith in adversity; perform the daily duties and tasks of our state
of life in loving reparation and building ; and spread faith, hope
and love and Our Lady[Ôs message wherever we have the opportunity.
This has been quite a letter, Bonnie, however the providential
emergence of the opportunity for you to have a solar greenhouse, and
your loving envisioning of what it can mean for Our Lady, Mary's
Gardens and the world, have prompted me to put forth how I see it in
the light of Our Lady's message to our times - particularly after
your mention of your plan to include figures of Our Lady of Guadalupe
and the Pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fatima among your focal
figures.
Also, as we work through the many specifics of the symbolism of the
Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens it is well once in a while to
pull them all together in terms of our overall perspective of faith,
hope and love.
I don't intend to place any burden on you, Bonnie, with all these
mystical and mariological ramifications - and I hope I have been
successful in demonstrating that they all eventually come back to a
daily life of ever-increasing love - just as they have been evoked by
your love in the first place.
+
Boston, MA
January 14, 1981
Dear Bonnie,
In the course of writing you my letter of January 11, in which I
attempted to pull together the grounding of our work, and in
particularly the new dimension of your solar greenhouse, in the
appearances and messages of Our Lady in our times, I noted down a lot
of additional thoughts which I didn't include because they might have
buried some of the basic thoughts I was endeavoring to clarify, in my
own mind and for your consideration.
While they are still somewhat fresh, I would like to pass them on to
you now, as a sort of supplement, together with any further thoughts
which may arise as I write.
First, it occurs to me that one thing that may not have been fully
present in devotion to the Pilgrim Virgin in churches and homes is
the symbolism of the sun overhead. The solar greenhouse provides
this symbolism- and not only the sun itself, but is "coming forth",
or rising, in the morning, and its nurturing of the plants into
growth and bloom.
Secondly, I quoted a Psalm to this effect, No. 19, but didn't make it
sufficiently clear that the sun, which traditionally symbolized
Christ as the Sun of Justice and Sun of Righteousness, equally
suitably symbolizes Mary because of her mystical marriage to him, as
Bridal Mother, - which, in terms of the unity, and the becoming one
person, of marriage provides the basis for her "clothing " with the
sun, "coming forth bright as the sun", etc.
In the mystical rising of her soul to, and its coming forth from, the
Trinity, Mary presumably was able to manifest those divine persons,
relationships or attributes appropriate to her mundane tasks at hand.
Thus in her motherly nurturing of the soul of the infant and boy
Christ, her soul would come forth from the Godhead mirroring the Son
of God, as "Mother of Mercy", etc. Or, in her nurturing of the Holy
Family, and its relationships, her soul would come forth mirroring
the justice, harmony and peace of the Trinity - as Mirror of Justice,
etc. Likewise, she would come forth mirroring the Father, as Queen
of Heaven and Earth, or as the Mystical City of God.
I used to have difficulty envisaging just how the Holy Spirit -
spirating between and processing from the Father and Son - would
praise them. I now see that it is through his union with and
dwelling within Mary that enables him to praise the Father with Mary,
the Son with Mary. His spiritual union with Mary in a way mirrors
the hypostatic union of God and Man in the one person of Christ -
except that in the union and unity of the Holy Spirit and Mary there
are two persons even though it can be said that he is her spirit.
And, speaking of the mirrorings of God's heart by the Immaculate
Heart of Mary, we can say that it is through her union with the
Sacred Heart of Jesus that she is able to move our hearts to make the
reparations Jesus wants us to make to the Father. Through our union
with her Heart we are moved to make reparations she wants to Jesus.
And, united with the Father's heart, through Mary's Heart and Jesus'
Heart, we are moved to mirror his love for showing forth and sharing
his goodness and attributes, and his love for his Son and his
Daughter.
Several mornings ago I awoke with the song running through my mind:
"You belong to my heart, now and forever"
By the purification accomplished in us by the Holy Spirit as we
mirror the model of Mary's excellences, we are enabled more fully to
mirror and participate in the love for her of Father, Holy Spirit and
Christ.
To love Mary utterly, we must do so through and with the Father, Son,
Holy Spirit, Angels, saints, church and other souls.
Part of our reparation to Mary's Immaculate Heart is for our failure
to take her fully as our Mother - along with our reparation to her
because of her heavenly sorrows resulting from offenses to, and
failures to comply with the requests of, her Son - including his
requests made from the Cross, that we accept her as our Mother.
Since writing to you, Bonnie, about the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima,
I now see the Cyclamen as a symbol of the sun's gyrating and
plummeting towards earth, there.
The Holy Ghost wants us to say the Rosary in honor of his Spouse and
Temple, Mary, as well as for her Son.
All the natural attraction to sun worship throughout the ages - going
back to Stone Henge and the other stone rings throughout the world -
can be "baptized" through the Miracle of the Sun.
George Harrison, described as the "soul" of the Beatles, composed the
song, "Here comes the Sun".
In the solar greenhouse, we mediate the power of the sun to plants -
and the power of love to people.
The sun, the most powerful entity of our daily lives, is most
appropriate as the symbol of the power of love, in God and Mary.
The Magnificat proclaims that the power of God which he "showed in
the might of his arm" is also the power through which he "received
Israel his servant."
Mary does so much to focus our praying of the Mass, Hours and private
prayers (Rosary) and our interior spiritual life generally, as well
as our duties in life and our building of the Kingdom, because she
mirrors God's creation, salvation, sanctification and Kingdom - and
in her motherly way, shows forth for us in another way the love for
us of our Heavenly Father.
Sincerely, in Our Lady,
+
Boston, MA
January 18, 1981
Dear Bonnie,
Last night I was struck with the realization that in developing for
you my various perceptions of Our Lady's relationships with the sun,
I had neglected to write of the whole development of the Breviary of
the Divine Office of the canonical hours of the official daily prayer
of the Church, more recently titled the Liturgy of the Hours - which
together with the Mass, the Sacraments and the Sacramentals comprise
the Liturgy or official public worship of the Church.
The Liturgy of the Hours, being based on time, is of course based on
the movement of the sun through the sky (or, if we really want to get
technical, on the apparent movement of the sun through the sky).
When I arose this morning at 7 a.m. I prayed the Invitatory Psalm,
and the Office of the Readings (which were formerly known as Matins,
and prayed at midnight in the more strict monastic observance). Now,
in several minutes, I will pray the Morning Prayer (which was
formerly known as Lauds and prayed in the early hours of the morning,
before dawn, but which now takes the place of Lauds which was prayed
at dawn).
Now, it is 8:08 a.m. and I was able to pray the Morning Prayer just
as the sun "rose" above a building to the southeast and shined its
rays on my window and windowsill Mary Garden at exactly 8:00 a.m.
today. I can do this today because it is Sunday, and I will not be
going out until the 10 a.m. Mass. Other days I go to 8:30 Mass, so
just at this time I would be breakfasting or shaving, etc.
Technically, sunrise occurred here, at 42'21' north latitude, around
7:10 a.m., when the sun appeared above the horizon, and each day it
is about 3 minutes earlier at this time of year - rising at around
5:44 a.m. at the spring equinox on March 20th. (By actual, natural,
"local mean time", the sun of course rises at 6:00 a.m. at the spring
equinox, but since we are at 71'05' west longitude, our local mean
time is 16 minutes earlier than it is at 75'00' west longitude which
is the basis for Eastern Standard Time.)
