Developmental Correspondence
Letters from John Stokes
to Nanette Sears
St. Mary's Parish Mary Garden, Annapolis
1990 - 1997
Orginally written on computer; printed out for postal mailing; and
saved on computer disc,
Longhand postal letters from Nan's side of the correspondence are
in Mary's Gardens archives, awaiting computer transcription for
adding to this posting.
(Direct correspondence ended due to Nan's inability to write
further longhand letters with her arthritic hand; and with the
availability to her, via St. Mary's, Annpolis, parishioner, Paul
Williamson, of downlaods from Mary's Gardens Internet website - put
up September 8, 1995.)
This "book length" correspondence, and similarly extensive
correspondence (to be posted to Website) with Bonnie Roberson of
Hagerman, Idaho; Jane McLaughlin of Woods Hole; and Bro. Seán
MacNmara of Ireland, represent my major Mary's Gardens developmental
activity upon returning to this work in 1980 (rejoining Bonnie
Roberson of Idaho who had carried it forward from 1968 until then)
through 1965, when the Internet website and general e-mail
correspondence were initited, requiring full time.
This correspondence is unique in that Nan entered into it after 30
years of home Mary Gardening, such that it was developmental for
both of us.
Because of the book length and unediting of the letters, a
listing of letter contents has been prepared .
John Stokes
January, 2005
o O o
THE LETTERS
April 14, 1990
- Introductory and Catch-up
April 24, 1990
- Mary's Gardens Organization - Former Introductory Seed Kits
May 31, 1990
- Mary's Gardens People and Spirituality
June 22, 1990
- Taping - Illumiative Meditation, Faith, Piety, Devotion
July 8, 1990
- Mary Garden Care Essentials - Deepened Marian Piety
July 25, 1990
- Miniature Replica of "Mary of Nazareth" Garden Statue
November 4, 1990
- Statue Dedication and Blessing Plans - Grace - Glory
November 15, 1990
- Statue Dediction and Blessing Press Release Suggested Draft
January 1, 1991
- All best wishes for a happy and holy New Year!
May 1, 1991
- St. Joseph - Nazareth Nurturing of the Child Jesus
May 25, 1991
- Akita Shrine Mary Garden - Sculptured Plant Tableaux
May 31, 1991
- Arrival of Statue - Native New World Flowers of Our Lady
June 11, 1991
- Dedication Leaflet
June 17, 1991
- Clip Art Flower Drawings - Rural Life Prayerbook - Daisy
Jul 03, 1991
- Tropical Flowers of Our Lady - Further on the Holy Fmmily
Jul 16, 1991
- Woods Hole Mary Garden 50th Jubilee - Daisies of Innocence
August 15, 1991
- Re. Safe Arrival of Statue - September 8th Blessing
August 19, 1991
- Revised Dedication Leaflet - Sisters of St. Joseph visit
September 15, 1991
- Father James M. Keane, S.M. - Garden Plan - Booklet?
February 2, 1992
- Year's First Blooms - M. Garden Purity, Holiness, Healing
March 10, 1992
- Flower Mirrors of Revealed Truths - Spiritual & Divine Love
April 20, 1992
- Change Name to "Annapolis" M.G. - "Take One" Literature
May 10, 1992
- Going Forth from the Mary Garden to the World in Love
May 22, 1992
- Transcendence of the Dialectics of Alienation through Love
May 31, 1992
- Changed Dates of Marian Feasts - Mary Garden Healing Love
June 20, 1992
- Flowers Engender Purity of Heart for Promtings of Love
August 22, 1992
- Perpetuation of Woods Hole and Annapolis Mary Gardens - Dublin Garden
September 8, 1992
- Rosary Prayers in the Mary Garden - Flower Meditation
October 4, 1992
- Garden Funding - Plaque - Mary as symbolized by Flowers
April 4, 1993
- Flowers issuing from the Cross; and from our Mortifications
May 1, 1993
- Spring Blooms - Union with Jesus Through Mary
August 15, 1993
- Lincoln Cathedral Mary Garden Visited in England
October 8, 1993
- Annapolis Mary Garden Intention - Cyclamen - Fuchsia
January 1, 1994
- Dublin Ortory Mary Garden - Alliance of Cathplic Women
August 22, 1994
- Blessing of Children's Garden - Furthering Mary Gardens
September 8, 1994
- Comprehensve Statement of Motivation for Mary Gardening
October 7, 1994
- Annapolis Children's Mary Garden Article - Ideas re. Garden
November 1, 1994
- More, Chidren's Mary Gardening - Mary' Maidenly Spirituality
November 19, 1994
- Beginning of Marian Liturgical Cycle. Ave Maria Reflections
December 8, 1994
- Fulness of the Marian Liturgical Cycle; the Cycle of Christ
January 1, 1995
- Spiritual Insights - Mary's Virtues, Blessings, Prerogatives
Febuary 2, 1995
- Candemas Bells - Rosary Insights - "Show unto us...Jesus"
March 1, 1995
- Garden Videotapw - Peace Lily - "Mary-Flowers in Ecumenism"
March 25, 1995
- Mary's Gardens and the Vatican II Council - Bonnie Roberson
July 3, 1995
- Baltimore Sun Article - Daily Spiritual Intentions
May 12, 1997
- City Park "Mary Garden" - Website Update Report
December, 1997
- Christmas Greetings from Nan
THE LETTERS
Boston, MA
April 14, 1990
Holy Saturday
Dear Nan,
Thank you for your letter of April 2nd telling of your parish
Mary Garden in the quadrangle adjacent to Carroll House.
Jane McLaughlin of Woods Hole mentioned some time ago that you
and she had corresponded regarding the plans for the garden, and it
is a joy to learn that it has been planted.
I was especially interested in your Mary Garden when she
mentioned it because it has been one of my prayerful hopes though
the years that there would one day be U.S. Mary Gardens of national
note and importance, and your garden would appear to be such a
garden - associated as it is with historic Carroll House and thus
the origins of the Catholic Church in the U.S..
I have read of the deep devotion to Mary of the Catholic
founders of our country - I think in a book, "Mary U.S.A.", or
something like that - and it seems to me that the Mary Garden,
coming from the popular relious belief and customs of the people,
has a way of testifying and representing such devotion generically,
so to speak.
More specifically, a Mary Garden has a special appropriateness
for a Catholic historic landmark: both as a reminder that all
graces of sanctification and and of building the Church and the
Peaceable Kingdom have passed through the mediating and
distributing hands of Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace; and as a
present call to our own emulation of Mary's purity and humility and
openness and responsiveness to grace and the word of God, and as a
call to our recourse to her intercession, mediation and good
counsel, as we each proceed with our own particular work for Church
and Kingdom.
Further, the Mary Garden whose focal figure and symbolic
plants have been sacramentally blest (by the Parish priest) is of
itself a holy object and place which is an instrument of grace and
thus a locus of Mary's presence, through her action as Mediatrix of
All Grace.
The history of the Church and of the deposite of faith - from
the Cross and the Upper Room of Pentacost, through Ephesus, and
continuing up to the contemporary dogmatic definition of the
Assumption (and hopefully to that of Mary's universal mediation of
grace) - has been one of ever-increasing discernment and
appreciation of Mary's primary place in the divine plan of
Redemption and Kingdom - corroborated and reenforced by her own
revelations and appearances: as the glorious queenly Woman Clothed
With The Sun to St. John; as the interceding Mary Orante with
supplicating upstretched hands of the early Christians and
Byzantines; as Queen of the Missions at Guadalupe, with all its
succeeding conversions; as heavenly Mary Mediatrix at Knock with
her grace- shaping and channeling hands; as Our Lady of Grace, of
the Miraculous Medal, at Paris, with her distributing arms and
fingers; as sorrowing and supplicating Mother of the Faithful at La
Salette; as the Immaculate Conception at Lourdes; and as summoner
to prayer and Reparation for Kingdom at Fatima (how marvellous the
recent events in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe!).
In this sweep of the Divine Plan and Sacred History, as
proposed in my recent article about the Knock Mary Garden (copy
enclosed), the Flowers of Our Lady, of the countrysides and of the
Mary Garden, have been and are universal reminders of Mary's
presence with us everywhere through her action as Mediatrix and
Distributrix of all grace.
Francis Crane Lillie's 1937 printed plant list for the Woods
Hole Garden of Our Lady - mother garden of the present-day world
Mary Garden movement - was entitled "Our Lady In Her Garden",
testifying to her experience of this. (She used to spend long hours
sitting in the garden, reading, to explain its meaning to
visitors.) This list is included with the enclosed article
reprint, "Paradise of Our Lady".
Edward McTague proposed the name "Mary's Gardens" for our work
in 1951, after we noted that some medieval drawings of the Virgin
and Child in enclosed gardens we so named; but we thought of a
garden of Flowers of Our Lady as a "Mary Garden". We soon found
that many persons referred to the Mary Garden as "Mary's Garden",
in the sense that they sensed her presence there.
Returning to your Caroll House Mary Garden - we hope that
after having established it so devotedly and prudently, you are
also giving some thought to its continity - which one would hope
would be until the end of the world and time.
St. Louis de Montfort has discerned how true devotion to the
Blessed Virgin Mary is interior and tender, and that the outer
forms and customs of devotion to Mary are properly expressions of
this (otherwise becoming "critical", "scrupulous", "interested",
"inconstant", "hypocritical" etc).. This has certainly proven to be
true for the Mary Garden: that to continue through the years, every
planted Mary Garden must have its continued sustenance in the
interior Mary Garden of the heart.
Our chosen means of first presenting the Mary Garden idea in
1951, inspired by Mrs. Lillie's Woods Hole Mary Garden, and with
her blessing, was the 10- variety "Our Lady's Garden" mail-order
seed kit, with introductory leaflet, and prayer card.
The leaflet, composed by Edward A. G. McTague, (of which I
will send you a copy) began with words something like:
"Our Lady's Garden is first of all the package you receive of
the postman.
"May it first bloom within your heart, and then, in due
season, may its seeds bear flower and fruit in your gardens . . ."
Like faith in God, and in the Church, devotion to Mary is a
gift. But these are gifts God wants to and does give to all who
seek goodness, truth and beauty. "Seek and you shall find".
There are ever those who, seeking natural goodness and truth,
learn of God through his loving acts of providence and grace;
realize that a loving God would not leave us in religious
uncertainty, and has therefore given us the Church - imperfect as
it must be in worldly circumstances - as authoritative source of
truth and moral law and as channel of grace; and will not leave us
in doubt as to how to proceed with the work of building His
Kingdom, but has given us Mary, implicitly in our simple faith in
her, as ever-present mediatrix of the gratuitous discerning and
prompting actual graces needed for our elections and actions.
It seems to me that the combined existence of those who
already love Mary interiorly, and those who implicitly seek and
will find God, Church and Mary, should enable us to perpetuate
communities of persons with interior, tender Mary -Gardens of the
Heart, to sustain our planted community Mary Gardens through the
decades and centuries.
As Father Galvin mentions in his 1946 article, "Lillie Tower",
Mrs. Lillie hoped that the right person would turn up to continue
her work; but she also prudently established a trust fund to
provide for garden care and replacement plants through the years
(and for maintenance of the adjacent Angelus Tower given by her).
After Mrs. Lillie became ill in the late 1930's or early 1940's
(?), the garden, with the funds provided, was maintained by persons
loyal to her, but with the ravages of several hurricanes and the
absence for a time of a sustaining Garden of the Heart, the Garden
planting was reduced to that of a conventional, yet attractive,
summer garden of the area.
Then, in 1981-1982, Jane McLaughlin, in doing research as
parish historian for a History of St. Joseph's Church for the 1982
centennial year, uncovered historic documents about the founding of
the Garden, and out of the love of the Garden in her heart
undertook to restore it - according to the original planting plant
developed by Mrs. Lillie with the help of landscape architect,
Dorthea K. Harrison, over a five year period from 1933-1937. As
the centennial year, 1982, was the golden jubilee of Mrs. Lillie's
original founding of the Garden, herself, in 1932, the Garden
Jubilee was celebrated along with the Church Centenial.
It would seem, then, from the experience at St. Joseph's, that
care should be taken to sustain a public or institutional Mary
Garden both by seeking successive generations of committed
Mary-Gardeners, and by establishing some sort of fund, trust or
endowment to provide for the cost of maintenance and replacement,
and also of keeping constanyly available a supply of phamphlet and
article-reprint give-aways - at the garden, if possible, and in the
church phamphlet and library.
I will supplement the few reprints enclosed with this letter,
and hope you will be able to keep them together in a binder of some
sort. You have our permission to make quantities of photo-copies
of any of these reprints.
Also some regular parish liturgical events in the Garden each
year - such as on the feasts of the Visitation, Assumption,
Queenship and Rosary - with blessings, processions, floral
crownings, or any other activities found appropriate - both enrich
parish life and sustain interest in and appreciatoion of the
Garden.
Your mention of the duck nesting in a tree of your Mary Garden
brings much joy, and is characteristic of the little providential
surprises experienced in many Mary Gardens.
In my second residence Mary Garden a mother rabbit made her
nest and gave birth to two babies under the thyme (sent me by
Bonnie Roberson) in the center bed, nestled against the side of the
focal statue pedestal.
