Mary's Gardens Developmental Correspondence
Letters from John Stokes to Bro Seán MacNamara, Ireland
1987
This "book length" correspondence, and similarly extensive
correspondence (in long process of posting to Website) with Bonnie
Roberson of Hagerman, Idaho; Jane McLaughlin of Woods Hole; and
Nanette Sears of Annapolis, represent Mary's Gardens' "in house";
developmental activity from 1980 (following that of Bonnie, who had
carried it forward from 1968 until then) through 1965, when the
Internet website and general e-mail correspondence were initiated.)
Because of the book length and unediting of the letters, a
listing of letter contents has been prepared .
John Stokes
February, 2005
LETTER TOPICS
January 20, 1987
- Move to Rome - the World as Window to the Supernatural
July 5, 1987
- Move to Rome - Mediterranean Climate - Italian Reearch
August 15, 1987
- Knock Mary Garden Booklet Recived - Details
August 20, 1987
- View of All Things as God's Creatures - Flower Symbols Help in This
August 25, 1987
- Intensification of Faith in the Melieu of Secular Humanism
August 28, 1987
- Why Mary's Gardens?
September 8, 1987
- Flowers of Our Lady as an Expression of Religious Zeal
September 19, 1987
- Need for "Take One" Leaflets at Mary Gardens - U.S. Constitution
September 29, 1987
- Need for Reappreciation of blest Nature, Artifacts, Symbols
October 4, 1987
- God has spoken 'in diverse ways' to the different peoples
October 15, 1987
- Fall Visit to Woods Hole Garden of Our Lady
December 8, 1987
- Contribution of Flowers Devotion to the Needs of Our Times
+
Boston, MA
January 20, 1987
Fabian, Sebastian
Dear Brother Seàn,
I am mindful that tomorrow is the day of your scheduled trip to
Rome. I hope and pray for a safe trip and a spiritually fruitful
stay there.
We have read of the severe winter snows and cold in Europe, and
trust you have warm clothing and are otherwise able to cope with
these adverse conditions.
The winter in Boston has been an average one, perhaps a little
on the warm side. The coldness of winter typically sets in about
New Year's Day and lasts until around Washington's Birthday holiday,
February 23rd. During this period the temperature is typically in
the 20's (Fahrenheit), with drops into the teen's and maybe down to
zero once or twice when arctic cold fronts come down from Canada,
alternated with rises into the forties and occasionally fifties,
when warm fronts come up the coast from the south. Being on the
seacoast we have the moderating effect of the ocean, and the weather
is much colder fifty miles inland.
How different from the Mediterranean climate (I should have
said 'west' coasts of lower middle latitudes, in my last letter).
As for myself, and Mary's Gardens, I took note this Advent and
Christmas season of how in the beginning the Flowers of Our Lady and
Mary Gardens, and their symbolism, represented for me a
sacramentalized window or gate to the supernatural - extending the
primary gate of the sacraments - which was a sort of island in the
midst of the secular world. Now, everything in the natural world is
a window to the supernatural for me, so that the Flowers of Our Lady
and Mary Gardens are especially beloved to me as the initial opening
up for me of the entire world to the supernatural - which I now see
more 'face to face'.
Accordingly, Brother, I expect that my future letters will be
more 'everyday', as the Spirit blows and providential events and
circumstances are unfold - my 'round' of the liturgical year in
nature, as set forth in my letters of the past year and a half,
being perhaps my culminating spiritual 'project'.
While you are a little younger than I am, I'm sure you are
having similar spiritual experiences - in which, in the Communion of
Saints, I extend you my prayerful best wishes - particularly under
your new circumstances in Rome.
Sincerely, as ever, your friend, in Jesus and Mary,
+
Boston, MA
July 5, 1987/A>
Dear Brother Seàn,
Thank you for your postcard of March 8th and letter of May
17th from Rome, and also for your postcard of April 6th from
Jerusalem.
The painting of Our Lady of Good Counsel has been familiar to
me for some time, as my parish church in Chestnut Hill was
administered by Augustinians, who venerated a reproduction of this
painting at a special side altar in the church - so I felt special
joy that you were able to visit the original.
Our Lady of the Miracle at the Church of St. Andrea delle
Fratte was not previously known to me and I very much appreciate
your telling me about it and sending me the holy card picture.
I'm sure your visits to Rome and Jerusalem were most
spiritually enriching.These two holy places are sacramentals in
themselves. I have always treasured Pope Paul's address made at
the time of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I believe from
Nazareth, conveying the sense of Christ's presence he experienced
in walking where Christ had walked etc.. I think this has been
incorporated as one of the Readings in our new Liturgy of the
Hours.
I have not heard anything from Knock about the booklet. If
Tom Neary has been delayed in bringing it to publication possibly
your presence once again on the scene will help it along. When it
is published, I hope someone can send me a copy by airmail, as I
recall that copies of the Knock Annual containing my article took
over six months to reach me by surface mail.
The different speeds of communication 'side by side' in
different cultures always amaze me. The norm for this country, for
the commercial world, and increasingly for the personal worlds of
those who can afford it, is telephonic (including computer
telecommunications for text and graphics, and telex (telefacimile)
for document reproduction and overnight air express). You may have
read about the Federal Express company, which has offices and
pickups in practically every location in the U.S. from which vans
take overnight airmail every night about 9 PM to regional airports
from which their fleet of jet planes fly it all to Memphis where it
is sorted and put back on planes which fly back to the same airports
for truck delivery by 10 AM the next morning.
Thus, for example, when we need some new computer software in
a hurry, we can place a phone credit card order to a California
company as late as, say, 4 PM Eastern time (1 PM Pacific time), and
have it by 10 AM the following morning - picking it up from the
neighborhood Federal Express office, almost across the street,
after receiving a phone call the moment of its arrival. And with
mail order discounts, the price may be even less that purchasing
the same item from a local store (when it becomes available there 3
weeks later). Similarly, in the Analytical Services division of
our toxic waste neutralization business, each day we send lab
samples overnight in special Federal Express packets from any plant
or field location in the U.S or Canada to our central computerized
lab in Connecticut.