As far as the Liturgy of the Hours is concerned, there is great
flexibility as to when the various Hours are prayed, and the focus is
largely around the Morning and Evening (Vespers) prayers, within the
general context of the day. Thus, I may pray the Morning Prayers
together with the Office of Readings, when I arise or perhaps as late
as noon, if circumstances work out that way - or maybe miss them
altogether.
By and large, most religious communities arrange to pray the
Liturgical Hours to fit in with their sleep and work needs and
schedules, by the clock.
However, Bonnie, in our sense of nature symbolism, I think it is well
to remember that clocks are rather recent introductions, and that for
the greater part of human history, and of the history of the Church,
people lived by the sun - such that in biblical times, for example
the hours of the day and the night were ascertained by dividing the
intervals between sunrise and sunset, and between sunset and sunrise,
by twelve, - which gave a different length to the daytime and
nighttime hours, except at the Spring and Fall equinoxes (the word
"equinox" literally meaning "equal night").
In any case, I find that a deep resonance is struck in my life when I
consciously pray the Hours in relation to my sense of the movement of
the sun, rather than by the clock - for example, in praying the
Benedictus, or Canticle of Zachariah (Luke 1:68-79) at Morning
Prayers:
"In the tender compassion of our God,
The dawn from on high shall break upon us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness
and the shadow of death;
and to guide our feet into the way of peace."
- or praying the Morning Prayer Intercessions for today in the
four-week Psalter (Sunday, Week II):
"Lord Jesus, you are the rising Sun,
the firstfruits of the future resurrection,
Grant that we may not sit in the shadow
of death but walk in the light of life."
Now, at 9:20 a.m., Bonnie, the sun is still shining at the right half
of my windowsill, which is parallel to the side of the building -
and, on part of the left half (which slants back approximately 45
degrees, due to the bay window construction ), shining over to the
figure of Our Lady and the Child Jesus and the poinsettia plant and
geranium.
However, there was a sort of "eclipse" for about 20 minutes, starting
about 8:20, due to the sun's passing behind the huge Hancock Tower
blue-green, all-glass, skyscraper to the southeast - so the Mary
Garden has had about one hour of direct sunlight.
Then at 10:00 it will leave this side of the building - giving me a
total now of an hour and 40 minutes. This will increase to about two
hours and 20 minutes in another 10 or 15 days, as the sun rises
earlier; and then will remain constant for a period due to other tall
buildings to the left.
I know this is all fairly simple, Bonnie, compared to what you are
now going through to see how much sun you will have and where in the
solar greenhouse . From the newspaper photo you sent (11//80), I see
that the sides of the greenhouse are apparently part glass and part
wood, and the top presumably all glass, which means that some areas
will get more sun than others. I believe a lot is to be learned as
to just how much sun various plants actually need for vigorous
growth, blooms and fruits.
It's not here with me, but I recall a wonderful sentence in Ernesta
Drinker Ballard's "Garden in Your House", where she refers to that
wonderful moment in mid-February (in the Philadelphia area) - as I
recall February 12th - when you really begin to feel the sun's warmth
and power coming through the glass - even though there may still be
snow and ice outdoors.
All this is of course in keeping with the whole concept of solar
power - how to get the maximum energy from the sun with the means
available.
But, I believe we all sense there is something more profound about
the sun than its importance as the principal source of light and heat
for our planet. Because of the unity of all things, where in every
moral and spiritual value has its symbolical correspondence in
physical nature, as perceived by our senses, the most powerful object
of our direct experience is also seen as a symbol or showing forth of
the omnipotence of God - even if this has been and is misdirected
into the idolatry of sun worship, by some.
This is what is so awesome about the observatories of ancient
civilizations, and particularly of the Stone Henge type of "stone
rings" found throughout the world. I'll never forget the impact of
my visit to Stone Henge in the summer of 1973. I had attended a
business meeting and luncheon in Salisbury (where there is also the
famous Salisbury Cathedral), after which our host said, "How would
you all like to take a drive to stone Henge, on the outskirts of
town?" We all immediately agreed - and for my part I had no idea I
was within 100 miles of Stone Henge. I had seen many photographs of
Stone Henge, but I can't begin to describe the impact I experienced
as we drove along, and the, all of a sudden, there it was.
I first had this sort of experience in my Mary Garden in Chestnut
Hill when I discovered in 1958, the first summer I had Ade Bethune's
Seat of Wisdom statue - a concrete one - that just at the summer
solstice, and maybe five or six days before and after, the setting
sun just cleared the side of the house, shone past some tree trunks
beneath the branches and leaves, shone through a 1 foot "slot"
between the green house and an adjacent tree trunk, and illuminated
the statue for about ten minutes, ending with illumination just the
faces of Mary and Jesus as the sun set on the horizon.
It was this special moment that moved me to write in my Queen of All
Hearts article, "Gardening with Mary":
"Compared and recollected, we are moved to lift our
hearts and minds to Mary in contemplation in the peace
and quite of her garden. As we do, her flowers seem to
glow about her image, filled with the radiance of her
virtues and graces and permeating us with a sense of the
unfolding of spiritual life and growth. Plunged, as it
were, into the interior of Mary in contemplation, we
begin to take root and sustenance in her as our Spiritual
Mother and Earthly Paradise."
Again, the correspondences between spiritual life and the movements
of nature.
When I told this to my friends in England this summer, who were
studying the stone rings in Ireland, one of them said, "You had your
own miniature solar observatory."
As I am sure you know, Bonnie, in Old Testament times, and in the
other great world religions, altars were "oriented" towards the east,
as were Christian churches up until the late Medieval times. And
altars, which still have their altar stone, were originally of stone.
Also, cathedrals, providing temples for the altars, have been
described as "magnificent robes of stone", for their altars.
In general, stones were seen - through the immovable character of
large ones - to symbolize the immovable character of God - and, of
course, the pyramids were constructed of stone.
Anyway, these are all matters of orientation to the sun which run
very deep in the human psyche and in history - in which we are
participating in our own way when we study the orientation of our
greenhouses and windowsills to the sun, the best to nurture the
growth of our plants.
The more profound dimension, Bonnie, of the Liturgical Hours - the
official worship of the Church through the day, and therefore, tied
in with the movement of sun - is that each day they recapitulate, and
therefore nurture, the mystical life of the soul - which therefore
comes to be associated in a very special way with the sun.
Thus, at the pre-dawn Invitatory and Office of Readings we
spiritually awake, compose and purify ourselves for the spiritual
life and work of the day.
At the Morning Prayers, we receive the outpouring of that life of
grace from heaven.
At Mid-morning Prayers, we sanctify and strengthen ourselves in the
Holy Spirit.
At Mid-day Prayers we die and are reborn in Christ and go forth in
love of neighbor.
At Mid-afternoon prayers, we build the Peaceable Kingdom.
At Evening prayers (Vespers), we celebrate the fullness of our day's
magnification of the lord, in the Magnificat, in the Reign of Christ.
And, at Night Prayers (Compline), we return to our spiritual rest:
"Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit" - "Now let your servant
go in peace."
The sun is now setting, Bonnie. Time for evening prayers
"As the day draws to a close, Son of Justice, we invoke
your name upon the whole human race, so that all men may
enjoy your never failing light."
(The moon is now rising above the buildings - with a full moon due in
3 days.)