(I am reminded that Bonnie Roberson and I passed through your
area when she visited me and picked up her exhibit plants nurtured
for in Philadelphia and we drove down to Washington to set up her
exhibit Mary Garden, on invitation, for the 1962 annual meeting of
the Herb Society of America. I recall it was in mid-May, when the
Solomon Seals (Our Lady's Lockets, Belfry, etc.) which she had not
seen before were in bloom.)
I also enclose a reprint of a 1955 article, "In Mary's
Garden", describing the joys of parent and child working together
in the Mary Garden, and illustrated by a photo of an actual nest
some birds wove around the little figurine in a focal wayside
shrine. At the time I sort of took these wonders in stride, with
all the wonders of the Mary Garden, but looking back some 35 years
later I am awed.
One of the special recurring joys to me of the Flowers of Our
Lady through the years has been the unending first hand experience
and intuitive recognition of the symbolical forms of new or old
plants. My first experience of this was at the Garden of Our Lady
in 1949 or 1950, as set forth in my enclosed article, "Cape Cod
Shrine Mary Garden" (1955), but perhaps my most vivid memory is of
first seeing in bloom "Our Ladys's Pincushion" (Armeria) and "Our
Lady's Tears" (Tradescantia) at a local Philadelphia roadside
nursery where Ed McTague and I were picking up perennial plants for
our own first Mary Gardens, in May of 1951.
I recall that when we mentioned to the aged life-time
nurseryman- horticulturalist the Tradescantia symbolism, he said,
"Yes, she's crying all day."
And each year there are new discoveries - sometimes as I go
through old books of flower paintings, where I first see a plant
from a different angle, which reveals a previously elusive
symbolism. A recent instance is that of "Our Lady's Crown"
(Centauria cyanis), which only when it (the wild, single-flowered
variety) is seen from the side reveals the crown-like ring of tiny
flowerets around the edge of the flowering head.
Have there been any articles about your Mary Garden?
One aid in engendering new Mary-Gardeners is to have a library
and file of books and articles relative to the Flowers of Our Lady
and Mary Gardens, and to this end, I offer to provide additional
reprints, rererences, etc.. We have provided extensive materials
for the Woods Hole parish and historical society archives,
including copies of pertinent correspondence, etc..
Also, don't forget to photograph the Mary Garden at various
stages of development and bloom, and also activities and events in
the Garden. Do you have any photos - preferably slides, but also
prints - you could send me for our archives?
When the statue has been installed, and good photos of the
garden taken at the best periods of bloom, etc., I would like to
consider the possibility of writing an illustrated article about
you and the garden, as I did with Bonnie Roberson and Bro. Seán.
In this connection, is there a definitive biography of Bishop
Carroll, and are there archives of his papers which might contain
Marian references?
Finally, I would be interested in how you learned of the
Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens. Did you read an article?
Did you write to us? (If so, we would have your letter(s) in our
fairly complete files and archives, although it would require some
digging to find them.)
I can't tell you what a joy your letter and its news have
been, especially in this holy season. I have been able to give
little formal input to the work of Mary's Gardens during the past
year, and its's wonderful to know that the work and movement go on.
Jane McLaughlin is "on location" with the Woods Hole Garden, and
Brother Sean is in regular contact with Knock (his superiors having
assigned him to be principal of at a nearby school, in Ballinrobe).
This year Brother Seán has assisted in the design and planting
of another national Irish Mary Garden on the grounds of
Ballintubber Abbey, which dates from the 13th century. He writes,
"A garden in the shape of a map of Ireland is one of the attractive
features and wild plants from most of nthe 32 counties - all
associated with Our Lady - are in it."
I have tried to remain what Ed McTague described as a "pure
source" for Mary Garden information and historical perspective -
following up with persons Jane and Bother Seán refer to me or bring
to my attention. A marvellous Parish Mary Garden was recently
planted in Australia, for the Marian Year, inspired by the Garden
at Knock and Brother Seán's booklet.
I look forward to being of any assistance to you I can, and to
keeping in touch.
Sincerely.
John Stokes
Boston, MA
April 24, 1990
Dear Nan,
On the 20th I sent you a number of additional article reprints
and instructional materials hastily assembled from a temporary file
in Boston (our permanant files are in Woods Hole).
I did not have time to cross out the various former addresses
and "ads" included with these, so please disregard them - and
opaque them out before making any photo copies for distribution to
parishioners, visitors, correspondents, etc..
Our initial approach to reach as many people as possible with
the Mary Garden idea was to distribute the appeal-to-the-heart "Our
Lady's Garden" seed kits, leaflets and prayer cards through the
placement of little 1" ads in national Catholic publications; and
then, as articles were published, to include ads, and literature
and starting materials lists on reprints which we sent out in
reponse to inquiries. After four or five years we stopped
advertising in the media and after fifteen discontinued all sales
of of statuary etc.. The ads were of course paid for by
contributions, but they were worth it because they brought in all
sorts of wonderful people to us (such as Daniel J. Foley, former
Editor of HORTICULTURE). Also, the act of placing the ads was an
act and a commitment which were something for writers to write
about - bringing us more inquiries. One article in the 1952
Catholic Digest, printed in 7(?) languages, brought us two thousand
inquiries on a world-wide basis, including one, for example, from a
Bishop in the Philippines who set up a 1954 Marian Year Mary Garden
planting competition in some 30 schools in his diocese, for which
he awarded a Bishop's Trophy. Also a Jesuit astronomer from a
Manilla observatory, etc..
Ed McTague and I had a number of volunteers from our parishes
to help us with all the work - for which we, of course, took
primary resonsibility. Then, in 1965, when Ed McTague was ill, and
I took on other obligations, such as accepting an offer to head up
a Philadelphia area ecumenical organization ( "Wellsprings") being
set up in the era of the Second Vatican Council, Bonnie Roberson,
of Hagerman, Idaho, offered to assume primary responsibility for
answering our correspondence, assisting others start Mary Gardens
etc. - so we changed our address to Hagerman. Ed McTague died in
1972; Brother Seán joined us in 1973; I rejoined Bonnie actively in
1980; Jane McLaughlin began assisting people who inquired through
Woods Hole in 1982, as well as writing chapers on the Woods Hole
Garden of Our Lady in two beautiful books; and Bonnie died in 1983
(after seeing her dreams come true with the Woods Hole
centennial/jubilee in 1982 and the founding of the Knock Mary
Garden in 1983).
This is just to give you a little background and perspective,
since you have made such a beautiful commitment to this work.
Please feel free to put your own Mary Garden address on any
literature copies you make or any original literature. Or you can
use the Woods Hole address on the reprints if you don't want to use
your own: Mary's Gardens, St. Joseph's Church, Box 3, Woods Hole,
MA 02543.
"Mary's Gardens" was registered to "do business" under the
Pennsylvania fictitious names act in 1951, but has been an informal
association of those accepting its historical self-definition and
purposes and, and willing to make a commitment to continue its
work, until it, hopefully, becomes an established part of world
Catholic culture. It has no books of accounts, etc., and any gifts
where tax-deductability is desired are given to churches or shrines
which may have Mary Gardens.
I hope you will be of any direct assistance you can in helping
others start Mary Gardens who my be inspired by the Bishop Carroll
Mary Garden; but if this is asking too much, please refer any
inquirers to Woods Hole, where they will be referred to Jane
McLaughlin or myself.
For my own part, I hope to publish one or more books one day,
God willing, and also a CD-ROM. I have the materials, and my wife
and I have the desktop publishing proficiency, so its a matter of
finding and making the necessary time, under God's providence. In
any case we have the articles and other printed materials to
perpetuate the work; and now Knock and Carroll House, as well as
Woods Hole, to give focus to the grass-roots movement - the scope
of which we have no way of accessing. We cast out the seed, and
have no way of knowing what kind of ground it falls upon - until we
receive wonderful letters such as from Bonnie Roberson, Brother
Seán and, now, you.
With renewed expressions of joy over your Mary-Garden love and
initiative, and with all best wishes for the spiritual fruition of
your work and Garden, I remain,
Sincerely,
P.S. I found my copy of "MARY, U.S.A." with all its rich
references to Bishop Carroll's recourse to Mary for the success of
his undertakings. J.
Boston, MA
May 31, 1990
Visitation
Dear Nan,
(After reading your letter of April 30th, I feel I have known
you for ever. One of the beauties of the "Communion of Saints".
How I look forward to the fullness of all eternity! - the first
step towards which is our work of building God's Kingdom on earth
here and now)
Due to travels, your letter of May 1st just caught up with me
on May 22nd. Also a letter from Brother Seán MacNamara, from
Ireland. And, just in case I hadn't noticed that the 22nd was
indeed another special Mary's Gardens day, I was favored with one
of those special caresses of providential love - like the snow in
May on the day of St. Therese's vows. (The last such event was
when a florist shop, "Thoughts in Bloom", opened nearby our
Philadelphia studio. Or maybe it was when I noticed that the top
of the new "Liberty Place" skyscraper now rising above central
Philadelphia has a huge "M" pattern its peak, outlined by
strip-lighting at night. Fitting that the watching over the City
of Brotherly Love (I'm sure etymologists can come up with a more
gender-free translation for "Philadelphia" today) by the Mother of
us All is so strikingly symbolized, by an artifact of the Holy
Spitit. In Boston the renowned glass Hancock Tower has been my
"Ladder to Heaven", and now we have a more specifically Marian one
in Philadelphia - I attach a photocopy of this tower from a
watercolor painting by a local street artist).
Anyway, as I entered the taxie to the airport I noticed that
the driver had laid 6 or 8 pink carnations in front of him on the
ledge above the dashboard. Mary Mediatrix present with her flowers
even in a taxie! When I remarked about them - "You must love
flowers!" - the driver told me he had grown up across the street
from an arboretum so that each morning when he looked out the
window he saw a sea of flowers. I made bold to ask him, "Are you a
Catholic?" "Yes." "Here's a reprint of an article ("AVE") about
the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens I'd like you and your
family to have." He then mentioned to me that he normally "held
back" on showing his love for flowers because it wasn't considered
"manly". I commented that in the Latin countries men were
culturally freer to love flowers. He then remarked that with the
humid Boston weather of the last days, the flowers had been lying
there without wilting for four days - almost miraculously.
Everyone else had been complaining about the weather.
I was delighted to hear that you learned of the Flowers of Our
Lady and Mary Gardens from Nanette Strayer - after she had given a
JL lecture on herbs. If I'm not mistaken, Nannette was or was then
in the process of becaming a correspondent and good friend of
Bonnie Roberson (who started Mary-Gardening in 1957) through the
Herb Society of America.
I mentioned in my previous correspondence that at the time we
started Mary's Gardens, in 1951, our very first little "ad" - in
the garden section of the now defunct New York Herald Tribune - was
read by Daniel J. Foley, a Catholic and Editor of Horticulture,
then the official magazine of the Massachusetts Horticultural
Society, who wrote to us, and later met with me for a day at the
Garden of Our Lady in Woods Hole. His office, in Horticultural
Hall, Boston, was close by that of Mrs. Foster (Margaretta?)
Stearns, also a Catholic, Editor of The Herbaraist, annual
publication of the Herb Society of America. She, too, wrote to us
and, indeed, sent us some lovely Medici Press Holy Cards of "Our
Lady's Pincushion", "Our Lady's Thimble", "Our Lady's Eardrops",
"Our Lady's Slipper" and "Mary's Rose" she had found in England.
The outcome of this was that a photograph of "An Illuminated
Mary Garden" was published in the December, 1952, Horticulture, and
an article, "Mary Gardens", by Dan was published in The Herbarist,
for 1953. And in the December, 1953 issue of Horticulture, Dan
published, "Flowers of the Madonna", the first of two articles in
on the Flowers of Our Lady written at his request by Harold N.
Moldenke, co-author with his wife, of the book, Plants of the
Bible, which had just been published.
(Dan also wrote several articles for the Boston (Catholic)
Pilot in May of 1956, and spoke on Mary Gardens at an annual
meeting of the Catholic Art Association in (I believe) Latrobe,
PA.)).
I should also mention that we were given invaluable
horticultural advice at the beginning of our work by Jane
(professionally, Martha) Garra, a professional horticulturalist of
Philadelphia, and also a HSA member.
Thus, Ed McTague and I, who had no horticultural credentials,
and in fact practically no gardening experience at all, were
providentially blessed with needed "legitimacy", especially for
skeptical religious authorities, through Herb Society of America
members, as well as, and more importantly, a marvellous
dissemination of the Mary Garden idea and movement.
Other milestones along this path were Bonnie Roberson's
invitation focal Mary Garden Exhibit at the 1962 annual meeting of
the HSA in Washington I mentioned, in which I and Ginney Thomas, a
Philadelphia HSA member (with a large sunporch with which to
"force" Bonnie's plants) assisted her; and then the 50th
anniversary issue of The Herbarist in 1983 which included the
article, "Mary Gardens - The Herbs and Flowers of the Virgin Mary",
of which you mentioned you have a copy. In all this the HSA
Catholics were ever alert to present the material in such a way as
to not offend non-Catholics: for example the 1983 article was
actually composed by the then Editor of The Herbarist, Sandy
Gilmore (?), from excerpts of previous articles Bonnie and I had
written, and then submitted by her to us for our final smoothing
and approval. In her professional concern, she requested much
primary documentation, and I remember she went to a local library
in Lansing to actually see firsthand a photo of a medieval woodcut
with the title "Mary Garden" Bonnie referred her to.