All of this is a mirror of the heavenly possibility and
agility we will all experience - just as TV is a preview of our all
eternity perusal and re-experiencing of the Book of Life.
With respect to Mary's Gardens, I consider the present phase of
my life as one of preparation for hoped-for self-publication.
Computer/Laserwriter 'Desktop Publishing' makes it possible
for one to publish one's own leaflets, pamphlets and books,
including illustrations and photographs, with full professional
quality; and we're within perhaps a year of doing this with full
color, at feasible costs. Mt wife is a specialist in this area, and
we have been keeping abreast of the latest technology and equipment
availability and operation, o that, God Willing, we will be able
to 'go into production' in our respective fields in the forseeably
near future. I do hope I will be given the opportunity to present
the richness of the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens in this
medium, and ask for your prayers to this end.
Spiritually, thus, my concentration has been on computer art
and science during the past year - quite a switch from my previous
year's concentration on the nature symbolism of the liturgical
year, about which I wrote you so extensively. (Currently, for
example, I am developing my proficiency with the 'Postscript'
computer language used in Desktop Publishing, as well as with all
available software).
This is also a manifestation of my present developmental
spiritual focus on the mutable aspect of life. Earlier, my focus
was on the cardinal, active, 'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God . .
.' and fixed 'The truth shall make you free'. In these earlier
phases, my focus on mundane objects, circumstances and events, and
even, to an extent, on people, was primarily purgative, symbolic
and sacramental, because Providence took care of the mutable
aspects as I acted and searched.
Now, however, that I have climbed the mountain top, and seen
the glory of God and the Promised Land, sensitive attunement to
each person and mundane circumstance, and to the operation of
Providence in this area, is what is most needed, if mystically
experienced spiritual light, grace, wisdom and power are to be
personally conduited, mediated and instrumented according to God's
will.
In this Mary is important not only as Mediatrix, but also as
our model as we take up our own tasks of spiritual mediation more
fully.
Whereas previously events and circumstances were to be purged
and transcended, now they are mediatively to be transfigured and
transformed. The corporeal and spiritual acts of mercy are now
'front and center'. Thy Kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven,
here and now, becomes ever more the focus of all work and prayer.
All too often heaven has seemed remote and ethereal - light,
angels, clouds, flowers. This is so when it has not been
experienced. The experience of heaven is that it has been created,
together with earth, and that it is still being built through the
heavenly transformation of earth into it towards the fullness of
the new heaven and new earth. We build the increasing solid
reality of heaven by transfiguring and transforming earth into
heaven. Light, angels, clouds and flowers may be the present
developmental state of heavenly substance, but at the pleuroma,
after the general resurrection, Heaven will have all the substance
and solidity of earth, in spiritual transformation and
resplendence.
The message of Mary's Gardens is that flowers - seen
transfiguringly, and blest - show us the way, as the dynamic
'cutting edge'. It is in flowers that we gain a first view of
heaven, heaven on earth, and all earth heavenly transfigured and
transformed.
I recently saw a TV special on the architect who designed the
glass covered skyscraper, the Hancock Tower - dramatically visible
from our Boston home - which has had so much practical spiritual
symbolism for me. (He is the designer of the highly controversial
glass pyramid recently constructed in the front court of the Louvre
Museum in Paris.) He stated that he regards all his buildings as a
building of the earthly/heavenly city. It is good to know this.
I have also come to see that one has to be fully at peace with
the world before one can be fully mediative to it. Previously I saw
the Peace of Christ more in terms of a tranquility of external
order, but now I see it, even when surrounded by external disorder
and conflict, as a spiritual gift of inner power which enables one
to be at peace even in the midst of such disorder and conflict.
This was clarified for me in my Holy Week re-reading of The Way of
Divine Love - one of the books of special unction for me - in which
Sister Josepha reported the words of Jesus to her (p. 345):
'I am with you . . . so that in the midst of pain you
should never lose the peace that surpasses all earthly
joys, and nothing will ever be able to take it from you.
My peace...will fill you with holy joy...It will
strengthen you and bear you up under suffering.'
Something else I would like to share with you, Brother, is
that without realizing it almost, I find that I now 'pray always'.
Years ago, I was much concerned, ascetically, with such things as
distractions in prayer, spiritual dryness, etc. Then it struck me
the other day that now everything I think and feel and do is one
continuous prayer. I guess this is why, as I believe I wrote in my
last letter, that while the Flowers of Our Lady used to be so very
important to me as reminders, quickenings and supports to prayer,
now I find that everything serves to this end. Thus, cooking, for
example is a prayer, and any interruption to my cooking is an
interruption to my praying of the moment. But such interruptions
are not distractions. Rather, they are the occasion for a switch
to a different, mortificational, reparational, mode of prayer -
mortifying the interruption, in union with Christ's Passion. As
Caussade says in Abandonment to Divine Providence, we are either "to
do or to suffer" - whichever is God's Will for each moment. The
sanctification of the present moment. The practice of the presence
of God. I recall that Ed McTague used to say, 'Never take a job
that requires you to count', but now for me counting (and
computing) are as much prayer as the most uninterrupted meditation
or contemplation.
As a sort of corollary to this, all the problems of the world
- whether philosophical, scientific, political, familial or
personal, etc. - now appear to me in a different light. This has
become clear while regularly watching the news and talk shows (Phil
Donohue, Oprah Winfrey) on TV. Having both been deeply involved in
peace and social justice movements, and having produced 60 talk
shows of our own, my wife and I spend a great deal of time following
these matters on TV and in the print media. What strikes me is
that the media approach to the endless stream of personal and
political problems is almost entirely secular - seeking answers and
solutions in discursive, rational manipulation of attitudes and
circumstances, rather that in acting transformingly and suffering
redemptively, in openness to God's will, as we surely move towards
Salvation and Kingdom under God's governance and providence.
"Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done."
This is equally the case whether it is a question of a
relationship between two persons or two countries.
If only the zeal and energy which are spent in penetrating the
secrets of the atom, molecule and universe could be directed
towards penetrating mystically to the interior of the fiery furnace
and fountain of love of the Trinity! If only all the zeal and
energy which are spent in seeking earthly gratification and
happiness could be directed towards seeking religious Truth and
Salvation and God's Will! Me must intensify our prayers, works and
mortifications for this!
You will recall that I explored this matter in respect to
gardening in my article, 'Man in God's Garden' - noting that the
gardens of Versailles and Henry the VII appeared to be attempts to
make the finite infinite on earth, rather than rising from a simple
earthly flower or cottage garden to the true heavenly Infinite.
Early in May, Faye Coates, Bonnie's sister, sent me six
additional cartons of Bonnie's papers and books, left over after
various auctions of her books and effects. Regrettably, her
library (which Ernie was readying to send me before he died) was
broken up by her executors, who had no interest in perpetuating it
as a whole. I was advised at first that they hoped to sell it to
the Mormon university library in Salt Lake City for a large sum;
but apparently this did not happen, and it was sold off in bits and
pieces. Faye, to whom Bonnie and her Mary's Gardens work were very
dear - they experienced some sort of reconciliation, after many
years of alienation, a year or two before Bonnie died - was able to
salvage a few things for me from the Library; and that is what she
has now sent me.
Immediately upon receiving them, on May 4th, I took them (from
the Federal Express office) to Woods Hole for keeping with my own
Mary's Gardens library and papers, but have so far not been able to
return to open and look through them. As a matter of fact I haven't
been able to look through the cartons Faye sent three years ago.
While in Woods Hole, I, of course, visited the Garden of Our
Lady (in the rain). As happens so frequently there was a joyous
surprise. On visiting the figure of St. Joseph in the West Tower
Garden I discovered some snowflakes, St. Joseph's Flower, in full
bloom before it. Apparently some of the bulbs I presented to Jane
along with the figure of St Joseph (per the Queen of All Hearts
article photograph) were viable, even though they were planted in
the spring, or perhaps they have been augmented. In any case they
were in magnificent bloom, per the enclosed slide photo. You will
also note the beautiful wooden shelter constructed by one of the
parishioners at Jane's suggestion - to give the figure winter
protection.
While in Boston, St. Joseph's Flower is in bloom for the Feast
of St Joseph; in Woods Hole, due to the moderation of the sea, it
is in bloom for the Feast of St. Joseph, Workman. Another one of
those little providential joys.
Perhaps an even greater joy was the discovery that Bonnie's
three Madonna Lilies in the front, right corner bed of the Garden
of Our Lady were all in vigorous, healthy, growth - about a foot
high each. They should be coming into bloom right about now. Last
year, as I believe I wrote, they were nowhere to be seen in early
July, and I incorrectly assumed they had become diseased in some
way. Apparently they had been physically broken or cut somehow, so
that the bulbs were still in tact and have now shown new, perhaps
even more vigorous, growth.
Brother, I think this brings things up to date since I last
wrote before your departure for Rome. I hope you found things well
with your Community on your return to Parnell Square, and that you
yourself are well and refreshed after your stay in Rome.
I will hope to hear some good news from Knock, and await word
from you.
As ever, I remain, sincerely, your friend in Jesus and Mary,
+
Boston, MA
August 15, 1987
Assumption
Dear Brother Seàn,
I was overjoyed, after being away for a week or so at
conferences, to pick up at the post office yesterday your letter of
July 24th and the enclosed 'The Knock Mary Garden' booklet.
What a beautiful present for today's Feast! Thank you so
very, very much.
Another beautiful present, today, was a visit from our
youngest daughter, a journalist, who has returned to the
Northeast, New Jersey, from Florida, and whom we haven't seen for
five years.
It's always a great moment for parents when you 'meet' a son
or daughter for the first time as an adult, with some experience
and survival in the world as a self-reliant, self-sufficient,
creative, contributing person - rather than as a dependent child
and student.
I of course showed our daughter the Knock Mary Garden booklet,
which she read with great interest - seeing Mary's Gardens for the
first time, as it were, through adult eyes. She then asked to see
my folder of Mary's Gardens articles, 'discovering' that I, like
her, am a writer.
I showed her in particular the original Irish Mary's Garden
article by Robert Ostermann in the February, 1953, Irish
Ecclesiastical Record, and my article, 'Mary-Gardening with St.
Francis', in the March, 1961, Assisi, which inspired Liam Brophy's
poem, 'Gardens Give Mary Glory'. We speculated as to why Mrs.
Coyne omitted the second stanza of this poem, (as indicated by the
ellipsis at the end of the first), repeating the last stanza in its
place. In any future reprinting of the booklet, I would hope, if
you and Tom Neary have no objections, that this stanza might be
restored:
These from the faithful and fecund soil
Are generations that have called her blest,
These magnify her always without rest
While man's sad cyclic ages still uncoil.
(This is the proper antecedent for 'They beat the perfumed
air' etc. of the third stanza).
This is a very minor point in relation to the over-all beauty
and wonder of the booklet, and I mention it now because I might
forget to later. Also, there are a few spelling errors I noticed,
which I'll list at some future date. The only one which affects
the meaning is the substitution of 'effective' for 'affective' in
the second sentence of the second paragraph at the top of page 19.
Again, I should say that these details are almost
insignificant, in relation to the wonder of the whole - about which
I will be happy to write a review, as you request. I will attempt
to include the review with this letter, while my first joyous
impressions are still fresh in my mind.
Two things which immediately stood out for me were the way in
which the twelve sections of the booklet were like 12 facets of the
same Jewel, which one is moved to turn over and over in one's
fingers, looking at it again and again - endlessly - from these
different perspectives; and, secondly, the way in which the booklet
is a truly cooperative creation with input from Ed, myself, Bonnie
and, culminatingly, yourself.