So you see, Bonnie, for those deeply rooted in the mystical life of
the soul, as supported in the solar Liturgy of the Hours - the
Miracle of the Sun at Fatima would have a profound symbolical
spiritual significance, as I attempted to outline in my letters of
January 11th and 14th.
But there is a still more specifically Marian dimension to the Hours,
which is even more pertinent here, namely, The Little Office of the
Blessed Virgin Mary of the Breviary - which was reputedly developed
by St. Peter Damian and others in the 11th century, and formally
incorporated in the Roman Breviary at the Council of Trent.
(In looking , just now, I thought I might find an article on this to
refer you to in the Marian Era somewhere, but didn't . However, in
rereading the article on Indoor Mary Gardens, in Vol. X - of which I
of course have the reprints you sent - I was reminded that you do
have a figure of Our Lady of Bauraing.)
The Little Office was extremely important to my own spiritual life -
and from this and its inclusion in the Roman Breviary, I conclude it
must have made an important contribution to Marian spirituality and
the life of the Church in the Medieval Period.
About five years ago when I quite unexpectedly experienced a
pronounced mystical stirring in my soul, I sensed an urgent need to
put my daily life into some kind of fuller religious context or
matrix. On reflection, I decided to pray the Hours of the Roman
Breviary daily, and I happened to have a 4-volume English translation
I had procured some ten years before for "research".
Then, when I came to Boston four years ago, I sensed a need for an
even more specific ascetic/mystical matrix, and successively, began
praying the Common of the Dedication of a Church for the formation of
my spiritual House of Wisdom; and the Little Office of the Blessed
Virgin Mary for the irrigation and rising of my spiritual heart. The
Little Office was central and I prayed it every day; also praying
the Hours - for the Dedication on Mondays, and those for the Sacred
Heart on Fridays.
The important thing I discovered about the Little Office, Bonnie,
was that it tied together devotion to Mary and the rising and coming
forth of the soul, in the context of the Hours, and therefore to the
sun.
I enclose a Xerox copy of the Little Office, so I can refer to it in
explaining this. (Please don't think I'm suggesting you pray these
Hours, Bonnie. I don't pray them myself now, but they did fill a
very special need for me for about two years, and I want you to have
them for your files - both as a research reference, and to give you
perhaps a little reassurance of the deep roots of Marian mysticism in
the official liturgy of the Church. Actually, to pray the Little
Office you would need all the other antiphons, psalms, little
chapters and hymns referred to on other pages, as well as the
Magnificat, Te Deum and Benedictus.)
Looking more carefully, I see that I should also include Vespers from
the Common of the B.U.M., since the Antiphons and Little Chapter are
germane to my point.
In re-reading all these just now, I'm reminded of how complicated the
Roman Breviary is. The new Liturgy of the Hours which came out of
the 2nd Vatican Council is so much simpler, and it doesn't have the
Little Office in it at all.
The genius of the Little Office, Bonnie, is that throughout the day
and night it combines and intertwines the two movements of Mary: from
heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven.
The pre-dawn Matins/Lauds lays it all out: in the Matins lessons from
Sirach/Ecclus. 24:11-13, 15-20, describing the descent of wisdom,
signifying Mary, from heavenly rest to take root on earth and be
exalted like a cedar in Lebanon, etc. - and in the Lauds antiphons,
describing how Mary is taken up into heaven in to the heavenly bridal
chamber, whereby we share with her the fruit of life, and form which
she comes forth beautiful and comely, and terrible as an army set in
array.
This is then repeated, step-by-step in Prime (Morning), Tierce
(Mid-morning), Sext (Mid-day) and None (Mid-afternoon) in the
antiphons and little chapters - with the addition of the full
Canticles 6,9 at the Prime Little Chapter: "Who is she that cometh
forth?"
Then at Vespers (Evening), taken from the Common, used for all the
Feasts of Our Lady, it is all summed up in the lesson from
Sirach/Ecclus 24:14; five additional heavenly bridal chamber
antiphons; and the Magnificat.
At Compline( Night) the soul then returns to its rest, whether on
earth or in heaven.
For one mystically steeped in this movement of soul with Mary between
heaven and earth, back and forth, it can be seen in relation to
Fatima that :
The mysteries of the Rosary call for the same movements of soul.
Devotion to the Immaculate Heart calls for the rising to heaven of
our souls, with Mary, to the heavenly bridal chamber of the
Trinitarian Godhead, and
The Miracle of the Sun calls for the coming forth of our souls, with
Mary, "as the morning rising", to God's work of salvation, renewal
and Kingdom on earth.
Similarly, the 1st Saturdays Reparation Society of the Pilgrim
Virgin, and the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima, call for the same
upwards movement towards heaven, and downwards or outwards movements
to the world.
However, Bonnie, as you have sensed from the beginning, the first
Mary's Gardens solar greenhouse comprises and manifests all these
elements in a special way, which I believe can give a renewed and
beautiful impetus to the hearing and keeping of Mary's messages for
our times.
Sincerely, in Our Lady,
P.S. Bonnie, I almost forgot to include mention of the Angelus bells
and prayers to Mary at dawn, noon and sunset.
Through the ringing of the Angelus, the people working in the fields,
or in the their homes, were able to join in the unity of praying
these three Hours with the parish priest and the religious following
their rule in the local monastery or convent:
(Incidentally, I did find the short tape of the ringing of the
Angelus at the Woods Hole bell tower and Garden of Our Lady, together
with an interview or conversation with the bell keeper, Wallace K.
Butler. Let me know, if you don't have a copy of this, so I can make
one for you.)
The Angelus, too, obviously, is tied in with the sun, Our Lady, and
our prayerful work - and you will recall my mention in my Q.M.
article about the Woods Hole Garden that the ringing of the Angelus
might be the way by which visitors to Woods Hole would be drawn to
the Mary Garden and Church.
As I was just writing this, Bonnie, the thought struck me that with
the solar greenhouse there is a further parallel between you and Mrs.
Lillie.
Just as Mrs. Lillie envisaged the Garden of Our Lady at Woods Hole as
bringing a message of Our Lady to the biological scientists working
at the Marine Biological Laboratories there - so have you envisaged
Our Lady's first solar greenhouse as bringing a message of Our Lady
and the sun to people, everywhere concerned with solar energy.
As Ed said of Mrs. Lillie, you are a valiant woman, Bonnie.
P.P.S. Well, I've carried forward this letter, on and off, through
the Hours of the day, Bonnie - and now it is time for Compline and
rest. J.
+
Boston, MA
January 21, 1981
Dear Bonnie,
I have some further thoughts on the symbolism of the solar greenhouse
Mary Garden which have developed from those mentioned in my letters
of January 11th and 14th - with particular focus on how we can
perceive in our own minds for meditation, and present to visitors,
the sun shining on the solar greenhouse and its Flowers of Our Lady
as a spiritually effective symbol of the power of God's and Mary's
and our love - in relation to the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, and
to the figures of the Woman Clothed with the Sun and of the Pilgrim
Virgin of Our Lady of Fatima.
To this end, I obtained and re-read Father Walsh's Our Lady of Fatima
(Image, Doubleday, 1947, 1954), and now have these insights:
First, the symbolizing of Our Lady's "clothing " with the sun, and of
her mediation of the divine power represented by it, was signified by
her at Fatima, as I see it, by her calling attention to the sun
through rays of light rising up towards it from her hands, and then
her departing and disappearing into the sun, as it were, through
these rays- whereupon it began to gyrate on its axis and plummet
towards earth.