Fortunately, Ed McTague was very conscious of this sort of
thing from the beginning - we had a Jewish typographer and a
Protestant printer - and went to great lengths to document
everything so we could not be accused of "pious fraud" (which I
recall the Jesuit missionaries were accused of when they first
brought back sketches of the Passion Flower which they found in the
New World - until they actually some specimens of the flower itself
back to Europe).
A couple of other HSA links come to mind as I write. You will
note that in "Mary Gardens - The Herbs and Flowers of the Virgin
Mary" a paragraph (originating with Sandy' editing) mentions that
the founding of the Woods Hole Garden of Our Lady and of the Herb
Society of America both took place in 1932. (By further
coincidence, I found, from another article in the same anniversary
issue, that the son of one of the HSA founders, Mrs. Lawrence
Brown, had been a classmate of mine at prep school in Boston.)
In 1946 I was present at the annual meeting of the HSA
Philadelphia chapter (hosted by my then employer's wife, who was
chapter President), and in 1968 I gave a slide lecture to the
Philadelphia chapter in connection with the Mary Garden at the 1968
Philadelphia Flower Show, designed by Jane Garra and exhibited by
Jane and myself on special request of Ernesta Ballard, Director of
the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, organizers of the show.
(This sort of sounds like name-dropping, but I think its
important that you are informed of these interconnections between
Mary's Gardens and the HSA when you encounter established
horticulturalist as the Carroll House Mary Gardens becomes mote
widely known, written about and visited.)
Then, I should mention that I first entertained the idea of a
National U.S. Mary Garden when I visited the beautiful National
Herb Garden of the HSA in Washington the year after it opened
(around 1980), while visiting my daughter, Stephanie, then at
Georgetown.
I was prompted to recall and review this most important HSA
Mary' Gardens support by your mention of Nanette Strayer. And her
act of initiative in proposing Mary Gardening to you has stimulated
some further reflection. Ed's and my approach was initially to
"cast our bread upon the waters", as widely as possible; and
Bonnie's was to plant, tell about and invite others to visit a
magnificent Mary Garden at her "Garden of Memories" home herb
nursery - but it would seem that Nanette, in the highest Gospel
tradition of "It is not you who have chosen me, but I who have
chosen you", sensed your potential interest in this and actually
called you personally to this work.
This is in the tradition also of the archangels who - after
the angels, and in particular our guardian angels, have prepared
and opened us for spiritual receptivity and grace - summon and call
us to particular vocations and actual graces, as the Archangel
Gabriel summoned Mary at the Annunciation (Ed's Birthday: he took
the confirmation name of Gabriel and always insisted on his name
being given as Edward A. G. McTague).
I can see that while Bonnie, as an individual, would feel
joyously free to proclaim Mary-Gardening, others who were
organizational horticultural editors and lecturers etc. would not
wish to offend their general constituencies by seeming to
proselatize from their privileged professional positions. And it
must be remembered that this was before the presidency of John F.
Kennedy.
Your desire to pass on to others what you yourself received,
is a beautiful one - especially after 30 years of a "hidden"
Mary-Gardening life. And what a providential opportunity for which
you have undertaken your public work! The timing parallels that of
Jesus' hidden and public lives.
Interesting that this is the reverse of my situation, were my
Mary- Gardening was highly visible for 18 years, and then "hidden"
since then - working with Bonnie, Brother Seán and Jane through
correspondence - and writing a few articles. I have given exactly
two slide lectures since 1968 - both in 1982 at the time of the
Woods Hole Garden of Our Lady Jubilee. (one became the AVE
article). I guess this is smewhat like Mary, who went from a
public life to a hidden one, after Pentacost (and has now
re-emerged through her major appearances).
Always, as with your venture at Carroll House, Mary's Gardens
is an act of faith - not of visible "results". I recall Bonnie
mentioning at the time of the Woods Hole Jubilee that
notwithstanding all the articles written, lectures given, inquiries
answered and gardens assisted with, she only knew at that moment
for sure of four specific persons actively committed to this work,
or even to their own Mary Gardens, in love (Myself, Brother Seán,
Jane McLaughlin and herself). The faith and hope were that there
were indeed hidden Mary-Gardeners, both gardening themselves and
passing on the tradition. I mention this to show how deeply I
appreciate your work, private and public.
Actually, I have come across many devoted Mary Gardeners, as I
have inquired about little gardens I have come across while driving
through the countyside or walking through city neighborhoods.
But the devotional tradition of individuals must be
supplemented by a more public continuity. Thus, your concept of
having a "monumental" sculpture as focal point for the Carroll
historic landmark Mary Garden is an exciting one.
In addition to the trust fund she established, Frances Lillie,
built the St. Joseph's Angelus Tower, of which the Mary Garden was
actually an adjunct. Without the "monumentality" of the Angelus
Tower, just a Mary Garden might not have survived. I can see that
the monumentality of your focal sculpture will play a similar role.
(To this end, I enclose a contribution from "John and Marion
Stokes" towards the sculpture - and if after it is completely paid
for you set up some sort of trust fund for the Garden maintenance
and basic plant replacement (according to planting plan) we would
hope to make a contribution to this also).
Your photos of the digging of the Garden, with the children,
prompts me to send you the enclosed photos of the digging of the
Our Mother of Consolation Mary Garden in 1965. Alas, this Mary
Garden had no self-perpetuating Mary Garden Society, no trust fund,
no monumental sculpture, so when I moved from the parish in 1972 it
regressed to the statue, a couple of rose bushes, the boxwood and
grass. But who knows, it may one day be restored, as Woods Hole
was. I just didn't give much thought to continuity in those days,
but with this experience and that of Woods Hole, you can see why I
do now.
Your mention of your devotion to Mary from your Sacred Heart
days brings to mind the importance to Mary-Gardening of both
"Convent and Convert"
As St. Louis de Montfort teaches us, the essence of true
Marian devotion is its constant, tender, loving, interior aspect or
source, from which external devotional acts and practices flow.
He observes that without this interior sustenance, Marian
external devotion tends to beome conventional, routine, limited,
critical, scrupulous, other- motivated ("interested"), inconstant,
cold and/or even hypocritical.
With this interior sustenance, on the other hand, we are moved
to seek ever greater knowledge of Mary, accompanied by increased
outpourings of loving honor and praise of her, and acts, works,
service and consecration, with heightened recourse to her bestowed
prerogatives in the Divine Plan of Creation, Redemption and Kingdom
- of universal motherhood, counsel, consolation, help,
intercession, and of the mediation and distribution of all graces,
etc..
The graces for this may come proximately via parents and
religious (Ed McTague, Brother Seán, Jane McLaughlin, yourself), or
through the graces of conversion (Frances Lillie, Bonnie Roberson,
myself).
Our interior religious life is, of course, the proper
wellspring of all religious acts and works. Father Chauminade's
"The Soul of the Apostolate" is a classic here, where he cautions
against "the heresy of good works", and calls for continual custody
of heart - that we may be ever pure, humble, open and attuned to
the word of God, to the movements of Providence, to the promptings
of the Holy Spirit, and to the sanctifying and actual graces
universally mediated and distributed by Mary - rather than just to
the discursive dialectics of the morality of issues and events
("the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil") - for
true stewardship, reparation and renewal.
The beauty of Mary-Gardening is that it is a devotional work
which, while it is rooted historically in popular religious
tradition and culture, finds ever fresh, unique, expression through
each and every Mary-Gardener and in every Mary Garden - small or
large, private or public.
In sum, I now see more clearly - thanks to you and Nanette
Strayer - that it behooves us all to be alert and to take
initiative to "pass on to others what we have received" - actively
at the immediate, individual, inter-personal level, as well as at
the general dissemination level, with follow-up of inquiries. This
is what Bonnie did, with each and every visitor who came to her
nursery and Mary Garden, concurrently with her tremendous
correspondence. This is what Mrs. Lillie did, sitting reading for
hours on end in the Garden of Our Lady. And in this, with Mary's
help, we are to endeavor to convey both the particulars of the
flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens, and equally the tender,
interior, loving devotion to Mary which sustains them.
As you have been living and practicing what I'm writing about
for over 30 years, and have received much information and counsel
from Jane, please understand that what I'm endeavoring to do here
is to hold up the mirror of my own experience and perceptions, and
to provide a sort of "check list" and historical perspective for
your assistance.
As I have mentioned, I would very much like to write an
article about the Bishop Caroll Mary Garden and its creation -
which would of course be sent to you in MS form for your
suggestions and approval before any submission for publication.
This would be after the focal statuary has been installed, and
suitable photos taken.
Would you be able to send me a copy of the garden planting
plan and a photo of the sculpture miniature model? Photos and
planting plans have brought me a lot closer to Knock in thought,
and have been of assistance for my articles. (I passed through
Knock on a bicycle trip with a friend in 1938, but was not a
Catholic at the time and knew nothing about the shrine. Maybe I
picked up some graces by "osmosis".)
I am enclosing a few more article reprints gleaned from my
working files. I will also obtain copies of the Herbarist and
Horticulture articles mentioned, in a few weeks.
Two of these articles, the first two 1982 "Jubilee" articles,
are an attempt to carry forward the implications of Frances
Lillie's founding vision of the Garden of Our Lady, in respect to
religion and science. I also have another major, 1983, article
about Woods Hole, "Medieval Countryside in a Garden" - more
specific about the plant materials and the development of the
garden plan -still in MS form, because religious magazines found it
"too horticultural" and horticultural magazines found it "too
religious". Perhaps you know of some publication which might be
interested in such an article (preferably with color) .
You mentioned a special interest in the Caroll House Mary
Garden within the Redemptorist order. Fr. James Galvin, C.SS.R.'s
1946 Perpetual Help/Our Lady's Digest article, "Lillie Tower", of
course provided the initial inspiration for our work, and we have
copies of our correspondence with him in 1950-51 when he was
helpful to us in getting started, and wrote one of the first
articles about Mary's Gardens of Philadelphia, "My Garden Prays"
(telling, among other things, of how we were able to obtain a
parole job for a prisoner who appealed to us after reading one of
our first ads).
In addition to the Redemptorists, we have received valued
interest and support from the Servites, Franciscans, Marianists, La
Salette Fathers and religious of many other orders. Father Roger
Charest, M.M., of the de Montfort Missionaries, and Managing Editor
of QUEEN (of All Hearts) magazine has been a supporter almost from
the very beginning, and has published 10 or more articles by us and
others on the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens through the
years. Sister Margaret Rose, S.S.J., of the Sisters of St. Joseph,
was an early collaborator, and had the first school Mary Garden
project we know of, on the grounds of one of the Philadelphia
Catholic high schools. Then, of course, the Christian Brothers
have been so important in Ireland, arranging for Brother Seán to
move from Dublin to a position as Principal of a school in
Ballinrobe, close by Knock, etc..
I know Brother Seán would treasure any direct word from you.
We exchange letters every month or so, and I have of course already
mentioned you and the Bishop Carroll Mary Garden to him. He used
to treasure Bonnie's letters (she wrote regularly to him from 1983
to 1980, at which time I resumed regular contact with him) and your
love and spirit remind me so much of Bonnie. (Knock, the Woods
Hole Jubilee, and Our Lady's Solar Greenhouse - see enclosed
article - were treasured by Bonnie as the culmination of her Mary's
Gardens life's work, all coming in her last year. Her sister wrote
me of Bonnie's vivid experience of the Heavenly fragrance ("Don't
you smell it?") in her last several days. I asked her to describe
for me her experience of heaven, to which she replied, "There is so
much more love!"
In his last letter, Brother Seán writes, "Now that wonderful
things are happening in Eastern Europe I feel confident that sooner
than we expect the Knock Mary Garden will be planted according to
the plans in the booklet". Let us pray for this.
I see the practical stewardship and separately funded support
for the actual care of the garden itself - as distinct from
groundskeeping and general maintenance - by especially devoted and
committed Mary Garden Society or Guild members as essential in the
long run to a shrine Mary Garden, even at world- class shrine, as
to a parish or any other public Mary Garden.
In replying to your letter of April 2nd I neglected to mention
that the listings for Marianna II were only half completed in my
"sabbatical" year of 1965 before I took on the directorship of the
Wellsprings Ecumenical Center, which turned out to be an around the
clock and calendar job for some five years.
I do have the working card files, and as a matter of fact I
pealed off a listing of Tropical Plants of Our Lady, incorporating
Bonnie's Latin American research of which I will send you a copy (I
could read French and German, and she was fleunt as well as
literate in Spanish). I hope M-II will be published one day.
I am happy to be able to enclose a gift check towards the
sculpture, which I would like to have recorded as from me
personally, "John S. Stokes Jr", but kept low profile for the
present. (Marion has in mind a joint gift for your committee,
which we will forward shortly.)
I do hope all went well on the 20th. Great that you were
ready with the attractive plant markers and with supplies of
literature. A little garden map or plan, with keys to the plant
cluster locations is very helpful to have. Jane's is ideal for the
Garden of Our Lady; and the plan they used to have at the Cloisters
in New York City (before they switched from the collection of
medieval plants to a utilitarian approach) was very helpful for a
larger garden like yours.