It might be said, as it were, that (instrumentally) Ed,
inspired by Mrs Lily, contributed the vision and light of Mary's
Gardens; I contributed the mind and pneuma; Bonnie contributed the
heart and grace; and you have contributed the unction and power.
As each of us, in love, has made his or her particular
contribution: my writings have been filled with ideas and phrases
originating with Ed, and Bonnie's with elements from my articles
and letters, embellished with grace. You, in turn, have incorporated
and enhanced these in your expression, clothing them, along with
your own prolific insights, with unction and power.
Viewed in this way, the booklet is a corporate inspiration of
the circulating Holy Spirit which is awesome. With the passing of
time, I can no longer specify exactly who contributed which of many
of the elements - and indeed there is no need to. You and the
articles in the booklet give ample 'credit' to those who have
contributed to the Mary Garden idea and movement, to satisfy
justice in this respect.
I am too close to it to make an assessment, but I hope readers
will discern the working of Mary's Spouse, the Holy Spirit, here.
I very much like the little illustrations of various plants -
giving the booklet the quality of a contemporary illuminated
medieval manuscript.
The incorporation of the photo of the Pope's Golden Rose is
most fitting and beautiful.
I especially like the juxtaposition of The Lily and the Rose,
Ten Flower Meditations, and the Mary Garden Prayer - a sort of
'tutorial' in prayer.
I also like the 'scholarship' mid-section of the booklet:
Muire or Mary Plants; Culinary and Fragrant Mary Herbs; Wild 'Mary
Plants' of Ireland'; Wild 'Mary Plants' per County/Vice-County and
Wild Plants for May.
These, following on the opening expositions of the Mary Garden
idea and movement, description of the Knock Mary Garden, and poem,
give the 'toughness' of the concrete testimony of the
historical/geographical devotional namings of the plants.
Each time I page through the booklet, Brother, I am awed by
its richness. And I should not omit mention of the striking blue
front cover and photograph, with their eye-catching beauty and
power as the booklet resides on shelf, counter or pamphlet rack.
I shall attempt to formalize these thoughts now in my
'review', but I wanted to communicate them to you in their initial
spontaneity.
August 18th
Happily, Brother, I was able to complete the review, to my
satisfaction, and am able to enclose it.
+
Boston, MA
August 20, 1987/A>
Bernard
Dear Brother Seàn,
I have now read The Knock Mary Garden booklet from cover to
cover perhaps thirty times - as I have done with each of my own
articles as they have become published realities.
Each particular expression of the Mary Garden idea prompts me
to return to the vision and continuum of the whole - to see how it
fits in, and to see how the whole is thereby further clarified and
distilled.
The booklet has quickened me to a re-appreciation of the
quality of the Age of Faith which is to be restored today if our
endeavors are to be fully fruitful of God's Kingdom. The quality
that in the Age of Faith everything and everybody was seen truly as
a Creature of God - as created and material, but also as manifested
signs, symbols, figures, mirrors, and sacramentals of heavenly
reality: quickening us to acts of faith, hope and love, according
to Revelation, Teaching, morality, inspiration and spiritual
elections - rather than as objects only to be viewed and
manipulated for secular pleasure, vanity and advantage according to
discursive, dialectical and scientific reasoning and analysis.
A primary importance of the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary
Gardens today, to this end, is that the extension and overflow of
this view of Faith to the 'little' things such as flowers and
gardens is evidence that it is the view as well of the 'big' things
of personal, family, community, economic, national and
international relations and life.
The documented existence of the religious names of flowers
bears testimony that at an earlier period in our history it was a
cultural characteristic, 'norm' or popular tradition that all of
life was viewed and lived religiously. The importance of the
Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens for our times is that they are
a living remnant - as it were, a 'saving remnant' - calling us back
to this fullness of the life of faith.
We can be astounded at a cathedral as an expression of and
monument to faith, but a cathedral does not 'confront' us with the
call to return to the life of faith in the immediacy and intimacy
of our everyday lives the way the Flowers of Our Lady do. A
Cathedral exists 'out there', as an expression of faith in stone,
but a Flower of Our Lady exists only if we ourselves re-create it
(e.g from mullein to Our Lady's Candle or Coinneall Mhuire) by
beholding it through the eyes of faith. We have to re-enter into
the Flowers of our Lady through our eyes of faith in order to
re-create them. And their recorded names summon us to this.
To those who live secularly, a Flower of Our Lady or a Mary
Garden is a curiosity, or, at best, interesting lore or an
enthusiasm (in the secular sense). For those who live by faith, it
is a joyous and exquisitely beautiful expression of the faith by
which all life is lived.
Robert Ostermann said this so beautifully in 'Mary's Gardens'
in the February, 1953, issue of The Irish Ecclesiastical Record:
'Now we can only have an idea of what we lost, when
Christian unity was destroyed, through knowing how
spontaneous and common was formerly the expression of
it in men's affairs. It is always in the trivial, the
common-place, that our habits and convictions can best
be measured. . . . Suddenly, like a dream ending, we
begin to appreciate how terrible, how unabridged, is
the distance separating us from medieval piety. We
are complex and muddled, uncertain of our postulates
or allegiance. It takes an entirely different view of
things to see in the shape of a leaf a mirror wherein
Our Lady may have gazed.'
I will have to get a copy of the booklet to Bob. He was an
American fellow student and friend of a dear friend of mine who was
studying at the University of Cork at or shortly after the time Ed
and I founded Mary's Gardens. A copy of our first Mary's Gardens
leaflet and seed kit, and of my first, 1952 America article sent to
my friend prompted Bob to write for more information, and out of
this came the article. I have never met him, but understand he is
now living somewhere in the southwest United States, or was when I
last inquired perhaps five years ago. I can verify this through my
friend, who lives in the Boston area.
From another viewpoint the Flowers of Our Lady are more than
an 'overflow' of faith. They are, more profoundly, part of a total
view of Creation, in which everything is of equal importance as a
Creature of God. They are a part of the manifestation, the 'showing
forth', of the diversity of God's goodness - not just each genus
and species, but each individual plant, leaf and bloom, no two of
which are exactly alike.