Secondly, that the power of God, symbolized by the sun, is the power
of love, was demonstrated by Mary's focusing, manifesting and, as it
were, translating its light and power into the three tableaus in the
sky of the joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries of the Rosary -
accompanied by a diminishment of depletion of the power in the sun
itself such that, although it was gyrating and plummeting as a
demonstration of its power through color and movement, it was
nevertheless reduced in visual intensity to a disc which could be
watched and gazed at without harm to the eyes.
Finally, that the power of the sun is a friendly power of love and
mercy was demonstrated by its drying of the rain drenched clothes of
all - after Lucy cried out, "Put down your umbrellas."
What it behooves us to do, I propose, Bonnie, in the "miniature
Fatima" of the solar greenhouse, is to perceive, ourselves, and to
point out to visitors: the Pilgrim Virgin, calling us to pray the
Rosary, through the Rosary Beads in her hands; n the "tableaus" of
plants and flowers symbolizing the Mysteries of the Rosary -
generated by the energy of the sun; n the friendly, loving warmth of
the sun as it nurtures the plants into growth, bloom and fruit - and
as it warms the masonry and the circulating air and water of the
solar greenhouse to warm us, our plants and our hose; and n the
translation in nature of the "brightness" and "terribleness" of the
sun into all the reflected beauty of sky, earth, sea, mountains,
valleys, forests, trees, meadows and flowers - just as it is
perceived in Scripture that the sun is reflected by the beauty of the
dawn and the "fairness" of the moon. And this is also a summation of
the theory of evolution: that the earth started as a fiery spin-off
from the sun and ended up with the beauty of nature, people and
flowers.
In the miniature "Fatima" of the solar greenhouse, Bonnie, you and
Ernie are like Lucy and the other children, conveying to visitors the
envisioning of Mary standing there with her Rosary Beads; the
"terrible" power of sun overhead; the plant tableaus of the Rosary
Mysteries; and the transformation of the sun's light and heat into
life- and -growth- supporting-and-nurturing-warmth.
Anyway, these are thoughts that occurred to me as I re-read Father
Walsh's book on Fatima, and then watched the sunrise from my
windowsill Mary Garden. They may be completely inappropriate for use
as such, but may stimulate other insights of yours.
Regardless of how we show friends and visitors our Mary Garden, or
Mary's Solar Greenhouse, we are ultimately concerned with love. Our
planting, composing and tending of the flowers, around a figure of
Mary and the Christ Child are the expression or manifestation of
love, through concrete acts and works - whereby we honor God and Our
Lady, and hope to further the salvation and sanctification of souls
and the building of the Peaceable Kingdom.
Our challenge is always how to make our acts and works vehicles for
the communication and quickening of love, so that more and more
people will become converted, devoted, consecrated and sanctified How
to achieve this, or to enable God and Our Lady to achieve this
through our acts, rather than to have people see us just as some sort
of interesting sentimentalists, enthusiasts, fanatics or "nuts".
And, how to have our acts and works - our flowers, gardens,
greenhouses, statues and their care - manifest, show forth, support
and nurture love - without their falling into the domain of objects
of idolatry or superstition in the eyes of others.
It is a paradox that spiritual devotions, movements and fellowships
need special prayers, consecrations, practices and memberships to
manifest and to support love towards salvation and kingdom - yet
these same means can seem to others formalisms, empty of love.
Love comes initially from God - "I loved you first" - as do the
providential loosenings, softenings and upheavals of our secular
mental shells to permit love to enter in. And to preserve, nurture
and strengthen love requires acts and works of love - per the "good
ground" of the Parable of the Sower.
But what is it that prompts us to acts and works to increase love? It
is the protection and nurturing of Mary, the Garden Enclosed,
But, again, what is it that causes us to respond to Mary's protection
and nurturing, to foster love? I am convinced that the answer to
this is the Mystery of Election, whereby the number of people who
become and remain converted is dependent on the increase in the love
of God by those who already love him.
God - directly, and through Mary - keeps coming up with new infusions
of love and visions of hell (the absence of love) - as in Mary's
appearances of our times to bring about conversion, and to protect
and nurture love. But, ultimately, in the mystery of election, it is
up to those of us who love God to love him more and more, so that
others, too, may elect to respond to God's love.
And, to grow in love requires that we continually press forward in
our emulation of Mary's excellences, that we may be ever more pure,
humble, open, immolated, obedient, fruitful and preserving towards
God's gift of love - and, as we grow more and more, that we rise
ultimately, with Mary, to mystical union with the Divine love, in the
bridal chamber and fiery furnace of the Heaven of the Trinity, so
that, with Mary, again, we may come forth as the mediators, conduits,
instruments and manifestations of that love, for Praise, salvation
and Kingdom on earth.
I believe that the power of love operates to increase the number of
the elect by dilating or opening hearts in such a way that they
undergo a subtle structural change whereby they can be said to be
"new hearts", open to love, per (Ezekiel 36:26). I believe this
comes about as the increase in our love, through our increasing
filling with the power of God's love, flows into the world reservoir,
body or heart of love, sot that it seeks new vessels to contain it,
which it finds by the opening up of further hearts.
And, I believe this is the significance of the consecration of the
whole world to Mary's Immaculate Heart by Pope Pius XII - in response
to Lucy's report that Mary desired Russia to be so consecrated.
It is my belief, finally, Bonnie, that our acts and works of love and
mercy are most effective for the direct opening of hearts of others -
family, friends, neighbors, associates and visitors to our gardens,
greenhouses and homes - if we undertake these acts and works out of
love of Neighbor in God - that is, if we envisage and perceive others
as totally transfigured in God - as God envisaged and envisages them,
in creating, redeeming and sanctifying them.
Envisioning and perceiving our Neighbor thus we are more radiant and
joyful in explaining that we venerate Mary, through her statues,
flowers, the Rosary, her Immaculate Heart and the requests of her
appearances, out of our love for God.
In our love for God from faith, and as we know him from Scripture,
Sacred History and Providence, we yearn to see him in a person or
persons who most perfectly mirror and show him forth through the
purification, sanctification, flowering and fruition of his image, in
which we are all created.
We yearn to find such a personal imaging or mirroring of God to help
us know God, love him, and become united with him that we may most
perfectly serve him by doing his will for salvation and kingdom.
We love Mary, as this person, because: she mirrors God most perfectly
of all human beings; she loves, and rises to the union of love with,
God most perfectly of all human beings; and she does his will most
perfectly of all human beings.
As Jesus said, she is blessed because she "hears the word of God and
keeps it", and "does the will of the Father in heaven".
Or, as she proclaims in the Magnificat, her soul shows forth and
magnifies the Lord, and her spirit rejoices in loving God and doing
his will.
And, by our imitating her, her love which is God's love, becomes our
love, because imitation, meditation and contemplation generate an
affinity and resonance whereby the Holy Spirit of Love is
communicated from one to another - within the "process" of the
Communion of Saints.
We love her for her love - for God and for us - because of which God
has appointed her to manifest his love, wisdom, power, justice and
mercy to us; showing the fullness of participation in his life and
work, which he desires for us too, as his adopted children, if we
will only open ourselves to him, in imitation of Mary.
And, to help us imitate Mary most perfectly, we seek the illumination
and support of holy, Mary-like, persons, and of symbols from nature
of her immaculate purity, humility, openness, immolation and
obedience; of her life and mysteries; and of her merciful
manifestation for our times as the woman of the Rosary, clothed with
the Sun, bountifully offering to us the power of God's love to open
and fill hearts.