With deep joy and appreciation for this marvellous Carroll
House Mary Garden undertaking by you, your pastor, your committee
and your supporters, and standing ready to offer any further input
from our vision and experience you may find helpful, I remain,
Sincerely,
Boston, MA
June 22, 1990
Dear Nan,
Thanks for your letter of June 13th and the enclosed
information sheet about Carroll House.
I hadn't realized that the house was under the custody of the
Redemptorists . Does this mean that St. Mary's is a
Redemptorist-administered parish?.
My parish for twenty-five years (OMC in Philadelphia) was
Augustinian-administered, so that Our Lady of Good Counsel was much
venerated - as I expect Our Lady of Perpetual Help is at St.
Mary's.
The timing for the arrival of your package was awesome. It
makes me realize that it is not enough just to bless a letter or
package. I should have beseeched Mary more specifically to place
an important piece like this under the ministry of the
Principalities, as I place myself (along with the other angelic
orders), through Mary, Queen of Angels, when travelling.
We did check, routinely, to make sure it got there OK, and, as
you know, Federal Express, can tell you in about ten seconds who
signed for any piece and wh en it was delivered, to the minute.
Ed McTague and I, and then Bonnie, made extensive use of
portable tape recorders in the Garden, and for our Mary's Gardens
"brain storming" sessions. I recall for example that a Jesuit
college in Baltimore (Loyola?) put on a Mary's Gardens display as
part of a 1954 Marian Year exhibit, and Ed and I made a tape of our
several hour session with the priest in charge, at Ed's home, over
dinner. Bonnie and I must have exchanged several hundred taped
"letters". Now, so many years later, these are invaluable. A
video camera can't be left just running in the corner, but we hope
it can become an easy utility for you and the Committee in the
Garden. And you can make back-up tapes on a regular video tape
recorder. How I wish we had this technology in the '50's! On the
other hand, for communications, I have now come to prefer the
written word, because I don't have that sense of the tape running
while I am reflecting - which is there even when I have a facility
for turning the recorder off and on, or even have a voice-
activated mike. And the written word is now, in electronic form,
so much more readily searched and retrieved for future writing (my
articles are often developed from thoughts originally occurring in
letters, e.g. my "Presence" article from letters to Ireland.
Bonnie used to prefer taping for correspondence - and of
course you get all the feeling that comes with tone of voice and
with phrasing. What I loved to do was to walk through the Mary
Garden, say at dusk, with a portable tape recorder and record all
the things I noticed and all the thoughts I had. I did transcribe
about ten hours of such recordings (Spring, 1965, 1966).
Your description of your awesome "heaven in a wildflower"
experiences as you behold a rose or a pansy in the round of your
daily activities was very moving , and very instructive to me.
Thanks for sharing it with me.
In my "Paradise of Our Lady" article, written in 1983 I
referred to St. Athanasius' teaching (of which I learned from a
Thomas Merton instructional tape) about dissolving the barriers
between our life on earth and the life of heaven. From computer
terminology I have now learned the appropriateness of the concept
of "transparancy" in this respect - such that we both penetrate to
heaven through the veil of creatures, but also see heaven shining
through them (as a prelude to our discovery of heaven on earth; the
interpenetration of earth by heaven, as so beautifully set forth in
the posthumously discovered poem of Francis Thompson, "The Kingdom
of God").
I even developed a little exercise in this respect about ten
years ago. I used to love the countless auto trips I took from
Pennsylvania to Massachusetts because the sun was always pretty
much behind me as I drove towards the Northeast. This meant that
there was good reflected light from the roadside trees and plants
before me, and in September-October this was especially glorious
because of all the goldenrod, wild sunflowers, and marigolds and
white asters, as well as the turning leaves (How I love Thomas
Merton's poem, "Two States of Prayer"; also Kurt Weil's "September
Song"!)
Anyway, this meant (with the radio off) some five or six hours
of uninterrupted meditation and contemplation, and I found myself
repeating a conceptual sequence (helpful on subsequent trips in
re-entering this reflective mode). Starting with the beauty I was
beholding, I would rise in awe to reflection on beauty' s Creator.
From this the golden plants then seemed themselves to have an
inhering aura of the God permeating them, through which I
penetrated more directly to the Divinity itself in contemplation.
From this I beheld in the eye of my soul the radiance emanating
from the Divinity, and realized that as it dispersed, and then
inhered in the total diversity of earthly creatures, they were in
the aggregate God's showing forth to us of his face. With this
then, all nature blazed forth with the full resplendance of the
awesome beauty of the Divinity - completing the "exercise". Maybe
we can develop a set of "spiritual exercises" to assist in handing
down Mary Garden spirituality to future committees who are to carry
on.
Again computer language is helpful, as it enables us to see
that Creation is God's "interface" with us, away he communicates
with us. "Then we shall see face to face, and know even as we are
known".
And at the end of the trip where I first found this to be a
fruitful reflective sequence, the skyscrapers of Boston, bathed in
the glow of the setting sun behind me, came into view as I
approached them on the elevated ramp near the end of the Mass
Turnpike - the reflection of the sun sparkeling from all the
building windows - a striking symbol of the Heavenly City. Then,
as I was marveling at this, the orientation of the car became such
that the direct brilliance of the sun almost blinded me in the rear
view mirrors and reflection from the dashboard glass, giving a
vivid sense of permeation with the heavenly glory.
I was mindful of all this as returning from the Philadelphia
airport to center city at dusk yesterday, I marveled at how the
strip-lighting-outlined "triple M" atop the central Liberty Place
skyscraper was the first thing visible of the city - starting from
five miles or so out.
o O o
Since hearing from you in April, I have tried first of all to
supply you with practical Mary Garden materials and suggestions.
I was pleased you were able to make good use of the Phila.
Flower Show leaflet for your May open house. So much thought goes
into each article and leaflet that it's gratifying when some "extra
milage" can be obtained from them. Please continue to feel free to
adapt our materials to your own immediate uses as you see fit.
The only "surety" we need, and already have, is your
pervasive Marian piety - which now prompts me to round out this
initial correspondence with a distillation of some thoughts about
Catholic faith and practice in general, and Marian piety in
particular, I've had, as I perceive they relate to our Mary Garden
work.
In this, I find I always go back to the simple statement from
the "Penny" Baltimore Catechism to the effect that "We were created
to know, love and serve God in this world and to be happy with him
forever in the next". Or to St. Thoma s Aquinas' statement that
"God created the world in love to show forth and share his
goodness." Or perhaps simply to St. John's statement that "God is
love".
Loving piety is the heart of Mary-Gardening, for it is the
interior tender, adoring, venerating, atoning, repairing and
supplicating dimension of our religion which is primary and the
essence of our faith, from which all our exterior works are to
flow.
These works flow forth from our desire to share and to
participate in the showing forth God's goodness; to proclaim his
glory; to make loving atonement, with Christ, for all offenses
against him; to participate in the building of the new heaven and
new earth; and to live with him there and with the angels and
saints and saved humanity for ever.
It is the discovery, proclamation and service of the goodness,
truth, will, law and inspiration of the loving heavenly Father,
Creator, Provider, in and with the utter love of Christ, which - by
bearing our Cross, our portion of the intensified weight of the
separation, rejection, denial, attacks, wrath, violence and death
of the fallen, sinful world - makes up in love to the Father for
all the sins of the world, such that he is moved in mercy to pour
forth the graces and providential openings of regeneration, renewal
and re-creation. Jesus experienced and took up the total weight of
the fallen world because he loved the Father totally.
Piety, more specifically, is one of the seven Gifts -
Pentacostal, Confirmational - of the Holy Spirit, all of which
complement, enhance and perfect one an other in us. There cannot
be true wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, strength and
holy fear of the Lord without true piety, as well. Nor, can there
be true piety without these other Gifts. As the Fear of the Lord
is the beginning of Wisdom, so is Piety its fruit. True wisdom and
strength come from gentleness. Power is made perfect in what the
world sees as weakness. We are to be truly wise and strong that we
may be truly pious. We are to be wise as serpents and gentle as
doves. And it is such piety which is seen as the direct
manifestation of holiness.
At the same time, the supernatural Gift of Piety is to be
distinguished from piosity - the outward sentiment of piety without
the accompanying inner Wisdom , Strength and other gifts.
All the Gifts are encompassed in the fullness of Mary Garden
piety, with its love of the rich flower symbols of the Wisdom of
the life and mysteries of Our Lady; the Knowledge and Understanding
of plant care and garden design and support; the Counsel of
adaptation to a particular site and set of circumstances; the
Strength of faithful performance of the work of stewardship; and
the holy Fear of the awesomeness of creatures and dependence on
providence - all of which have their origin in our initial pious
desire to have "a pretty garden for Our Holy Mother", as one
correspondent put it, and at the same time manifest fullness of
this piety.
A primary purpose of the Pentacostal Gifts was the
strengthening of believers in the work of building God's Church and
kingdom, and this is how we employ them to these ends in our Mary
Gardening.
And from the exercise of the Gifts comes the manifestation of
the twelve Fruits of the Holy Spirit in our lives: peace, love,
joy, etc..
In was the love - love for the Father, love for the Sacred
Heart of Jesus, love for all her children - of her Immaculate
Heart, in the love of the Holy Spirit, which moved Mary to call
the world to reparation at Fatima. And it was the undertaking of
the duties, tasks and sufferings of our respective states of life
as millions of daily acts of interior, loving reparation - inspired
by the Message, ceremonies and Pilgrim Virgin statues from Fatima -
which have moved the heavenly Father to the munificent providence
and graces which are opening up the hearts of Eastern Europe, the
Soviet Union, South Africa and Latin America in a way which is
incomprehensible to worldly wisdom (and for which we must continue
our prayers and reparations, that these openings may be filled with
charity and justice, not "seven devils").
Books like The Imitation of Christ and The Way of Divine Love
are so beloved because of their pious unction. Some years ago when
I was searching the religion and folklore stacks of Harvard's
Widener Library in my Mary's Gardens research, I came across an
entire aisle of perhaps four hundred different editions of the
Imitation, in numerous languages and dialects. I always knew this
was a Catholic classic, second only to the Bible, but seeing all
these editions these was a most moving encounter with the piety of
the Middle Ages.
From this same research I ended up with hundreds of
photo-copies of selected pages from some fifty or so books, which
I hope to draw upon fully. Most of these were in German - southern
Germany having had that wonderful continuity of Catholic culture
through the Reformation period - when the continuity and record s
of so much popular Catholic culture was lost in northern Europe and
England. It was this research which produced, for example, the
wonderful quote from Johan ne Nathusius which I included in my AVE
article.
Speaking of research, I am not able to answer you off the top
of my head about a Mary-name for Rhodadendron. I will look up its
common names in the ultimate authority in this matter, Marzell's
"Deutches Worterbuch der Pflanzennamen" (see my article on Galega
officinalis). My guess is that there might be a name reflecting
perceived religious symbolism from its charactetistic of forming
its buds in summer and fall to be carried through for bloom the
next spring. Maybe you will see something striking yourself. After
all, this is a living popular religious tradition. If others think
well of your perception, it may "stick". For my own part, the
color pink, always brings to mind Mary's Immaculate Heart.
To return to my previous train of thought: it has been my
experience that a beautiful, well-tended Mary Garden - especially a
private, intimate, "enclosed" Mary Garden - which has no other
reason for existing - is a sure sign of a tender, loving, pious,
interior devotion to Mary.
I envisage that public Mary Gardens can likewise be motivated
and cared for by self-perpetuating societies of equally devoted
Mary Gardeners, each of whom has his or her own individual,
private, Mary Garden, or beds of Flowers of Our Lady at their home,
which are their own intimate gardening expressions of their piety,
and from which they bring, or in which they start, plants of Our
Lady to be used as additions or replacements in the beds of the
public Mary Garden - and also exchange and circulate plants for
their own gardens.
At the Woods Hole Garden of Our Lady, for example, one of
Jane's sisters and her husband start annual Nigella damascena
plants each year indoors for bedding out in the Garden. (Mrs.
Lillie, from her and Mrs. Emerson's research, listed "St.
Catherine's Flower" as the religious name for this plant, but I
think of it according to the fairly prevalent name of
"Lady-in-the-Shade" ("Our Lady in the Shade") - from the bracts
surrounding each bloom - which I have come to think of as a symbol
of ". . . and the Holy Spirit shall overshadow you", of the
Annunciation.
At the start of Jane's restoration of the planting of the
Garden, according to the final, 1937, plan, in the fall of 1981,
Bonnie sent a number of plants for it, and the 3 Madonna Lilies she
sent are still growing marvellously 8 years later. In 1951, Ed
McTague and I met in the Garden with Dorothea K. Harrison, its
professional designer who developed the plan from 1933-1937 with
Frances Lillie, and Wilfred Wheeler, its professional planter and
nurseryman-custodian; and Dorothea mentioned to me (or maybe it was
in a letter) that she had difficulty with Madonna Lillies in the
central bed where she had them in the plan for design reasons, due
to excessive drying in the hot summer sun, and had to replace them
almost yearly. Jane, had already restored the full planting of
Madonna Lillies in the central bed (where they are magnificent the
first year, and then have to be replaced), so she put Bonnie's
plants in the right front corner bed, where they have some shade
from the Rosa rugusa shrubbery and have done well year after year.
Bonnie used to give the gift of a plant to everyone who visited
her.