Each individual flower of Our Lady in each setting - wild or
cultivated - is a unique manifestation of God's goodness.
By penetrating each symbolical flower intuitively, in love, we
derive profound insights, and gain access to profound truths.
'Heaven in a wildflower'.
And by reaching out to flowers re-creatively, according to our
symbolical perception and naming of them, we prefigure and initiate
how we are to reach out in transfiguring perception to the entire
world - providing the illuminative, transfiguring, matrix for
transforming it - as instruments of the renewing Holy Spirit.
Just as we have to be free of interior psychological
attachments, rigidities and fixations, for the Holy Spirit to
generate the interior inflorescences of our soul; so are we to be
free of economic, political and social attachments, rigidities and
fixations that the Holy Spirit may generate the external
rose-petal-looping inflorescences of communication, circulation and
exchange upon the world soul and face of the earth.
We may faithfully participate in Mass and the sacraments,
practice the moral teachings of the Church, minister in love to the
poor and lame, and promote the organized missions through prayer,
work and financial support; but to work for the coming of God's
Kingdom with the fullness of overflowing faith we must also 'preach
the Gospel to every creature', as St. Paul exhorts.
August 21st
Brother, I thank you profoundly for this re-quickening of my
thoughts inspired through the booklet.
It occurs to me that this letter itself - beginning with
perhaps the third paragraph, through 'as St. Paul exhorts'
(omitting the paragraph about reaching Bob Ostermann) - might be
suitable as a review article. Please feel free to use it as such,
if you see fit.
In any case, I send these thoughts to you in loving
appreciation, and in honor of Mary, our Mother, and Queen of Heaven
and Earth, whose Queenship we re- celebrate tomorrow.
Sincerely, in Jesus and Mary,
+
Boston, MA
August 25, 1987
Dear Brother Seàn,
Quickened by the Knock Mary Garden booklet, I continue to
reflect on the most effective ways of instrumenting the restoration
and dissemination of the popular tradition of the Flowers of Our
Lady and Mary Gardens, for the building of the earthly Kingdom and
the renewal of the face of the earth.
About once a month a TV special is aired on 'the human
Church', showing how some priests or brothers are 'nice guys', or
how some sisters have gotten away from the convent melieu to be
closer to the people. Or, how some lay men or women are taking on
parish functions previously reserved for the clergy and religious,
and think pre-marital sex, artificial birth control, divorce and
abortion are ok and not sinful, etc., and that Marian devotion is
an anachronism - while at the same time they still think the Pope
is a 'great guy' but 'carries things a little too far'.
Moral restraint, mortification, self-abnegation, temperance,
continence, chastity, self-examination, contrition, sacrifice,
atonement and reparation are no longer seen as essential means to
union with God and the building of God's Kingdom.
What these programs, and the attitudes behind them, call for
is reductionism to secular humanism with a little residual
religious 'icing' of the sacraments, crucifix, flickering candles,
incense, Gregorian chant and 'nice guy' clergy and religious.
The focus is not on how we can best lay down our lives each
day, and ultimately, for Salvation and Kingdom, but on how we may
best enjoy and prolong our lives on earth.
In contrast to this we have the lives of the saints, who in
all ages have gone beyond the prevailing cultural norms of
Catholicism in intensification of the work of Salvation and
Kingdom.
We do, of course, have retreats and pilgrimages available to
those who wish to reintensify their spiritual lives, but this
reintensification, after returning home, may constrain itself from
over-stepping the going parish norms - and avoiding appearing
'holier than the Church'.
I have always respected good, practicing, Catholics, whatever
the prevalent cultural norms of Catholicism in their respective
milieus, as the bulwark of the Church, and have always endeavored
to promote Mary Gardens in such a way as to be utterly respectful
of parish life and attitudes, yet at the same time as a call to a
deepening of this life and these attitudes towards the
globalization of Salvation and Kingdom. To 'be all things to all
people', yet 'win the will' to an intensification of daily
religious life.
As I think I have written before, this was a matter that was
very painful to Ed. He saw the necessity for means to intensify
the daily life of faith - towards Union and Kingdom - beyond
prevailing cultural Catholic norms, and in particular he saw Mary's
Gardens as exemplifying such means. But the moment he would call
attention to a Flower of Our Lady, he would receive vehement
responses such as, 'Where did you get this stuff?', 'I don't need
this', 'Who do you think you are?', 'What are you - some kind of
nut?' etc.. Or, when it came to putting up a little wayside Marian
shrine in his backyard garden, 'What will the neighbors think?'
It took great courage for Ed to carry on the work of Mary's
Gardens, in his cultural milieu, and he suffered much spiritual
agony over it - not to mention several ulcer operations. He
rejoiced that I lived in a more 'individualistic' milieu, where
such activities were within the limits of acceptability, and even
praised, (with some reservations).
Bonnie, on the other hand, lived as a member of an besieged
Catholic minority in a predominantly Mormon milieu. Her publicly
visible Mary Garden provided her with a preeminent means for making
a statement of faith and love, for which she won respect far and
wide - reaching a culmination in her invitation to display a
miniature replica of her garden at the Washington national meeting
of the Herb Society of America in May of 1962. She also received
Catholic recognition, in the requests for displays of her dish Mary
Gardens at regional meetings of the National Council of Catholic
Women.
One of Bonnie's most painful experiences was that of what she
considered her bishop's over-accommodation to the 'human church' in
his diocese, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council -
particularly in respect to the tenor of editorials and articles
which began appearing in the diocesan newspaper, for which she had
written so much. Even though he had visited her garden and home
and they had become friends, and she appreciated the importance of
his support for Mary's Gardens, she felt obligated to let him know
how she felt about his accommodation, and for a long period they
were 'not on speaking terms'. I wrote you about their ultimate
reconciliation at the time he was on a fishing trip to Hagerman,
asked Bonnie for the chapel keys so he could say Mass, (attended by
her and Faye) and at Communion said 'Body of Christ, Bonnie'.