Sincerely, in Our Lady,
P.S. January 22, 1981
Bonnie, I was thinking of not sending you my letter of yesterday,
because I was so "in labor" attempting to give birth to a clearer
envisioning of the sun as a symbol of Mary's love, for your solar
greenhouse.
However, the very struggling towards light may have some benefits, so
I am sending it to you.
Now, after resting and praying on it, I have some further insights
which are helpful to me, and I hope to you - insights which have come
from a prayerful searching of the Scriptures and nature, in the
confidence that there are always ways of symbolizing or visualizing
inwardly sensed truths - such as the truth of the Miracle of the Sun
at Fatima, which I feel has previously not been adequately
understood.
First, some insights about the Miracle of the Sun itself, which make
it more loving and "approachable" - namely, that the whirling,
plummeting and dancing of the sun reflect and mirror Our Lady of
Creation, per Proverbs 8:
"When he established the heavens I was there.
Then was I beside him as his craftsman,
and was his delight day by day,
Playing before him all the while,
playing on the surface of his earth;
and I found delight in the sons of men."
Thus. Bonnie, it could be said that the dancing of Mary, clothed in
the sun at Fatima, before the heavenly tableaus of the Rosary
Mysteries of our Redemption, signified her playing before the Lord in
his work of re-creation - as part of the rejoicing of her spirit in
God, her Savior.
But the insight which put to rest my quest for a way of envisioning
the fire of the sun as a symbol of Mary's love, or as translated into
Mary's love, was an insight about Pentecost.
I was attempting to envisage how the tongues of fire at Pentecost -
terrible and frightening - could have been received by the Apostles
as an outpouring of the Holy Spirit of Love; and I saw that, first,
Mary received these flames of love of her Spouse the Holy Spirit, and
then mirrored them in an intensification of the outpouring of her
love for the Apostles, as Mother of the Church. The flames of the
Holy Spirit were received by Mary as a transfiguring love, the
intense light of which was then mirrored or diffracted by her to the
mirroring Apostles - Like a giant, rotating ball-mirror reflecting
light from above in a hall of mirrors, which then reflect it back.
This brings to mind that after the close of the 2nd Vatican Council,
when Pope Paul proclaimed Mary as Mother of the Church, this title
was celebrated in some special way by him in connection with a
ceremony at Fatima, which included the presentation of a gold rose -
if my memory is correct - which implicitly relates the Miracle of the
Sun at Fatima to Pentecost, where the Church was considered to have
been born, and where Mary, therefore, became its Mother.
Thus, at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit by coming as tongues of flame
could be said at the same time to mirror the coming forth of Mary,
his Spouse, his Temple, his House of Gold, "terrible as an army set
in battle array", yet lovingly as Mother of the Church.
Finally, considering the image of the interior of the Trinity as an
intense furnace of laser-like mirroring of love back and forth
between the Father and the Son in the spiration of the Holy Spirit,
we can say that as this love bursts forth in precession it is
mirrored externally to us by Mary, its Temple - clothed, transfigured
and enveloped by the sun.
Following this thought, Fatima could be described as "a new
Pentecost".
In any case, this provides much food for thought in connection of the
symbolism of Mary's Gold, which captures or manifests the fire of the
sun in the beauty of a flower, like Mary at Pentecost, - and enriches
the symbolism of the Heart of Gold of Our Lady of Bauraing.
The flower symbolism of Our Lady of the sun is also born out at
Fatima, where, according to Father Walsh's Account:
"Of a sudden Lucia looked towards the east and cried:
I see Our Lady there. I can see the flash! Those near
(Lucia) noticed that her face had become flushed and
transparently beautiful. She was gazing rapturously now
at the Lady herself, who stood in a flood of white light
on the flowers that Maria Carreira had draped on the
stump of the azinheira. 'I am the Lady of the Rosary.
Let them continue to say the Rosary every day'. It
seemed to Lucia that the light emerging from (Our Lady's
hands) ascended to where the sun ought to be, directly
overhead, and it was brighter than any sunlight. (The
clouds then separated.) Many heard Lucia cry, 'Look at
the sun!'. Our Lady disappeared in the very radiance
that came from her outstretched hands."
J.
+
Hagerman, Idaho
January 22, 1981
Dear John,
This will be a hasty note, but so necessary.
Some time ago I heard from a woman in Minnesota who wanted data on
Mary's Gardens. I sent, then received information about her and the
program. This group, members of the "Society of Mary" is Anglican.
They are rather like the Catholics who do not swallow the new updated
things some of the bishops are doing, downgrading Marian devotion.
AMEN.
I read an article the October 1980 issue of Immaculata an article by
a priest, their leader, about the "Society of Mary". I do get this
magazine, but it came about the time I was so upset about this
building, that I just filed it away until I had time to read it.
This looks like something we should get onto, but today I am waiting
for the Boise man to come, and the man who will build the other
greenhouse bench. He completed the first one yesterday. We are
working as hard and as long as God will permit, so first things
first. I know this will cost us but we will finish and then find out
some answers.
I do feel the need to talk to you about this woman's inquiry, and how
to answer some of her questions, like, can they reproduce the
material. I do not think this would be possible - all the magazines
from which I have sent articles are protected by copyright. I
thought that this new approach to the public would be good - asking
them to give credit for the basic idea to our own Mary Gardens
program, not forgetting Ed and you, and perhaps me?
The mail carrier is due here to pick up mail, so must get this out to
the box. Looks as if Ernie and I have to finish the painting etc. I
am not so depressed, the only thing I am upset is that so many of my
beloved plants, obtained for when the green house should have been
ready, are not going to live - and I will have to replace the
important ones.
What a love is that last picture - and I will buy Queens Tears. That
plant is lovely, and a must for my garden, 'Clothed with the Sun' You
no doubt have my tape and Xerox. More to come as soon as possible.
Pray for us and God bless you,
Love,
P.S. John, these are books. One I bought on the Christmas creche is
by Indians and I think Mexicans. And I think you might enjoy their
catalogue. If so, the address is on the order sheet. I am in hopes
that they will do something on Southwest flora - beautiful little
catalogue. They are not an ordinary publishing company - lovely art
in many western themes. Also a book on St. Francis - I may be
getting it later on this year.
+
Boston, MA
January 23, 1981
Dear Bonnie,
Since writing my P.S. yesterday to my letter written January 21, I
realized that my thoughts about Mary at Pentecost should be placed in
further perspective with relation to all three persons of the
Trinity. Thus:
- The flaming power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and
subsequently, is received by Mary his Spouse, Temple, and House of
God, and diffracted to the Apostles and to us as love.
- The Waters of Grace pouring out of Christ's Heart, pierced by the
soldier's lance after he died on the cross, are distributed to us by
Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace, through the union of her Immaculate
Heart with his Sacred Heart.
- The Father's great power is communicated to Mary's soul, as it
rises to heaven, by the shining of his countenance - from which she
comes forth exercising it for us, "bright as the sun and terrible as
an army set in battle array."
With respect to the soul's mystically rising to and coming forth from
God, one of the many passages in the Liturgy of the Hours relative to
this showed up in today's Second Reading (for Friday, Second Week in
Ordinary Time):
"From the treatise On Spiritual Perfection, by Diadochus of
Photice, Bishop:
'The measure of a man's love for God depends on how
deeply he is aware of God's love for him. When this
awareness is keen it makes whoever possesses it long
to be enlightened by the divine light, and this
longing is so intense that it seems to penetrate his
very bones. He loses all consciousness of himself
and is entirely transformed by the love of God.'