One of the Garden of Our Lady Committee members, Fred Luts
(who built the attractive wooden "wayside Shrine" shelter for the
posted plant list and planting plan), mainains a nursery bed of
back-up and replacement plants for the Garden at his home. (I hope
men will become increasingly active with your Mary Garden
Committee.)
No doubt you transplanted some specially loved plants from
your own Mary Garden to the Carroll House Mary Garden.
One of the things I have loved about the Mary Gardening is
keeping on the lookout for more and more magnificent specimens with
which to "upgrade" the garden each year. Thus as I drove along
rural highways in late May I would look for large, vigorous
rosettes of the biennial, Verbascum thapsus, "Our Lady's Candle"
which had developed more fully in the full roadside sun than the
specimens in the partial shade of the Mary Garden, etc..
Then, there's keeping an eye on all the local roadside
nurseries to see which ones have the most desireable pansies and
English daisies for the spring border plantings, or which ones have
May-blooming biennial forget-me-nots (Myosotis alpestris) this
year.
My son, John, used to say that "Spring is the exciting time of
year". I reminded him recently that he used to say this, and he
included it in the documentation of a pattern-generating software
program, "Expansions", he has recently published for the Macintosh
computer.
A unique aspect of Bonnie Roberson's Mary Garden in Hagerman,
Idaho, was that it was essentially a private Mary Garden; but being
large, highly visible from the highway, and adjacant to her and
Ernie's "Garden of Memories" herb nursery to which people came to
buy plants and dried culinary and fragrant herbs, it was at the
same time a very public Mary Garden. What made it so special,
therefore, was that while it was a public Mary Garden, it at the
same time had all the devotional quality of a private Mary Garden.
These precious facets of Mary-Gardening I have been ranging
over have arisen spontaneously from loving initiative, but I also
believe such acts of love can be consciously inspired and
cultivated, as well - just as there are spontaneous converts to the
Church, but also devout believers who are inspired and nurtured by
parents, spouses, friends, schools, hospitals, social workers,
missions, etc ..
This is the present challenge of Mary Gardening, and it is
your devotion and initiative which have prompted me to articulate
these thoughts, just as Knock has prompted a lot of thoughts about
the potential for Mary Gardens at major Marian shrines - a thought
dear to Bonnie's heart - and the necessary composition or
"organization" of faith and loving devotion if they are to endure
and flourish . There comes to mind the parable of the sower - and
I have such a wonderful sense that in Annapolis the Mary Garden
seed has fallen on good ground.
In my ecumenical work one of the things I observed over and
over in dialog groups of Catholics and Protestants was that the
Protestants were largely unaware of the loving interior piety of
Catholics - thinking of us rather in terms of the Pope, dogmatism,
rote learning, ethnic cultures, politics, and doctrinaire positions
on birth control, abortion and euthanasia, etc..
And this was accompanied, theologically, by a lack of any
belief in the existence of sustantive, indwelling grace or
holiness. Thus, grace, as in Mary's fullness of grace, was seen as
an external or intellectual "relationship" with God rather than as
having any indwelling dimension or experience. And this was
likewise their view of the sacraments and sacramentals.
From their viewpoint (and I gave the slide lecture to several
ecumenical groups) the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens were
seen as curious, interesting and quaint customs and lore, rather
than as any sort of expression of interior piety.
From my present perspective I appreciate more fully that the
indwelling, interior, holy, pious, loving demension of our faith is
of its very essence, and that this is what it behooves us to
communicate as the true basis for the building of Church and God's
Kingdom. And as we seek means to communicate this more
effectively, we find that a Mary Garden, faithfully and prayerfully
tended, is perhaps one of the most beautiful and intimate means by
which piety can be communicated, - unique even in respect to poety
and music. So, our work has an importan t apostolic dimension for
the Church, and not just for itself.
Another aspect of all this is that some persons who have a
deep inner piety are nevertheless hesitant about starting or
participating in the work of a public Mary Garden, or even a
private one visible to the neighbors, out of fear of being
considered "hypocritical" - even though their interior love of Mary
is very real.
Hypoocrisy is of course to be avoided, and is one of the
aspects of "false" devotion to Mary identified by St. Louis de
Montfort. But he also identifies "scrupulous" and "critical"
devotion to Mary as false - the erroneous notion that we are not to
practice any external aspects of devotion unless we are somehow p
erfect, which is of course impossible.
While those in a state of mortal sin, are, by "definition",
devoid of sanctifying grace, one of the mysteries of the "sinning
Church" is that we can be, and unavoidably are, in a state of
grace, while at the same time we are imperfect, and perhaps
unwittingly committing serious offenses against justice and charity
. (Hence the need for the sacrament of penance - seen by
Protestants of my experience as a conventionalized rationale for
Catholics to continue doing wrong.)
We clearly acknowledge this when in the Rosary we pray, "Pray
for us sinners. . ." None of us can fully manifest our inner life
of grace and holiness and piety in actions and conduct of perfect
love and justice, and all of us could no doubt devout more fervor
and zeal to this - so that from this viewpoint we are ever open to
the accusation of hypocrisy, and it's something we will be faced
with at our personal Judgement.
However, reflection seems to indicate that God, in his mercy,
is in fact saving the world and building his Kingdom through
actions which are evoked by providence, and inspired through
actual, gratuitous graces - in imperfect, sinning, believers and
devotees.
That is why we treasure even death-bed conversions and
repentance. This is the greatness of Evelyn Waugh's "
", so beautifully portrayed recently on PBS, showing, as it does so
authentically, that grace can work, in response to prayer, even in
the decadence of Catholic affluence, for example, and, by
extension, under all adverse worldly circumstances.
So, as St. Louis de Montfort teaches, we are not to "hide our
light under a bushel" because our lamps are imperfect - because of
scrupulous and critically doubts and apprehensions that we may be
accused of hypocrisy - especially when the love in our hearts is so
fervent.
We are given sanctifying grace as a "beginning", that we may
work both for our spiritual perfection and for the perfection of
the world in love and justice . What we celebrate in the Mary
Garden, in piety is the gift and promise of gra ce, whereby we,
while imperfect and sinning, can grow in sanctfying grace and ca n
work to build God's Kingdom as instruments of his actual graces -
which is why we pay special homage to Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace,
who, in our trinitarian God's established Plan, discerns our needs,
and those of Kingdom, and prays for, channels and distributes the
flow of these graces to us as God,s beloved, coope rating,
Daughter, Spouse and Mother. And the sense of Mary's presence in
the world - not just in church - quickened by the Flowers of Our
Lady and Mary Gardens, prompts us to have fuller recourse to Mary
as Helper, Intercessor and Mediatrix in all situations - as was
exemplified by the life of Bishop Carroll.
This is quite an outpouring you have stimulated, Nan. It's
pretty heavy cramming forty years of thought all together in a
couple of envelopes of article reprints, and then updating it in
some long, free-flow letters; but I wanted to e stablish a context
for for future "ordinary" communication.
A couple of housekeeping matters: First, the name of the
Editor of THE HERBARIST anniversary issue was Sandy Hicks, not
Sandy Gilmore, as I erroneously recalled in a previous letter.
Maybe you could note this on the margin. Second, we're glad our
contribution was helpful. Let me know before you "close", as I
might be able to make a second contribution in memorium of Edward
A. G. McTague, and Bonnie Roberson.
I'll be travelling a bit, but please address any
communications to the same, Boston, address, and they'll reach me
in time.
With continuing joy and thanksgiving for your and the
Committee's and your supporters' major contribution to and carrying
forward of this work so close to our hearts, I remain, your
co-worker,
Sincerely,
Boston, MA
July 25 1990
Dear Nan,
What a joy to receive the casting of the sculpture model from
you today! A work truly worthy of your Mary Garden opportunity,
initiative and potential.
I was immediately struck - especially from the frontal view -
by how the grace of the boy, Jesus, appears to flow upwards through
his eyes and hand to Mary , from whom it then circulates, through
her mind and heart, down her left side and mantle, until it flows
out to the Garden and to the whole World through the fountain
petals or leaves at her feet.
Mary, full of and mediatrix of all grace, nurturingly mediated
grace to the boy Jesus, who, as he "grew in wisdom and grace before
God and man", in turn ma tured as the now divine/human source of
grace as it continued and continues to flow out to the whole world
through Mary.
While we think of this in its fullness as Mary stood at the
foot of the Cross, the Irrera sculpture captures it in its
beginnings, as it were, in Nazareth.
And as grace flows out through Mary to the world, we, in the
Mary Garden, think of this as it is extended everywhere and in all
ages, sacramentally, through the leaves and petals of the blest
Flowers of Our Lady - "through Mary, throug h her flowers" -
envisaging these flowers first of all as they grew in Nazareth.
You, your Pastor, the Committee, your supporters, St. Mary's,
Annapolis and the whole world are truly blest, providentially, by
this graceful sculpture. Your Mary Garden will be a truly holy
place.
Thanks again for the casting of the model, immediately
(re)blest, through which we, too, are blest.
Sincerely.
John
Boston, MA
April 24 1990
Dear Nan,
If the Irrera sculpture has not yet been named, may I suggest
"Our Lady of Nazareth"?
In the Garden this figure will bring to mind the flowers
encountered or used by Mary and Jesus in Nazareth in the course of
their daily lives - as they found them growing in wayside and
countryside, or perhaps cultivated them around their dwelling or
garden plot.
There are a number of flowers which bear names suggesting such
a direct, rather than symbolic, relationship with Mary: Mary's
Flower, Mary's Bouquet, Mary-Loves, Our Lady' Duster, Our Lady's
Little Vine, Our Lady's Sprig, Mary's Nosegay, Virgin's Bower, Our
Lady's Flavoring, Mary's Mint, Our Lady's Garleek, Our Lady's Pear,
Mary's Sage, Our Lady's Duster, Our Lady's Tuft, Mary's Flower of
God, Our Lady's Delight, Our Lady's Posies, Mary's Drying Plant,
etc.
Reflection on the direct relationship of Our Lady with
specific flowers and herbs, as suggested by these names, leads us
to a consideration of her relationship with flowers as such, in
terms of the overall sweep of sacred history.
In this we appreciate the special sacramentality flowers and
all nature must have had for Mary in quickening her praise and
worship of God, and as channelsand instruments for her fullness of
grace.
Living prior to the establishment of the Eucharist and the
other sacraments of the Church to establish special channels of
grace for a redeemed yet sinful world, Mary, through her Immaculate
Conception and freedom from sin, when she beheld the purity and
beauty of flowers, lived, as it were in Eden, as the New Eve for
whom flowers and all nature were utterly transparent revelations of
God's glory and perfect instruments of his grace, for his praise
and magnification and for her spiritual growth in this - as set
forth in scripture:
"The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day pours out the word by day,
and night to night imparts knowledge;
Not a word nor a discourse
whose voice is not heard;
Through all the earth their voice resounds
and to the ends of the world, their message."
(Ps. 19: 1-5)
"Send forth flowers as the Lily,
and yield a fragrance,
And bring forth leaves in grace,
and praise with canticles,
And bless the Lord in his works."
( )
"I am a flower of the field,
a lily of the valley.
"As a lily among thorns,
so is my beloved among women."
(Cant. 2: 1,2)
"Like a cedar on Lebanon
I am raised aloft...
Like cinnamon, or fragrant balm or precious myrrh,
I give forth perfume...
I bud forth delights like the vine,
my blossoms become fruit fair and rich.
Come to me, all you that yearn for me,
and be filled with my fruits."
(Sirach 24: 14-18)
We can envisage that Mary was infused with grace as she
meditated on scripture and performed acts of love, duty and
worship, and also as she beheld nature and especially the beauty
and purity of flowers, in the light pf scripture - so that flowers
can be regarded as integral to Mary's filling with grace to
fullness, and are therefore of special association with her for
this reason.
The application to Mary by the Church Fathers and early
liturgists of flower titles and imagery from the Old Testament were
not just poetic refinements, but an intuitive perception of her
spiritual formation, as "Flower of flowers" and "Mystical Rose",
through these flower passages from scripture, and directly from
nature as illuminated by them.
If the Canticle of Canticles could be of such profound
inspiration for St. Bernard's "Sermons" and St. John of the Cross's
"Spiritual Canticle", how much more profoundly must they have
served for the spiritual formation of Immaculate Mary!
Or, considered theologically, from the prologue to the John
Gospel: since all things were made through the Divine Word, and the
Word was then made flesh in Jesus, there are consequently inherent
correspondences between all the excellences of Christ and all the
goodness, beauty and truth of Creation.
For every goodness of nature there is a corresponding human
virtue of Christ, and for every virtue of Christ there is a
corresponding goodness of nature - which is, after all, the basis
of religious figures, parables and symbolism, and of poetic
imagery, finding human and divine values in nature.
Thus, just as Mary was immaculately conceived, and preserved
from sin, through graces of Christ's redemption preceding and
anticipating his sacrificial death on the Cross, so, too, by this
immaculateness and its graces Mary was enabled to assimilate, in
anticipation, from the goodness of nature, in the light of revealed
scripture, the corresponding virtues of the Word made flesh - both
as a sharing from God, and as the means whereby she might
maternally nurture them in Jesus for his growth "in wisdom and
grace".