I recall these situations from our Mary's Gardens history,
Brother, because they demonstrate that the restoration of the
Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens popular traditions has indeed
considerable potential as an instrument for Salvation and Kingdom.
The explicit extension of our faith to the little things of
everyday life, as Bob Ostermann pointed out, is indeed an
indication of whether religion is confined to personal Salvation,
or whether it is an overflowing of faith, in active participation
in the building of Kingdom.
On the other hand, we are to avoid the religious fanaticism
and dogmatism of the 'saved' which see formal religion as all. We
are always to act in accordance with the love of God and neighbor -
with loving respect, acceptance, support and sufferance of
neighbor, as well as love of God.
Ed was especially conscious of this - pointing out that we had
'a Jewish typographer and a Protestant printer', to whom we
listened. And it was in respect for his neighbors in his Catholic
cultural milieu that he did not have a backyard shrine, and that he
encouraged me to fill our requests for articles and speaking
engagements. He considered Mary's Gardens as one of the most
important undertakings of his life, yet out of love of neighbor he
sought means of minimizing his offense of neighbor, while at the
same time making sure that the work went forward.
Bonnie was always convinced that Marian pilgrimage shrines
were a specially suitable means for spreading, as well as
practicing, the tradition and custom of the Flowers of Our Lady and
Mary Gardens. Those who go on pilgrimage already go beyond
ordinary Catholic life, and the existence of the Shrine Mary Garden
( with attractive descriptive booklet) makes it 'alright' to have a
Mary Garden back at home - with as little or much of a focal Marian
sculpture as is appropriate, and in an artistic style which is
acceptable, for each milieu.
This is why she was so overjoyed with your initiative at
Knock, and why she hastened to write to Msgr. Horan in support of
it. She regarded the establishment of a Mary Garden at a major
Marian Shrine as a move of everything she had been working for to
the culminative, world, level. And she had a special love for your
providential instrumentality in this. It is most appropriate that
The Knock Mary Garden booklet has been dedicated to her.
Brother, I think this brings my thoughts inspired by the
booklet down to the practical, everyday level, and I hope some of
them will be useful to you.
Sincerely, your friend, in Jesus and Mary,
+
Boston, MA
August 28, 1987
Augustin
Dear Brother Seàn,
I think this will conclude my series of letters to you - of
August 15, 20, 22 and 25 . . . - stimulated by The Knock Mary
Garden booklet.
Always when we publish something of Mary's Gardens - place
something new in the public domain - I am moved first to immerse
myself in it totally, and then to re-answer the question: Beyond
all the love which has gone into Mary's Gardens, and not
withstanding this new fruitfulness of our work - 'Why Mary's
Gardens?'
'This time around', I see more clearly that the justification
and importance of the promotion of (blest) Mary's Gardens is as a
simple, effective and beautiful sacramental means for conversion to
and formation and quickening in Christ, through Mary, our spiritual
Mother, for our furtherance, as his Members, as 'other Christ's', of
his work of Redemption, Salvation and Kingdom, as Son of the Father
and instrument of the Holy Spirit.
When I was doing Mary's Gardens research at the Harvard
Widener Library a few years back, one of my richest finds was that
of the collection, in the Library stacks, of a hundred or more
different printings of Thomas a Kempis' 'Imitation of Christ' -
which took up, as I recall, half of the shelves on one side of an
aisle.
Surely The 'Imitation of Christ' and St. Ignatius of Loyola's
'Spiritual Exercises' are among the most important books of our
religious tradition - the first supporting our affective formation
in Christ through intimate dialog with him, and the second our
formation in him by self-examination while recollecting and
meditating his life and redemptive work.
And it is in our desire for the closest conformity to Christ
that we come to appreciate his gift to us - through John, at the
foot of the Cross - of Mary, his Mother, as our mother also - for
our spiritual birth and formation in him, through her
exemplification and nurturing of the working of her spouse, the
Holy Spirit. Fully understood, this is more than a gift - it is an
exhortation and a beautiful way to be continuously reborn in him,
for the furtherance of his redemptive work.
And a preeminent means of formation and work in Christ,
through Mary, has been found, in the inspired distillation of our
Faith over the centuries, to be meditation on the Mysteries of the
Rosary - both in praying the Rosary, and in referring all the
circumstances and events and needs of our life to these Mysteries
throughout the day.
It is this discovery, not just Christian faith in general,
that we are to see reflected as overflow into the 'trivial',
everyday things of life, such as flowers - and it is therefore not
surprising that Mary-names are predominant among the names of
flowers in the popular religious traditions of the medieval
countrysides.
If cathedrals, cities, universities, and ships, etc. were
named for Mary, why not flowers?
It is thus our desire and yearning for fuller formation and
action in Christ, for Salvation, Redemption and Kingdom, that leads
us to Mary, to the Mysteries of the Rosary, and to the reflection
of her person, life and mysteries in flowers.
The Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens are therefore a
beautiful expression and instrument of the historic desire of the
faithful for the fullest formation in Christ, through Mary, his
Mother and Mother of the Church; and an honoring of Mary for her
love, excellences, prerogatives and glory in this.
While there is nothing new here, Brother, and we have said it
so many times in so many different ways, I hope this re-statement
of the Mary's Gardens 'idea' will be of some usefulness to you.
Ed always used to say that we were to remain the 'pure source'
of the Mary Garden idea and movement, and these restatements from
time to time, in the context of developments, seem important to
this.
Hoping this finds you well, and that you are experiencing some
true appreciation of the booklet in your milieu, I remain, as
always, your friend and co-worker in Jesus and Mary,
P.S. As I communed with Bonnie and Ed . . . about this 'review',
the words came to me,
"Mary Gardens inspire conversion to Christ by sustaining
the love of Jesus and Mary outside the scope of the formal
teaching of the Church'. Mary Gardens are acts of pure,
'stand alone', love, fully consistent with and supportive
of the organization and teaching of the Church, yet
popular traditions clearly emanating from the heart.'