"Such a man lives in this life and at the same time does not
live in it, for although he still inhabits the body, he is
constantly leaving it in spirit because of the love that
draws him toward God.
"Once the love of God has released him from his self-love,
the flame of divine love never ceases to burn in his heart
and he remains united to God by an irresistible longing.
As the Apostle says: 'If we are taken out of ourselves it is
for the love of God; if we are brought back to our senses it
is for your sake.'"
Returning to my thoughts about Mary's rising to heaven - for the love
of God, and for our sake - I see her instrumenting the father's
power, as:
- Radiant Mirror of God's Omnipotence
- Queen of Angels
- Queen of All Hearts
- Queen of All Nature
- Our Lady of the "Fiat" ("Be it done to me")
I see Mary's power to be shown, further, as:
- Radiant Mirror of God's Omnipotence, through her Radiance,
Miracles and Omnipresence;
- Queen of Angels, through her Providence to sanctifying of
and Heavenly Rising of souls;
- Queen of All Hearts, through her moving of souls to
Repentance, Conversion and Reparation;
- Queen of All Nature, through her purification,
sentimentalizing and Transfiguring of Nature, and;
- Our Lady of the "fiat", through her Excellences,
fruitfulness and Mediation.
As I see it, Bonnie, reflection on Mary's exercise of the Divine
Power, as Queen of All Nature, gives an additional perspective to the
work of Mary's Gardens. From this perspective, when we plant and
tend our Mary Gardens of symbolical Flowers of Our Lady, we are not
only proclaiming, honoring, praising and glorifying Mary.
Additionally, and perhaps even more importantly, we are participating
instrumentally in her power and work of purifying, sacramentalizing
and transfiguring nature - towards establishing the Reign of Christ
and the creation of a New Heaven and New Earth.
You will recall that I quoted you extensively from Auguste Nicolas'
La Vierge Marie Dans le Plan Divin, in my letter of 10/18/80
regarding Mary's liberation of nature from the paganism of Venus,
etc., through her "fiat" - so that it could once again mirror the
true Divinity, and the Divine Plan of Salvation. This is what I
would term Mary's purification of nature, as part of her mediation.
Then, I developed extensively, from the folklore research, the deep
sense of the blessing of objects from nature - especially flowers and
plants - as vehicles of grace - which I would term her
sacramentalization of nature, as part of her mediating of Grace.
Finally, what I have been writing about for the past month or so,
Bonnie, has been the transfiguration of nature, so that, in terms of
the correspondences between the interior life and growth in the
spirit, and the physical life and growth of nature, nature -
especially plants and flowers - is seen to mirror the mystical life
and growth of the soul, including its rising to heaven and its coming
forth again, illuminated and empowered for the work of Salvation and
Kingdom,
- such that, through Mary's distribution of the power of God's love
to us, we work with the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens for the
purification, sacramentalization and transfiguration of nature to
lead all souls to God and to renew the face of the earth.
Sincerely, in Our Lady,
+
Boston, MA
January 24, 1981
Francis de Sales
Dear Bonnie,
One of the things I have noticed about the Liturgy - of the Mass and
of the Hours - is that so frequently the most pertinent readings or
prayers come up in relation to what I am thinking and praying about.
For example, this offertory prayer from today's Mass speaks so
directly to my thoughts I have been writing to you about Mary's
translation of the tongues of flame of the Holy Spirit into love, at
Pentecost and in our souls:
"Lord, by this offering may the divine fire of your Holy
Spirit, which burned in the gentle heart of St. Francis de
Sales, inspire us with compassion and love. Amen."
With respect to what I have been writing you about Mary's
manifestation, coming forth clothed with the sun, of God's power of
love, and how this sums up and pulls together all I have been writing
about since last summer, I now have that sense of perhaps this flow
of insights may be coming to a conclusion, so I can get on with
deferred practical matters and you can get some rest from this deluge
of letters.
However, I do have some thoughts which round out what I wrote about
Our Lady's power yesterday, and which relate a little more directly
to the solar greenhouse considered in itself.
First, with respect, again, to Mary's ability to receive the fullness
of the tongues of flame of her spouse, the Holy Spirit - I believe
that the symbol of the Burning Bush - burning , but unconsumed -
included in her liturgy, symbolizes this, even though it has come to
be interpreted primarily as a symbol of her perpetual virginity.
Secondly, I should have included among the symbols of Mary's
implementation of the Father's divine power - in my letter of January
23 - that of the City of God, in which I envisage the following
modalities, namely, Mary as the:
- House of Gold, who transfigures all the discoveries,
developments and building of the earth into supports of
mystical life and growth and rising to heaven,
- Tower of Ivory, who leads, guides and protects souls in
their rising to heaven, and
- Tower of David, who watches over, warns and protects us
in the building of the earthly Peaceable Kingdom.
I wrote about this symbolism quite extensively in my letters of
January 3,4 and 5, but I would like to put it more in terms of Mary's
exercise of God's power - such that in the building and operation of
the solar greenhouse you are not only honoring Mary, through all her
associations with the sun, but are participating in the application
of her mediation of the Divine Power to the building of the New
Jerusalem here on earth.
Just as Mary as Queen of Heaven and Earth, and therefore Queen of All
Nature, distributes the divine power for the purification,
sacramentalization and transfiguration of nature as means for
promoting the rising of souls to union with God, and the building of
the Peaceable Kingdom - so does she, as the Mystical City of God,
House of Gold, Tower of Ivory and Tower of David similarly distribute
it for the purification, sacramentalization and transfiguration of
all our mundane building of the earth, including all the discoveries,
developments and uses of science and technology, for salvation and
kingdom.
At the New York World's Fair in 1965 I recall visiting the "Scholars'
Walk" in the IBM Pavilion, where, in the exhibit for the Medieval
period, the legend said (using the present tense):
"A very real and personal identification with the Blessed
Virgin is providing the energy that builds cathedrals."
Therefore, Bonnie, in the solar greenhouse, as well as in planning a
Mary Garden, or building a cathedral, you are not only honoring Mary,
but participating in her power and doing her work for the
transfiguration of both nature and the earthly city for supporting
the rising of souls to union with God - so they may come forth and
add to the "workers in the vineyard" reaping this great harvest.
As the power of Mary was manifested in the Medieval period to build
cathedrals - so is it now be used to harness and direct energy to
pure, sacramental, transfigured ends.
In this connection, I find Henry Adams' poem, Prayer to the Virgin of
Chartres and its included Prayer to the Dynamo ("I sing of a Maiden",
p. 266-271) highly pertinent, if not prophetic - even though
pessimistic.
Having been steeped in Mary and Medieval cathedrals - per his book,
Mont Saint Michel and Chartres - he wrote this poem, around 1904, but
posthumously published in 1912, to express his concern, if not alarm,
about the ascendancy of the natural power of electricity and the
atom, and the seeming waning of the power of God and Mary.
After recognizing, but rejecting, the near-divine power of
electricity and the atom:
Prayer to the Dynamo
"Mysterium Power! Gentle Friend!
Despotic Master! Tireless Force!
You and We are near the End.
Either You or We must bend
To bear the martyrs' cross."
"Seize, then, the Atom! Rack his joints!