This gives still another meaning for the "Mary Garden", or
"Mary's Garden" - as reminder of how Mary herself saw nature and
flowers as instruments of God's praise and channels of his grace;
and of how she opened her heart and soul to grace by opening them
to nature and flowers.
Reflection on "The Flowers of Our Lady" in Nazareth assists us
in attuning ourselves likewise to the Divine praise and grace
through flowers, in imitation of Mary - with the added
consideration that Mary, now elevated as Mediatrix of all Grace, is
for us herself the distributive channel for the grace of blest
flowers.
In this we are also assisted by the example of the "flower
saints" - ultimately imitative of Mary - SS. Joseph, Francis,
Patrick, Fiacre, Bernard, Frances de Sales, John of the Cross,
Louis de Montfort, Theresa, etc. - as invoked in the "Mary Garden
Prayer".
Flowers - after Jesus' redemptive life, death, resurrection
and ascension; followed by the re-creating Pentacostal descent of
the Holy Spirit - became transparent also, in the popular religious
traditions of the medieval countrysides, of the light, grace, truth
and power of our Redemption, as evidenced by the many-faceted array
of the symbolic Flowers of Our Lady, mirroring her life and
mysteries - as universally celebrated in the mysteries of the
Rosary.
While flowers, in their tranparency are first of all symbolic
of the human virtues and graces of Jesus, the God-Man, it would
appear that in popular usage they became especially associated with
Mary out of an appreciation that in her God fulfilled his desire to
share, as well as to show forth, humanly, his goodness - including
his redemptive goodness.
The divine attributes pre-eminently shown forth in the light,
graces and glories of the human nature of the God-man, Jesus, were
also shared and shown forth - through her immaculate fullness of
grace, and her fiat - by his mother, Mary, "our tainted nature's
solitary boast". And as God created human persons "male and
female", the divine attributes, both male and female, were given
their full human showing forth in Jesus and Mary considered
together, so to speak.
It is indeed Mary's participation in and sharing, as human
person, of the attributes of the divine/human person, Jesus, which
most fully culminated God's desire to share as well as show forth
his goodness. Thus, Mary is the hope of our own sharing also in
the divine goodness - as witnessed by the lives of the saints - and
it is this which is contained in the mysteries of the Rosary and of
the Flowers of Our Lady.
Even more sublimely, God shared his virtues and graces with
Mary not only in general, but also so she could be, in particular,
the fit nurturing as well as biological mother of his Divine Son -
thus also sharing, as Mother of God, in "his/her" divine
procreativity.
A Mary Garden of Flowers of Our Lady thus proclaims the wonder
of God's infused human sharing of his attributes. (I used to
ponder, for example, the origin of the name "Virgin Flower", for
periwinkle, which was probably more immediately from its use in
paintings of Our Lady surrounded by the flower symbols of her
attributes, or perhaps because it was one of the early-blooming
blue flowers. I have now come to regard the permeation of its
petals with the color blue as symbolic of Mary's infused fullness
of grace.)
These profound truths will be beautifully presented by your
sculpture of the boy Jesus and Mary in the setting of the Flowers
of Our Lady - which, as I have mentioned, prompts (at least for me)
a view of the Flowers of Our Lady which is specifically relational
as well as attributive. A most inspired selection of a sculptural
subject for your Garden!
I thank you ever more for your gift of the sculpture model
casting, which has prompted the above spontaneous thoughts -
pulling together a number of insights previously incomplete
(serving also as "inspirational research" for a hoped for article
about your sculpture and garden, in due time).
As I expressed the hope previously, we are now in a position
to make a further contribution towards the garden sculpture, which
is to be in memorium of Edward A. G. McTague and Bonnie Roberson
(U.S. Mary Garden pioneers) - per the enclosed checks. No need to
make specific mention of these memorial contributions as from us -
just the simple listing of our own previous joint personal gift, as
you indicated.
Also enclosed is a printout of a grey scale computer scan of a
little 3 x 3 polaroid snapshot taken of the model casting, which
was made to "take the statue with us" in our travels. Mindful of
copyright considerations and also your coming formal unveiling, we
are keeping the model and any photos confidential for our private
priveleged use and edification until the final figure is made
public.
With prayers to St. Rose of Lima, "to whom the boy, Jesus, and
his Mother were present in the garden", for the magnificent
fruition of your Mary Garden, I remain, as ever,
Sincerely,
Boston, MA
April 24 1990
Assumption
Dear Nan,
In several days I will be catching up with my Boston mail, and
I hope to find among it communications from you and Brother Seán.
This routing of communications has its delays, but it's better than
trying to receive mail during our travels.
I sent you a Fedex letter containing two further contribution
checks on Aug 7, which they inform me was received for you on Aug 9
by W. Gibson. (I hope this means you have been able to get in some
vacationing.)
I would like to share with you some further thoughts which
have been flowing from the stimulation of the sculpture model.
Chesterton wrote that for him becoming a Catholic was like
sitting down to breakfast every morning with Shakespeare. Ed,
Bonnie and I found it to be the same with our Mary's Gardens work.
No matter how much we ranged over things, each day always brought
some new insight, information or contact.
From the beginning, I always sought an understanding as to why
the recorded Christian symbolism of flowers, of popular religious
tradition, was predominantly referred to Mary, rather than to
Jesus, who, as divine/human person, as the Divine Word Incarnate,
must most perfectly have embodied the diversity of divine goodness
shown forth all the things of nature, created through the same
Divine Word.
About the best explanation of this I had found previously was
the Nicolas passage from "La Vierge Marie..." quoted (in
translation) in my "Jubilee 2" article (QUEEN, Jul-Aug '82, p. 37),
of which I sent you a copy, which gave as the "justification" of
this that Mary,
"(Mary) as the image most closely conformed to her divine
Son (was), through the grace of this correspondence, a moral
type surpassing all creatures . . . (giving) her also a
symbolical claim to nature which justifies and consecrates
all the figures which the Church has applied to her . . ."
It was only while writing you on August 7th that it became
clear to me that all Mary's perfections - equivalent through her
immaculate purity, fullness of grace and overshadowing by the Holy
Spirit to those of divine/human Jesus - received special popular
veneration and celebration for them because they testified to the
utter fulfillment of the Creator's desire to share his goodness
directly with us, as finite human creatures, as well as to show it
forth to us in the Divine Word Incarnate.
All the virtues and excellences which were Christ's by divine
nature were Mary's through her fullness of infused divine light,
grace, word and power - from her immaculate purity, humility,
openness, responsiveness and preservation and from her utter
correspondence to divine overshadowing, providence and governance.
o O o
Then, with respect to Mary's personal perception of and
spiritual enrichment through flowers, I appreciated from the start
the application to her by the Church Fathers and early liturgists
of the Old Testament flower, garden and nature figures -
particularly from the Sapiential Books. But I never actually stood
there with her, so to speak, in Nazareth, as she beheld flowers in
the light of the Scriptures. The Irerra sculpure prompted me to do
this.
In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola repeatedly
summons us to actually visualize imaginatively events, situations
and circumstances from Scripture, as a means of opening ourselves
to the impact of their full significance and meaning. Thus, if we
imaginatively place ourselves with Mary, and reflect on this, we
may see things missed in the scholarly analysis of texts. The
Irerra sculpure does this in a special way for nature and flowers -
because, as I wrote, it directs our attention not so much to the
Virgin and Child, Madonna Enthroned, Our Lady of Grace, etc. (all
equally fruitful to meditation, each in its own way) but to Mary
and the Child Jesus present in the Nazareth outdoors.
What is important here - deriving also from the
correspondences, through the creating and incarnate Divine Word -
between human nature and all of Creation, is our ability,
especially in the light of Scripture, to be quickened and
illuminated and formed in our interior subtle spiritial growth of
heart, mind and soul by the experience (or imagining) of facets of
the goodness, truth and beauty of nature which correspond to them.
Placing ourselves, thus, in our imagination, with Mary before
the flowers of Nazareth we can, from our own experience, envisage
that, starting with the words of Scripture, she had an illuminative
experience of the blooming of the rose to the sun as the opening of
her soul to the warmth of God's love; or of a glance into the
interior of the white lily, from petals to apex, as the drawing of
the soul from earth to heaven by the divine light, etc..
In this connetion, in writing my August 7th letter I had
immediately at hand the "Send forth flowers as the lily . . ."
passage only as it appeared in the (pre-Vatican II) Breviary for
the Feast of the Rosary (Douay translation). I have now had a
chance to look it up in the New American Bible, where
Ecclesiasticus becomes Sirach, and verse numbers are changed etc.:
"Open up your petals,
like roses planted near running waters,
Send up the sweet odor of incense,
break forth in blossoms like the lily.
Send up the sweet odor of your hymn of praise;
bless the LORD for all he has done!
Sirach 39:13-14
For us, as for Mary, such a turning to nature and flowers for
supports for spiritual growth in knowledge, love, experience and
service of God arises from our soul yearning, implanted in our
nature and enhanced by grace, which prompts us - in the confidence
of "seek and you shall find" - to ponder the forms of nature for
such support.
And for us, our accompanying yearning to know Mary better, that
we may love her more (and if we are consecrated to her, to serve
her better moves us to seek nature forms and symbols and
illuminative insights through which we may contemplate and enter
ever more fully into her life, mysteries, virtues, prerogatives and
glories.
o O o
At this point, I think it well to note that whatever facet of
the Flowers of Our Lady we may be examining, as here, it is always
well to keep in mind that the profundity of the Flowers of Our Lady
is that they may be lovingly seen by those interiorly devoted to
Our Lady according to various mode of viewing things: symbolically,
horticulturally, esthetically, dcoratively, ornamentally,
meditatively, illuminatively, sacramentally, etc. - all of which
are part of the whole, to be equally valued, and to be kept in mind
in introducing new persons to the Mary Garden, so that they may
embrace it according to their own inclination and perception.
"There is something for everybody".
All flow from an interior devotion to Our Lady, which is "the
better part", "the one thing necessary" to Mary Gardening, and to
all expressions and practices of Marian devotion, ad of Christian
devotion generally.
In this I am reminded of an ecumenical conference I attended
back in the 60's on "Public and Private Prayer" - in which one of
the principal participants was Father Damasus Winzen, O.S.B., Prior
of Mt. Savior Monastery in Elmira, N.Y., from whom I learned a lot.
While many endeavored to diminish the importance of private prayer
on the grounds that it was subjective and lacked the test of the
centuries, etc., Fr. Damasus and others pointed out that that
private, "non-liturgical", devotion, prayer and meditation were
indispensible supports for the vitality of public prayers and
liturgy. One only has to recall the widepread use of the
Imitation, Books of Hours, and other devotional treatises in the
medieval period; and it is this sort of "private" spiritual
vitilization that can come and is coming today from the Mary
Garden.
Interestingly, a number of the famous Books of Hours contain
title pages for each of the Hours composed of a miniature painting
of a scene illustrating it, paintings of symbolical flowers
illuminating it, and the first lines of the associated spriptural
passage. And today it is widely feasible horticulturally, as it
was not then, to grow Mary Gardens of these symbolical flowers.
o O o
I would also like to share with you some further thoughts,
prompted while pondering the loving glance between the boy Jesus
and his Mother, as depicted in the sculpture.
St. Augustine observed how inadequate was the attempt to find
an illuminative correspondence to the Trinity in nature. Today,
however, we have the supplementary correspondences from natural
science, which, in its processes, as Nicolas points out:
"profoundly reflects Jesus Christ and his mysteries.
Indeed it soars even higher than nature, pushes
farther ahead in its secrets, and arrives, as though
by the formulas of a transcendental and divine
alphabet, at marvellous illuminations which associate
it with the visions of angels, and anticipate some of
the answers that are reserved for us by eternity."
Such a scientific process is that of the laser, as I
discovered one day, some years ago, while visiting the Boston
Museum of Science. While I was attending a demonstration of a
workbench 6 ft. laser device, cut away so you could see the
interior, it was explained by a staff lecturer how the light
originating from a source within the laser was increasingly
intensified as it was reflected back and forth between two mirrors
at either end, until it burst forth as an intense laser beam
through an aperture in one of the mirrors.
I saw this as an illumiantive representation of how the love
of the Father for the Son was mirrored back and forth between them
in the fiery furnace of love of the Trinity, until it burst forth
in the third Person of the Holy Spirit of Divine love.
This intensification and outpouring of love is mirrored in the
loving glance between any two persons, and particularly that
between the boy Jesus and his Mother - a "laser" generating grace
which pours forth through the "aperture" of Mary, Mediatrix to the
whole world, as I proposed in my letter to you immediately upon
receiving the sculpture.
o O o
I hope you are well, Nan, and that you are having a good
summer. I am of course interested in the progress of the full
scale sculpture, which I am sure you are monitering and expediting
closely. I am reminded of the late '50's when we "went into
production" with castings of the Seat of Wisdom and St. Joseph,
Garden Workman sculptures we commissioned from Ade Bethune. So
many details - and disappointments as well as joys. I assume you
will develop some sort of descriptive leaflet, for visitors,
featuring the statue itself.
Sincerely,
Boston, MA
April 24 1990
Michaelmas
Dear Nan,
I have been delayed in catching up with my mail, in which I
will hope to he ar from you. However, these are the last few days
of a period of six months or so in which I have been able to make
time for the kind of recollection I like to put into my Mary's
Gardens communications - so I want to get in one additional letter
"under the wire" at this time.