+
Boston, MA
September 8, 1987
Nativity of Mary
Dear Brother Seàn,
As I have been reflecting (and writing) about the overview of
our Mary's Gardens work, spiritually quickened by the Knock
booklet, two further thoughts have emerged.
First, how appropriate that your booklet has been published
during the present Marian Year. Secondly, I wonder if the new
Director of the Knock Shrine might not be preparing some sort of
gift to the Holy Father for the Marian Year, and if so, whether he
would include a copy of the booklet.
Mary Garden praise and veneration of Our Lady is something
very special, and now having had some official recognition on a
national level, it would seem appropriate, during this Marian Year,
if this were escalated to the level of the Universal Church.
So many of the current articles and prayers honoring Mary are
a re-working of previous ones, but the honor of Mary's Gardens has
something creative and fresh about it that could fittingly become a
more recognized enhancement of Marian devotion and veneration,
during this Marian Year. In the Holy Spirit's work for renewal,
re-creation and Kingdom we must be ever fresh until the whole world
is transfigured and transformed.
We have been enjoying the beautiful golden days of early
September, which are always such a wonderful culmination and
fruition of the Lady Days from Assumption to Nativity.
Two things come to mind: my conversion in early September of
1946, as I was spending my Labor Day weekend reading in my Father's
garden; and our visit to Kew Gardens in the summer of 1973 - both
bathed in this temperate golden sunshine.
Interesting that our U.S. Labor Day holiday, the first monday
in September, coincides seasonally with the feast of the Nativity
of Mary. Labor Day is a celebration of work and workers, and
therefore of the fruits of work, and the Feast of Mary's Nativity
celebrates the culmination of the Lady Days and their spiritual
harvest.
As I write, I have before me The Knock Mary Garden Booklet on
a little reading stand on my desk. I am struck by the upwards
pointing of the church spire and the 'uplifting', as it were, of
the flowers surrounding Our Lady. These re-enforce the upwards
opening of her hands and her upwards glance, as though she is
poised to reascend to heaven, inviting and drawing us with her.
By their arrangement in this relationship to the figure of Our
Lady, the flowers themselves are transfigured and transformed in
fulfillment of their high potential of buoying us up to heaven. I
am moved to repeat the Mary Garden Prayer each time I look at it.
At this time, also, the wild asters of Mary's Nativity, 'Our
Lady's Birthday Flower', distributed throughout the countryside -
there are many along the roadsides from Boston to Woods Hole or to
New Hope - symbolize Our Lady's earthly rebirth, and all her
appearances, for the final transfiguring, transforming, era of
world spiritual history leading us to the pleuroma and parousia, as
St. Paul tells us and St. John envisions for us.
This year one of the many front yard gardens along our avenue
contains a large planting of asters, which are now in full bloom -
as I'm sure are those in the Garden of Our Lady in Woods Hole.
Although I haven't seen much of the Woods Hole Garden in the past
few years, I have an intimate (and nostalgic) vision of it through
the months from the two years I was able to visit it, and to pray
the Angelus at the summoning of the bells, daily.
I wrote you about the large field of red-pink lythrum along
the roadside east of Morristown, New Jersey. A few miles south of
Morristown, for a mile or so near the Bernardsville exit, there is
a rich colony of wildflowers, which in late September/early October
is profuse with purple asters in juxtaposition with late goldenrod
- symbolizing to me Mary's rebirth on earth, her 'Second Coming',
in heavenly glory (as I wrote about in some detail awhile ago).
My drives between Boston and Pensylvania (when I had a car)
were like a drive through a large garden. Now I fly over the garden
- which, too, has its discoveries, like the fields of lythrum, of
which I wrote.
Flowers give us direct access, for meditation and
contemplation, to the Father's Creation and the Holy Spirit's
Transfiguration, just as the (exhibition of the) Eucharist gives us
meditative and contemplative direct access to Christ's Redemptive
Sacrifice.
A few years back I commented to you in a letter about Thomas
Merton's poem, 'Two States of Prayer' (October and December). The
other day someone commented on TV that October is like an oil
painting with a full palette of color, whereas December, in the
snow and with the leaves gone, is like a black and white photograph
- each with its special beauty. Somewhere we have a book of
drawings called 'Winter Trees' (I think), illustrating the
characteristic trunk, limb and branch patterns of thirty or so of
our familiar trees. The 'naked truth', of saggitarius time.
Recently there has been a lot of work to 'colorize' old black
and white movie films, and there has been a considerable outcry
against this, in which I join. On the other hand the restoration
of the color of Michaelangelo's Sistine Ceiling, through cleaning,
is, to me, a marvellous work. No doubt you saw this when you were
in Rome this year.
Then there is the paradox of cleaning stained glass windows.
When the windows of Chartres Cathedral were cleaned, in was
discovered that the windows didn't contain chartreuse blue after
all.
Then we have different shades of flower color, due to strains,
or perhaps soil composition. I believe I wrote you how I noticed
that the Lythrum around Oxford, England, was a pinker red than that
in the eastern United States.
I am especially conscious of color recently, as we work with
it increasingly, in good quality and fine resolution now, on our
computers. Hewlett Packard has just come out with a new 'PaintJet'
printer, at a very low price, which prints out computer screen
color images in very good 'hard copy' fidelity, using just two ink
cartridges - one black, and one three primary 'additive' colors. We
were able to obtain one of the first, and are now waiting for the
software programmers to perfect the necessary 'drivers' - the links
between computer and printer - although what we have already is
excellent. Apple Computer has also just come out with a higher
resolution color monitor, for the Macintosh II computer, which
'finally' provides color images with artistically acceptable line
definition and color shading and 'popular' prices. The goal of
Mary's Gardens self-publishing is within sight.
Another exciting development is that of 'CD ROM' technology
(Compact Disks with Read Only Memory) - permitting the storing of
huge quantities of text, color graphics and sound on one computer
disk, such as the entire encyclopedia, or photographs of the entire
collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, etc.