Tear out of him his secret spring!
Grind him to nothing! - though he points
To us, and his life-blood anoints
Me - the dead Atom-King!"
Adams then goes on to say to Mary:
"A curious prayer, dear lady! Is it not?
Strangely unlike the prayers I prayed to you!
Strangers because you find me at this spot,
Here, at your feet, asking your help anew.
"Waiting I feel the energy of faith
Not in the future science, but in you!
The man who solves the Infinite, and needs
The force of solar systems for his play,
Will not need me, nor greatly care what deeds
Made me illustrious in the dawn of day.
"But when, like me, he has trod the track
Which leads him up to power beyond control,
He too will have not choice but wander back
And sink in helpless hopelessness of soul,
"Before your majesty of grace and love,
The purity, the beauty and the faith;
The depth of tenderness beneath; above,
The glory of the life and of the death."
And, finally, he concludes:
"Help me to see! Not with my mimic sight -
With yours! Which carried radiance, like the sun,
Giving the rays you saw with - light in light -
Tying all suns and stars and worlds in one.
"Help me to bear! Not my own baby load,
But yours; who bore the failure of the light,
The strength, the knowledge and the thought of God, -
The futile folly of the Infinite!"
To me this is very moving: a "Boston Brahmin", descendent of
presidents, former Harvard history professor, and non-Catholic -
sensing, groping for and praying for understanding and conviction of
Mary's power to overcome the power of the atom; yet praying for her
help in his helping her bear the load that perhaps she and God do not
have the light, strength, knowledge and thought for this overcoming.
It is our faith and commitment that Mary, the Woman Clothed in the
Sun, Virgin Most Powerful, does mirror and mediate God's power to us
and for us, so that under his and her angelic providence the power of
electricity and the atom can be subjected to the governance of the
Peaceable Kingdom.
It is our faith that Mary as House of Gold, as well as Queen of All
Nature, does mediate God's power to purify, sacramentalize and
transfigure all the scientific and technological developments of
nature, as well as its flowers, plants and trees, and the building of
cathedrals.
How fortunate we are, Bonnie, in learning through our Mary's Gardens
work and spiritual research how Mary purifies plants and flowers of
false gods and materialistic gratifications so they can be
sacramentally blessed and then mystically transfigured, to lead souls
to heaven! - because this shows us how all nature, science, power,
building, manufacturing, processing, transportation, communication,
etc. are to be purified, sacramentalized and transfigures -
materially, as well as spiritually.
It is devotion, dedication, commitment and consecration to Mary's
immaculate purity, and making the whole world - not just flowers - a
mirror and symbol of this, that is the key to the energy and power
of love which can accomplish renewal of the face of the earth by the
Holy Spirit - because where Mary is - and is mirrored - is where her
spouse the Holy Spirit will come with his renewing fire.
As Gerald Manley Hopkins affirms in God's Grandeur:
"The world is charged with the grandeur of God
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell - the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
"And for all this, nature is never spent;
there lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs-
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
world broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings".
Once it is passionately desired that the world, the earth, show forth
God's grandeur, God's glory, with Mary's purity - then the "war"
against pollution, toxic wastes, harmful radiation, etc. takes on a
spiritual dimension, and evokes spiritual power - seeking God's
sacramental blessing through the power of the Cross, Church, Mass and
prayer.
And once energy, for example, is purified and blest, then it can be
transfigured, so that is "flow can be seen to mirror the circulation
of the Holy Spirit to humanity, Pentecostally, through God's Mother.
Sincerely, in Our Lady,
+
Boston, MA
January 25, 1981
Conversion of St. Paul
Dear, Bonnie,
In reading Daniel 3:57-88, 56 and Psalm 148 from the Morning Prayers
(Lauds), for Sunday, Week III, I realized, further, in relation to
what I was writing last night, how implicit the purification,
sacramentalization and transfiguration of all nature are in these
songs of praise to God:
"Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord
Praise and exalt him above all forever.
Fire and heat, bless the Lord.
Let the earth bless the Lord.
Everything growing from the earth, bless the Lord"
"Fire and heat, bless the Lord - everything growing from the earth,
bless the Lord" - How appropriate to your solar greenhouse, Bonnie!
And, picking up my thought of last night about the purification,
blessing and transfiguration of energy - such that its flow will then
mirror the circulation of the Holy Spirit to us through Mary - I can
now see further specificity in this mirroring. As plants and
buildings mirror for us the reaching of souls for heaven - so does
energy symbolize the coming forth and return of the soul to mediate
the power of God's and Mary's Spirit for the renewal of the face of
the earth.
Seeing Mary as a Mediatrix, of conversion and generation, we can see:
- Hydro-electric power as mirroring the generation and
circulation of Spirit from and through Mary's Grace
- Combustion power - wood, coal, oil, gasoline, gas - the
generation and circulation of spirit form and through
Mary's Plasma or Strength - of the healing and miraculous
power of Christ's Mystical Body,
- Wind power - as mirroring the generation and circulation of
Spirit from Mary's messages - mirroring, in turn, God's Word,
- Light power - lasers, etc. - as mirroring the generation and
circulation of Spirit from Mary's mirroring of the shining
of God's countenance.
- Nuclear power (cosmic power) as , mirroring the generation
and circulation of Spirit from Mary's coming forth from the
fiery furnace of the very interior of the Trinity, and
- Solar Power as mirroring the generation and circulation of
Spirit through Mary's Pentecostal reception and diffraction
of the descending Holy Spirit itself.
With all the lack of purification of our technological means we have
not been pure enough to handle combustion and nuclear power without
pollution, poisonous wastes, harmful radiation, etc. - and in seeking
the purification of our power conversion and generation over-all, it
behooves us to give priority to those means which are the most pure
in each time and place.
Clearly, Bonnie, this comes down to water, wind and solar power
wherever possible - the most readily available, and so far most
unused, being solar power.
Thus, your use of your solar greenhouse to reduce and take the place
of a portion of the electric power - combustion power (coal, oil,
gas) or nuclear power - you would otherwise have used to heart your
house and plants is a step towards the further knowing , loving ,
honoring, and serving God and Mary by purifying, sacramentalizing and
transfiguring the earth and energy.
And yet, for all of this, why, we both ask, have you run into so many
difficulties with the construction and start-up of the solar
greenhouse?
Let me quote from the Legion of Mary Handbook (p. 285-286) a passage
which I "re-discovered" the other day:
"The Mark of the Cross is a Sign of Hope
"The chief danger of discouragement lies in the distress
which the Legionary cannot but feel when aids and
circumstances, on which he feels entitled to rely, are
found wanting. Friends fail, good people fail, one's
instruments fail. O what a harvest of good could be
reaped - it seems - but for the bluntness of the sickle,
but for the deficiencies of one's own camp, but for that
cross which crushes one!
"It must always be remembered that the work of the Lord
will bear the Lord's own mark, the mark of the Cross.
Without that imprint, the supernatural character of a work
may be doubted: true results will not be forthcoming -
God's work is never done under idea conditions, never as
we should have imagined or chosen. That is to say -
amazing thought!- that the very circumstances which to
the limited human vision seem to prevent those conditions
from being ideal, and to spoil the prospects of the work
are not an obstacle to success but the requisite for
success - not a dead-weight on effort but fuel which feeds
the effort and aids it to achieve its purpose. For it is
ever God's pleasure to show His power by extracting
success from unpromising conditions and by accomplishing
His greatest projects with inadequate instruments."