Well, I did have my hoped for journey through the magnificence
of the fall colors. As with so many things in Mary's Gardens, it
came unexpectedly. During a one-day business trip to north-central
Ohio in mid September I drove through miles of some of the most
magnificent goldenrod I have ever seen - both the density of bloom
for each plant, and for the density of plants in the various
roadside and field colonies. And this general background of
goldenrod was interspersed with clumps of wild sunflower, white
aster, late Queen Anne's Lace, chicory - and bog iris spears, in
the moist roadside ditches. (Too early for purple asters.) The
marvellous thing is that this is what you would see at this season
just about anywhere in the temperate zone (I've had a similar
experience in England and France in September), and it makes one
feel immediately spiritually at home in a completely new
countrysude, through the familiar beloved plants and their
symbolism.
From the air it looked like a giant patchwork quilt with
numerous golden squares and "threads" - the whole earth
transfigured - reminiscent of the fields of red loostrife, Lythrum,
"Gods's Blood" (or "s'Blood", per Shakespeare's epithet) you see
from the air in August as you approach the Boston airport (and a
magnificent planting I always look for from the highway as I drive
past a field seve ral miles east of Morristown, New Jersey, near
the old power lines).
(Goldenrod is also illustrative of the need to double-check
things in our research. I first jumped to the conclusion that the
specific name of the European goldenrod, S. virgaurea, was latin
for Virgin's Gold, only to find in checking that the latin, "virg",
referred to something like branch (or "rod"), so that this was
actually the latin for "goldenrod". The first actual Marian name I
found for it was "Mary's Plant", and I forget at the moment if
there were others. I have noticed that goldenrod first blooms in
eastern Masachusetts, appropriately, close to August 1st, the Feast
of the Transfiguration. When I first saw Solidago virgaurea close
up in Kew Gardens, I noted that the flower heads were less dense
than those with which I was familiar in the U.S., and that the tiny
blooms seemed larger than those in the eastern U.S. - widely
hybridized and generally considered to be derived predominantly
from Solidago canadensis.)
Part of our Ohio business involved a visit to a large rural
property, where I found the same plants on location - from which I
could feel the same pious and spiritually quickening uplift
close-up, for my work and fellowship.
I of course had very much in the back of my mind what I have
been writing to you in my last several letters of my current
insights on sacramental piety, so I was consciously alert to and
self-examining regarding the uplift I was experiencing through this
goldenrod environment.
(In my recent letters, Nan, I have largely moved on from my
earlier historical review of Mary's Gardens background and idea for
you to current, "real time" , sharing of my ever-continuing
ruminations on the various aspects of this work - so that much of
what I am writing now is more tentative and developmental, as
compared to my earlier letters, but equally integral to seeking a
fuller understanding and sustaining the vitality of what we are
dealing with. This is, after all a living tradition, which we are
extending and hopefully enriching.)
When Ed McTague and I first started this work in 1950-1951,
the question of our ecclesiastical relations of course came up. At
the outset we couldn't exactly go to the Philadelphia Chancery
Office and request, "Can we have your approval for this work?"
Even the author of a book has to write and submit the book before
it can be reviewed for an Imprimateur. And at that time the idea
was very nebulous and emerging, so we couldn't even fully define or
describe it. So we decided to get underway and then deal with the
matter of approval when we had something to show. And sure enough,
when we ran our first local ad, we had a phone call from a priest
on behalf of the Chancery Office, but now we had our seed kit and
leaflet as something concrete to present.
Ed's visit from the Chancery office representative (Mary's
Gardens was conducted for the first several years, from Ed's home,
before he became ill and we moved things to my home) was most
instructive to us. We were advised that since we were proposing to
restore an established, documented popular religious cultural
tradition, and weren't advocating anything essentially innovative,
there was nothing "objectionable" to what we were doing; but on the
other hand as the restoration and extension of this tradition were
largely cultural it wasn't something requiring formal approval.
However, we could have the assurance of official "tolerance" (or
was it "toleration"?) as he put it, and could feel free to go
ahead. We were counseled, however, to beware of any pious fraud
(which never has been much of a problem, since most of the research
has been secular, rather than religious - from the findings of
botanists, folklorists and lexicographers).
Ed was able to tell him that the Woods Hole Garden of Our Lady
had been blessed by the Bishop of Fall River, and that - as we
learned, at the time of our joint visit, from Mrs. Frances Goffin,
who lived in the house diagonally across the street - he used to
visit with Mrs. Lillie, sitting and talking with her in the Garden
(as later Bishop Trinan of Boise visited Bonnie in her Mary Garden
- of which I have an audio tape she made with him).
(I mention this because someone may ask you about the matter
of approval.)
Then, came our first general response from lay people.
Happily there was much immediate pious acceptance from the heart,
but we had one rather vehement response from a parish acquaintance,
along the lines of: "I don't need this! I have the Mass and
Sacraments, and Devotions and Rosary, so why this? Don't bother me
with it!"
This was very instructive, because it did raise the question
very directly, "Why Mary's Gardens?"
Contained in this question are the same fundamentals I have
been dealing with currently, viz., the relationship between the
Sacraments and Sacramentals, as well as what I wrote earlier
regarding the Montfortian distinction between formal Marian
devotional practices, and interior devotion with its unending
outpouring of new exterior expressions.
The view which has been emerging for me with some clarity is
one that I don 't recall reading anywhere (although 40 years is a
long time and covers a lot of reading which I may have forgotten),
so it must for the moment remain speculative and tentative.
It is that the sacramental blessing of everyday objects,
articles, tools, vehicles, buildings, workplaces, etc. is not
primarily for our sanctification - which comes from Mass,
Sacraments, Liturgy, etc. - but as a support for our actual work of
building of God's Kingdom: especially in the sense pointed out by
Teilhard de Chardin that whatever we build on earth for the
Peaceable Kingdom is also at the same time built (in some modality)
for all eternity in the Heavenly City - which will ultimately
descend at the end of time, when all is to be transformed through
it and the Heavenly Paradise into a New Heaven and New Earth.
Therefore, for those who are concerned primarily with
Salvation and the Church, the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens,
can indeed be subjectively somewhat superfluous - because they
already have the Sacraments, etc.. And this is why the Church (per
the Catholic Encyclopedia articles which I excerpted for you) is
very specific in pointing out that the predominent view among
theologians is that the sacmenentals are not to be looked to for
sanctifying grace (although it also states there is a minority
theological view to the contrary). They are not "needed" for this.
One important example of an improper use of religious symbols
and sacramentals in this respect is that of the symbols of
religious architecture and cathedral-building - which, in
Freemasonry, were adopted as the basis for a secular rel igion with
various symbols and rites of initiation, etc. originally taken
from, but used and developed apart from, the Church and Sacraments,
and drawing on many earlier traditions, such as from Egypt, etc..
On the other hand, the various medieval craft guilds made
abundant use of symbolism from their crafts - which was used in its
proper relationship of being nourished from and leading back to the
Church and Sacraments.
The proper view of the sacramentals, I propose, is that in
addition to our primary source of grace and sanctification in the
Sacraments and Liturgy, we also need objective means of assistance
- the sacramentals - for our work of religious transformation and
building in the secular world for "Thy Kingdom Come".
In this respect, the Catholic Encyclopedia article on
"Blessings" differentiates between: 1) those blessings which
transform artifacts or natural objects into "religious objects",
which are to be reserved as such, apart from other objects - viz.,
crucifixes, rosary beads, scapulars, medals, images, roses for the
sick, flowers for crowning Mary's statues, Assumption bundles,
etc., and 2) those artifacts and natural objects which are ordered
to religious ends, but continue in their natural functioning,
without special reservation, like leaven in dough - viz., food,
tools, instruments, vehicles, household articles, seeds, plants,
etc..
The former are generally valued, as reserved religious
objects, for protection from evil spirits and for the enhancement
of prayers for physical and spiritual healing; and the latter for
the enhancement of the spiritual intentions and objectives of their
ongoing prayerful use.
While I can't know exactly which blessings the roadside
goldenrod may have received (other than my limited personal
blessing with the Sign of the Cross, which I give to all flowers I
behold, as to my meals, etc.) - such as inclusion in various
blessings given from time to time to the world, country, state,
county, countryside, etc. - I nevertheless experienced a pervasive
spiritual uplift of sacramental piety as I beheld it, in awe.
Did Jane happen to show you the historic landmark in Falmouth
of the birthplace of Catherine Lee Bates, author of the words of
"America The Beautiful". The line, "America, America, God shed his
grace on Thee", has always been very moving to me, and I envisage
the grace prayed for as blanketing the coutryside, as well as
people and cities - through Mary's universal mediation.)
On this occasion the goldenrod colonies, and therefore the
sense of sacramental piety, extended into the grounds of our very
property visited, as I mentioned, so that I was continuously
quickened to the source and ultimate purpose of life; to the
building of the earthly Peaceable Kingdom; and to the religious and
moral considerations applicable to the work and relationships at
hand.
On the other hand, when plants are cultivated and blest for
their specific religious symbolisms - as with Mary Garden Flowers
of Our Lady - the sacramental piety pervades each particular
symbolism: moving us to imitation of Mary's purity of intention in
her work at Nazareth; to praise of her excellences; and to recourse
to her perogatives of intercession and mediation, etc. - as when we
pray the succesive mysteries of the Rosary on blest Rosary beads.
Then, we flew and drove to our Ohio chemical purification
plant (painted our standard white and blue, for purity, (as
selected by others than myself, and thus providential, for me) -
beautifully landscaped with flower beds of summer annuals, and
newly planted chrysanthemums - within the setting of the wild
goldenrod, white asters and blue chicory at the borders of the
property - all serving to further extend the sense of sacramental
piety from the drive.
I tell you about all this, Nan, as some examples of how the
Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens can contribute to our life "in
the world" - augmenting what I have written about their
contribution to domestic life, as in "In Mary's Garden", "A Garden
Full of Aves" and "Our Lady's Solar Greenhouse". And from this
sacramentalizing perspective, we follow closely and pray
continuously for the course of events in the Persian Gulf, South
Africa, the U.S. economy, etc., etc..
Recourse to sacramentally blest flowers and other objects
engenders love, and gives an added confidence that prayers
quickened through them are presented in the context of the efficacy
of the prayer of the entire Church.
Another, more recent "event".
One of the delicacies I look for each fall is the occasional
second blooming of a few of the spring perennials, including such
favorite Mary Garden flowers as "Virgin Flower" (periwinkle) and
"Our Lady's Modesty" (violet) - typically hidden down beneath the
foliage. (Our Lady is "really modest".)
The other day a striking single large "Virgin Pink" (clove
pink or garden pink, Dianthus plumarius) bloom stood out in the
sun, against the dark background of foliage shadow, as I walked
past the lovely little "cottage" garden atthe entrance to St.
Mark's Episcopal Church in downtown Philadelphia.
First, I better understood why these flowers are also, in the
research, called "Mary's Lights". But I was especially struck by
the outlining of the tooth- like edges of the flower petals - from
which "pinking" and "pinking shears" are named, or maybe vice
versa. (The Oxford English Dictionary: "Pink. 1512 . . .
scalloping of garments . . . ; 1573 . . . Dianthus...plumarius . .
.")
In Holland (I believe), and maybe elsewhere, Pentacost is
known as "Pinkster", as it is known as "Whit Sunday" in England,
etc., so that the name, "Virgin Pink" also corresponds to the bloom
of this flower in late May (as distinct from the early and mid-May
blooming flowers) around Pentacost tide, as well as to it s pink
color. Further, the pointed, "pinked", edges of the flowers are
striking symbolic reminders of the pointed tongues of flame of the
pentacostally descend ing Holy Spirit on Mary and the Apostles in
the Upper Room.
One of the most multiply overlapping Marion flower symbols I
have encountered.
As I touched upon at the outset of this letter, Nan, I am
happy that I have been able to write to you extensively during this
recent period. A major project is now coming up which may refocus
my rumination and waking-sleeping flow of thought in other
directions for the next six months or more. I consider it a
providential privilege to have been able to share with you the
fruits of my Mary' s Gardens experience liberally at this time -
just as previous opportunities hav e come up in the last ten years
to correspond at length with Jane at the time of the Garden of Our
Lady Jubilee, with Bonnie in connection with Our Lady's Solar
Greenhouse, and with Brother Sean about Knock.
I extend my prayerful best wishes to you and your committee in
carrying for ward your work, and of course will look forward to
your letters and will keep in close touch.
In conclusion, I must say that the casting of the Our Lady of
Nazareth mode l is a great inspiration and very dynamic for me
spiritually. Thanks again so very much. I envisage it in the Mary
Garden with a clump of Impatiens - known in Germany as "Mother
Love", the constancy of which is seen to be symbolized by the
constancy of bloom of this much loved and used plant through the
months. The statue and the plants enhance each other, and just
with the statue in mind, each clump that I see in city tubs and
window boxes becomes much more meaningful for me and quickening of
sacramental piety.
Sincerely,
+
Boston, MA
July 8, 1990
Dear Nan,
Copy of letter to Bro. Seàn Macnamara, C.S.C., Irish Mary's
Gardens Associate.
Dear Brother Seàn,
Thank you for your letter of May 2nd - which arrived after I
wrote you on May 13th.
Yes, I do hope and pray with you for the revision of the Knock
Mary Garden planting according to the full lists and Irish National
Mary Garden plans in the booklet, which you developed at the request
of the late Msgr. Horan.
In writing to Nan Sears about the completion of the St. Mary's
Church and Carroll House Mary Garden in Annapolis I have endeavored
to review for her the essential supports for a well-cared-for and
enduring public Mary Garden, as we have come to understand them
from our forty years of experience.
Among these I included:
- Initially at least one dedicated Mary Gardener with a deep
inner piety an d love for God, Our Lady, the Church and the building
of God's Kingdom - which h e or she wishes to express and share with
others in the special way afforded by the Flowers of Our Lady and
Mary-Gardening.
- A garden site with a prominent focal sculpture, grotto,
walled raised bed(s), or other "monumental" object (e.g. a fountain,
the Woods Hole Angelus Tower, a "Mass rock", etc.) which gives
substance and permanence to the garden site above and beyond its
location at Shrine, church, school, hospital, etc.
- Freedom (permission of administrative authorities),
responsibility, and available time, means and assistance to make
the initial garden design, plant selection and procurement, and
practical digging, soil preparation and planting according to Mary
Garden practice - and to undertake faithful ongoing watering,
trimming, edging and other tasks of garden stewardship.
- Solicitation of contributions of plants, funds and work
materially necess ary for the Garden planting and maintenance, and,
for the long run, establishment of some sort of fund or trust to
which contributions can be made.
- Attractive plant markers; a plant list and plan for the
Garden for use by visitors as a guide and a momento; and a supply of
leaflets, reprints, booklets , etc. at or nearby the Garden,
providing general background information - with address where people
can write for information and assistance in starting home Mary
Gardens, etc..
- Primary responsibility for perfoming and providing for
ongoing plant and bed watering, cleaning and other maintenance.
- Inspiration and instruction in underlying Marian piety and
doctrine, and the fundamentals of gardening.
- Founding of a self-perpetuating Mary-Garden Society or Guild
of persons to carry on into the immediate and distant future -
rather than relying on instit utional grounds care maintenance; and
who are present at the garden when visitors are likely to come, to
tell them about the Garden personally.
- Provision of a visitors' book for names, addresses, comments,
requests for information, etc.
- Use of the Mary Garden as a setting for special occasions,
such as praying the Rosary, flower ceremonies celebrating Marian
Feast Days, and visits after weddings and baptisms, etc.
- Inclusion of the Mary Garden in garden tours, and in listings
of places to visit in visitors guidebooks, etc.
- Provisions for a log, journal and archives of notes, plans,
articles,book s, photos, tapes, etc. to preserve the details of the
founding, care and events of the Mary Garden, for future
generations. (Teilhard de Chardin notes how the p recise details of
the origins of most things have been lost to this world.)
Even with all the glories of the Knock Mary Garden, the delay
in revising the planting according the final plans serves to
re-emphasize the importance of having the funding and care of
institutional Mary Gardens under the responsibility of a
self-sustaining Guild guild which does not have to "compete" for
institutional budgeting and scheduling. Is there any sort of Mary
Garden Guild, Society or Committee at Knock? I'm sure that with the
magnificence of the Garden and the inspiration of the booklet and
your personal presence, there must be a number of persons living in
the area who would come forward to participate in such a guild. And
I'm sure it would be a relief to the Shrine administration and
stewards to have this responsibility taken up by others.
The "guidelines" for an institutional Mary Garden are just as
important at a world-class shrine as at the smallest parish.
I'll have to write someone in the Philippines to see if any of
those 1954 Marian Year Mary Gardens, of which we have such great
photos, are still being carried forward 36 years later.
Then, "the other side of the coin", as I've also been writing to Nan, is that of sustaining and deepening the Marian piety and commitment, of which the Mary Garden is an expression.
What has become increasingly clear to me recently, in this
respect, is the importance - for the world, first of all - of a
full, true devotion to Mary for her divinely ordained and lovingly
undertaken role in the carrying forward of the divine plan of Church
and Kingdom, through her motherly mediation of all graces etc., as
well as for her personal virtues and excellences. And in this we
come to see that Mary Gardening is a microcosim of Creation,
Salvation and Kingdom.
"What is good for Mary-Gardening is good for the world."
This should not be surprising to me, since, as you know, Mary's
Gardens was in fact first conceived and undertaken by Ed McTague and
myself, in our discussions after class, at St. Joseph's College
Institute of Industrial Relations in Philadelphia, precisely as a
microcosim of Church and world.
In fully developed Marian piety - to which we are all called -
our initial grace-inspired love of Mary as person is to be
culminated with a deep love and appreciation of and recourse to her
for her loving acceptance and performance - through her
supernaturally endowed prerogatives - of her divinely established
role, as motherly Counselor, Consoler, Intercessor, and Mediatrix of
all Graces, sa nctifying and actual, in the carring forward of the
Divine Plan of Salvation and Kingdom.
While our sense of Mary's presence with us is beautifully
heightened - simply and directly - by our work with her Flowers and
Garden, it is given further substance by reflection on her
association in Tradition with the Created Wisdom, and by
consideration of the practical implications of the theology of
Heaven, as well as by the fact of her major appearences on earth.
Thus, like the Created Wisdom, we can consider of Mary that, as
in the passage from Proverbs incorporated in the Liturgy of the
Hours for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception:
"The Lord begot me, the firstborn of his ways . . .
When he established the heavens I was there . . .
When he fixed fast the foundations of the earth . . .
Then was I beside him as his craftsman . . .
And I found delight in the sons of men." (8, 22-31)
Similarly, we have the lesson from the liturgy for the Feast of
the Queenship of Our Lady which describes her fervent zeal when in
heaven to be with her children on earth, and her equally fervent
zeal when on earth to be back with God in heaven, such that she
continuously "rushes" back and forth between the two (I don't have
the passage immediately at hand).
From these we are better enabled to appreciate practically and
logistically how Mary, from the eternity and infinity of heaven,
where "a thousand years is but a day", is able to be personally
present, instantly and simultaneously, as it were, in limitless
numbers of places - to each one of us and to the entire Church - as
Mother, Helper, Consoler, Intercessor and Mediatrix.
I recall that in the Summa, St. Thomas examines in detail the
attributes of the angels and souls in heaven in terms something like
"agility", "alacrity", "passibility", etc.; and these of course
apply to Mary's heavenly assumed body as well as to her soul. (The
dogma of the Assumption was proclaimed just as Ed and I were in the
process of founding Mary's Gardens. How I long for the dogmatic
definition of the traditioal doctrine of Mary's Mediation of All
Grace, that Mary's role in the Divine Plan may be more fully
proclaimed, examined and acted upon!)
And while Mary goes many places because she sees that it is
God's directive will, she also goes out of her own loving volition
and of her limitless capacity of being present to us, so that she
comes to us, and wants to come to us, and does come to us, at the
least turning of our hearts towards her in love, spiritual
aspiration and supplication. "Never was it known that anyone who
fled to (her) protection was left unaided." Out of pious love of
Mary comes the fullest recourse to her intercession and mediation
for the building of the Church and God's Kingdom. She comes to us
as Mother for our salvation and perfection, and as Queen and for
God's Kingdom.
In sum, the full expression of our Marian piety, is to
proclaim to the world, in love, the indispensability of turning to
Mary's mediation of the actual graces needed for the renewal of the
face of the earth and the building of the Peaceable Kingdom - for
which our natural and scientific knowledge and love are not enough.
This vision was central to Frances Lillie's original Mary
Garden motivation, as I have endeavored to point out in my articles
about the Woods Hole Garden of Our Lady.
(How vividly I remember my one visit with Mrs. Lillie in, 1954!
She had given us her blessing when I spoke to her by phone in 1950
(the call got "past" her sickroom nurses because the long distance
call from Philadelphia was assumed to be from one of her daughters,
who lived in the Philadelphia area), but I had never been able to
visit her when I was in Woods Hole, because of her illness. Then,
in late August of 1954, during one of my Woods Hole visits, Father
Stapleton, Pastor of St. Joseph's at that time, and most supportive
of our work, phoned me and said that the next day was Mrs. Lillie's
birthday, and her daughters thought a visit might cheer her up a bit
- so, would I be able to join them for tea?
I quoted a few things Mrs. Lillie said, in my article, "Mary's
Gardens Research - A Progress Report", but the high point of the
afternoon was when I gave her a little birthday gift of a Swiss
postcard I had just picked up in a local drugstore with a photograph
of a bleeding heart plant, with the european titles of "Coeur de
Marie" and "Frauenhertz". In her humility she replied, "This is for
me?")
In terms of Mary's universal mediation in the building of God's
Kingdom, our plumbing of the depths and ascending to the heights of
the meaning and significance of the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary
Gardens will never be completed until the end of the world. I
recall ten years or so ago running into a family friend I hadn't
seen for a number of years - an artist and scholar who had spent
much time in the Orient - who asked what I was doing. When I told
him I was working on a book on mysticism, he exclaimed, "Mysticim?
What more is there to say about that?" I replied, "There is always
something more to say until the completion of God's Kingdom, until
the mystics complete their work here on earth"; and for that reason
I'm thinking of calling it, "Mystics With Hands" (after a line from
a Daniel Berrigan poem). And for the same reason I feel there is
always something more to be said and done about the Flowers of Our
Lady and Mary Gardens. "Of Mary there is never enough." To Mary
there is never recourse enough.
Practicing what I was preaching, I resumed my full commitment
to Mary's Gardens around that time (1980), as you know - working
closely with Bonnie again, with you, and then with Jane. As a
matter of fact this was necessary to the (hoped for) completion of
the book.
Brother, I hope you are having a relaxed and regenerative
summer after your year's hard work at school. The reinterpretation
of our faith, espcially for the young, is such a task in this
rapidly changing world.
I hope you can give me more particulars about the Ballintrope
Abbey Mary Garden, as this sounds like perhaps the first Mary Garden
of enduring substance at a major monastery, at least to my
knowledge. Obviously the summation I have made, above, of the
necessary supports for a continuing Mary Garden would have a
different application in monastic circumstances, but from the few
historical records we have in any detail of monastic gardens and
gardening (Strabo, St. Gall, etc.) there's clearly some room for
thought and planning here.
We are now into the hot summer period in the northeastern U.S.,
and as always there is so much to do and seemingly so little time in
which to do it. However, my Spring was "made" by Nan's Annapolis
Carroll House Mary Garden initiative - which I consider very special
to the whole sweep of our work, so with that and the Ballintubber
Abbey, I have much to rejoice.
And, as ever, I rejoice at our special communion and friendship, remaining,
Sincerely yours in Our Lady,
P.S. Much that I have written here distills what I wrote in more
emerging and rambling fashion to Nan, so I am taking the
liberty of sending her a copy of this letter. J.
Could you send me a copy of the 1990 "Knock Shrine Annual"?
+
Boston, MA
November 4, 1990
Dear Nan,
I am mindful that today is the day of the Rosemary Fisher
benefit concert for Mary's Garden, and am praying for its spiritual
and material fruitfulness.
I assume that the sculpture of Mary of Nazareth will arrive
momentarily. I'm sure that you are prepared that there will be
differences of scale, material and detail from the model and from
your expectations - as I know from my own experience in producing
the Ade Bethune "Mary, Seat of Wisdom" and "St. Joseph, Garden
Workman" figures. I do hope you will be pleased with it, but if
you have any reservations I know that you can take them in
mortificational and reparational stride, as you did the dalays in
finding the proper granite block, etc.. As a minimum, it's an
adjustment from the more intimate model; and now you have both. I
am reminded of Bonnie's development of the dish Mary's Garden, so
she could have it indoors, and at hand 24 hours a day.
With a view to the forthcoming installation, dedication and
blessing of the sculpture in Mary's Garden, I'm writing to pass on
a few more thoughts from my experience and ruminations, which may
have some merit for you and the Committee - now and as you continue
to live and work with the Garden.
First, I trust you will select an appropriate liturgical date
for the ceremony. We elected to formally inaugurate Mary's Gardens
of Philadelphia on the (old) Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas; and Our
Lady's Solar Greenhouse on the Feast of the Annunciation, etc.
As I wrote earlier, I hope your bishop will perform the
blessing rite for you, as a much deserved added dignity and grace.
Also, I've written about making the most of available channels
for publicity, that the Garden be fully recognized, honored and
visited.
I don't know whether your Committee has considered a specific
dedication intention, but mindful of Mary of Nazareth a first
thought that occurred to me was something like a dedication to
peace and justice in the Holy Land, the United States and the whole
world. A bit wordy, but a spontaneous thought. It should be broad
and applicable through the centuries, and not just current issues -
which can be focused on, as desired, in the smaller enclosures,
such as the "Garden of the Holy Innocents".
And now for a "final" rounding out of the theological
background I have been writing about - that in due time gardeners,
parishionners and visitors may spiritually avail themselves fully
of the blest Garden's vast riches of nature, culture and grace.
I've been at it for forty years, and am still learning every
day.
These are some clarifications that came to me on the Feast of
All Saints:
While we grow day by day in interior deepening of sanctifying
grace as we live our spiritual lives of the sacraments and prayer
and spiritual acts and works; our growth in actual graces and
glories