Sincerely, in Our Lady,
+
Boston, MA
January 27, 1981
Dear Bonnie,
I picked up your tape of January 20th and letter of January 23rd at
the Post Office this morning - for which I thank you - and I have
taken notes on the tape to which I will now reply, while it is fresh
in my mind.
Even though it may not be finished, it does sound as though - with
the putting in of the thresholds and barrels the building the
benches, the hooking up the water, and caulking and taping of the
seams - that the solar greenhouse is probably operational now, as I
write.
As you said, the way everything you do and touch has been going wrong
for your us sort of a reverse of what I wrote about my "parking space
providence". It's very possible that within the mystery of God's
providence, and of the Communion of Saints, the very letters of mine
which have been helpful to you during this period were in fact
spiritually energized by the very frustrations, mortifications and
immolations your and Ernie were undergoing.
I think the passage I quoted for you in my letter of January 25 from
the Legion of Mary Handbook, "The Mark of the Cross is a sign of
Hope" is one of the most profound statements I have ever found on
what is involved with discouragement and frustration in spiritual
works and I hope it is helpful to you. I wish I had found it for you
two months ago.
Regarding the Woods Hole tape, I appreciate the massive search
project you underwent looking for it. Please hold onto it for the
moment, and I will let you know whether I need it copied. As I
mentioned in the P.S. to my letter of January 18th, I finally found
the original. However, it is an acetate tape, and not polyester, and
may turn to dust when I try to play it - so I'm not going to touch it
until I am actually set up to copy it here at the same time I try to
play it. I do have two reel recorders - 5 inch and 7 inch - here, as
well as a cassette recorder and a micro-cassette recorder. If I am
not successful in copying it on polyester tape I will let you know,
so we can arrange how to copy it.
I do hope to make an index of all my tapes so I can find things when
I think of them or need them. Fortunately, I have yours filed by
date, and I have made notes of each tape as I received it, and put in
the correspondence files. I hope, too, to index the entire Mary's
Gardens correspondence files.
I keep records of how I spend my time each day, and have been able to
put in close to 50 hours a week on Mary's Gardens, on the average
since last May, when I resumed this work. I pray I continue to have
this time.
I appreciate your not minding if I write to you of some of my more
"far out" thoughts. Whether its the mystical side of Marian
spirituality, which I've been researching, or the sacramental and
blessing side which you've been researching - such as the throwing of
a statue of Our Lady in a creek to feel the wetness in praying for
rain - these are precisely the riches and power of Mary which are
needed for our times.
Mary is the key to the regeneration of our times, yet the Marian
magazines just seem to be repeating themselves, and hardly any books
are being written about her at all - except ones basically attacking
her such as Alone of All her Sex by Marina Warner and The Virgin by
Geoffrey Ashe, both published in 1976; or re-statements such as Mary:
The Womb of God by Fr. George Maloney, S.J. of the same year. I was
in the Harvard Square Catholic bookstore the other day, and was
appalled that I couldn't find any books on Mary at all - other then
Father Welsh's Our Lady of Fatima and John Delany's Woman Clothed
with the Sun - thank God for those two!
For me, the "freshness" of thinking of Mary through the solar
greenhouse has tremendous possibilities of revitalizing appreciation
of her - which is why I am going "all out" with the various thoughts
that occur.
I'm glad you like the calendar as much as I do, and that Brother Sean
did also. I have a quantity of these in Pennsylvania, if you'd like
some more to send to special people.
Yes, I would like to have both Alphonse Liguori's Flores of Mary and
Pope Paul VI's Devotion to Mary, of 1974 , neither of which I have.
I saw the Summer Savory book here in a book store, and will get a
copy locally.
Thanks for the offer of seeds, and pips, but I'm really not set up to
undertake these at this time - much as I'd like to have a Shamrock.
I got my Queens Tears, Billbergie nutans from Logee's for $1.00
I've written a great deal on Our Lady of Fatima and the Woman Clothed
with the Sun since you taped your letter, so I'll "rest my case" -
which probably "needs a rest", as the joke goes.
Lettuce, as God's Plant. Beautiful!
If you could send me Xeroxes of the article and letters of the
Minnesota Anglican "Society of Mary", I'll give you my suggestions.
I do hope the shining of the sun, after all those days of fog is
symbolic of a new season of sunshine for your and Ernie, generally,
Bonnie!
P.S. Bonnie, since writing you this morning (it is now after
supper), answering your tape and letter point by point, so to speak.
However, the frustrations and discouragements you and Ernie have been
experiencing with the construction, financing and starting up of the
solar greenhouse have been very much on my mind, move me to attempt
to penetrate to further understanding of this, for us all.
First, let me say that I was struck by the parallel experience - and
I'm talking about the nature of the experience since I can't presume
to judge or compare magnitudes at the spiritual level - of Cecelia
Dick, about which I assume she wrote you. Since she said she was
going to, in being blocked in getting her Mary Garden started because
of ill health, loss of strength, a breakdown of her car in driving to
pick up her statue, and the supplier of the statue being distrustful
and unbelieving and greatly increasing the price of the statue beyond
her limited means.
Hardly knowing her, I wrote some "positive thoughts" about the Mary
Garden existing in the heart first of all, the garden in the grounds
coming in God's time, and the reparational use that can be made of
frustrations.
However, what is essentially involved is trying to understand why
frustration and discouragement are encountered in highly motivated,
committed and loving religious works.
And, I'm sure you recall the taped conversation of Ed, with me, and
for you, from Miseracordia Hospital in Philadelphia after his heart
attack some time around 1962, I think - which was at an acute point
in the one massive frustration his life was during the entire course
of our Mary's Gardens partnership and friendship.
I wasn't much more than a loyal friend and good listener, trying to
be helpful in any practical way I could - and he was the one who was
attempting, heroically, to work his way through to understanding and
wisdom.
However, as I started to say, at this point I think I will make bold
to have a try at some further understanding. And in this I think we
can go beyond the act of faith involved in "The Mark of the Cross is
a Sign of Hope" statement from the Legion of Mary Handbook - to some
very helpful understanding, on the basis of which we can "enlarge"
our act of faith, so to speak.
It seems to me that what is involved is that God, in his love for us
as workers in his vineyard, wants more of us than devotion, good
intentions and the undertaking of a good work. In his desire to
renew the human race and the face of the earth, so he can more fully
show forth and share his goodness, he wants to fashion us into the
instruments He desires for the mediation of his renewing power to the
earth, so that he can then so empower us.
The prime example of this for our instruction in Scripture is that of
Our Lord's Agony in the Garden, where Our Heavenly Father wanted his
Son to abandon even his concept of the Plan of the Redemption of the
world, as late as the very beginning of the Passion and Crucifixion -
in response to which, after experiencing a bloody sweat, Our Lord
utterly abandoned himself to the Father's will and providence,
saying: "Not my will, but thine be done."
In Jesus' instance, this of course had to do with embracing his death
on the Cross - but it equally applies to the work of renewing and
building the earth:
"Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders build in vain."
And this is more, Bonnie, than "just" being chastised for our sins,
faults and imperfections, for the salvation of our souls. It is a
loving call to a fuller participation in and instrumentation of
God's renewing and rebuilding work.
God simply cannot use us fully for his work unless we abandon
ourselves to his will and providence. On the other hand, we can
never get to the point where we can fully see all the ramifications
of his will, plan