Envision, and pray for, the production of a disk which would
contain all our Mary's Gardens research, articles, correspondence,
drawings,planting plans, horticultural information, photographs,
tapes, etc. - selectively accessible, and reproducible in hard
copy. With copies at all major libraries, universities, schools,
and parishes - and at homes. The cost is now 'prohibitive', but,
God willing, in another five years . . . . CD ROM players will
eventually become as universal as television sets and videotape
recorders.
Once again, Brother, I must come back again to the matter of
religious zeal and fervor:
'The fullness of faith in (God) and trust in (Mary)
to which it is given to conquer the world . . .
'A faith which will be our Legion's pillar of fire,
to lead us forth united, to kindle everywhere the
fires of divine love . . . '
- Legion of Mary Prayer
In a recent TV news broadcast a commentator observed that the
intensity of religious zeal coming out of Islamic fundamentalism,
as in Iran, 'has not been known in the West since medieval times'.
My first cousin, and classmate at Harvard, with whom I shared
my early, pre-Catholic, all-consuming religious quest (and a love
of jazz), became a convert to Islamic Sufi mysticism, and with his
wife moved to an Islamic community in Egypt and then Switzerland.
I ponder why he and others are unable to find expression of
their religious intensity in the Catholic faith - as, in my
immediate experience, you, Ed, Bonnie and I have found through Mary
and Mary's Gardens, and which the saints and so many others have
found in so many other ways - particularly in the early Church, and
in the medieval times of the cathedrals and universities - and in
the intercontinental missions. Yet, in pondering this, I am ever
aware, and thankful, that my own faith was an utter gratuitous gift
of grace. The question is ever, how can we work and pray and
sacrifice more fully for the conversion of secular zeal, and other
religious zeal, into Catholic zeal.
From this viewpoint, I am always deeply moved by secular and
religious zeal and intensity of all kinds.
I wrote you how moved I was by Scott's zeal to reach the South
Pole, and by Sidney Reilly's zeal as master spy, etc.
Artistic and dramatic intensity has always been especially
moving to me - viz, as in such contemporary film classics as The
Sandpiper, The Way We Were, and A Man and A Woman. Several weeks
ago I was brought to tears by a Judy Garland TV special:
'If little bluebirds over the rainbow fly,
Why, O why, can't I?'
It's not that I want everyone to be a Mary-Gardener, but that
the Flowers of Our Lady mirror the deep faith and zeal which
permeated all areas of life in a former era. I am zealous for
religious zeal. The Flowers of Our Lady bear testimony that such
zeal existed, and that it can exist once again.
The trouble with much religious, as well as secular zeal,
today is that it is not directed first towards the ultimate goals
of Salvation and Kingdom, and thus towards more immediate means to
these goals. Rather, the more immediate goals become ends instead
of means, and thus exaggerated in themselves and ultimately
unfulfilling. The attempt to make the finite infinite, instead of
rising from the finite to the infinite.
The characteristic example of our times - beginning with some
of the Worker Priests of the '40's, and extending to some of the
'liberation theology' of the 70's and 80's - is of those whose
zealous, intense pursuit of social justice becomes an end in
itself, and thus a mode of revolutionary economic and political
dialectics, rather than true graced and providential providential
action towards Salvation and Kingdom. Then there is the more
secular, artistic zeal, which leads to burn-out, alcohol and
drugs. And the misguided religious zeal of the cults, etc.
Yet all of these, in their zeal and intensity, are indications
of the potential for the true zeal of Catholic faith.
I am ever aware of and thankful for the legion of selfless,
utterly dedicated, self-expending priests, religious and lay
missionaries, teachers, counsellors, social workers, nurses,
administrators . . . - whose zeal is an example for all. What I
am speaking of is a generalization or critical mass of religious
zeal which will become dominant in society, as in the Age of Faith.
A zeal which will permeate all the secular and lay areas of life.
It is this type of universal zeal which overflowed into and
supported 'trivial', everyday, popular religious traditions such as
those of the Flowers of Our Lady.
Jesus made clear the value he placed on zeal in words about
the Roman centurion - 'I have not found such faith in all Israel';
in the parable of the unfaithful steward (spoken of as a 'paradox'
by those who do not appreciate the virtue of zeal); and in the
words of Revelations, to the church at Laodicea:
'I know your deeds; I know you are neither hot nor
cold. How I wish you were one or the other - hot or
cold! Because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold,
I will spew you out of my mouth.'
Notice here that his call includes lay people, and an entire
parish.
The Legion Prayer so importantly concludes with the petition
for a 'faith which will be our Legion's pillar of fire . . .' And
how appropriate that an altar table provided with candlesticks and
flowers is required for every meeting.
And,
'The Virgin Mary flies over the land,
With Heaven's Fire in her hand.'
Our Lady's Candle, mullein.
And, there is a religious zeal and intensity which are
reflective, composed and concentrated. There has been a large
national cultural, scientific and industrial exhibit from India for
the past several months at the Boston Museum of Science. This is
in part a 'living exhibit' including a number of Indian craftsmen -
woodworkers, calligraphers, silversmiths, inlayers, etc. - each
seated on the floor with folded legs, with his trunk of tools
beside him, producing artifacts, which can then be purchased at the
exhibit gift shop.
The total absorption of each of these craftsmen in his work
was powerful and beautiful to behold. Despite the crowds of
visitors gathered around, each craftsman's concentration and
absorption was total and uninterrupted. This was helped by the
presence beside each of an 'interpreter', who explained the work
and answered questions, etc. while the work proceeded. The fact
that these craftsmen spoke and understood little English (we were
told) probably was also helpful to the maintenance of concentration
midst all the people asking questions ('How many mistakes does he
make?', etc).
I have always known, from my reading, that in traditional
religious societies - where there is no separation between
'religious' and 'laity' - the arts and crafts involved levels of
religious initiation; but actually to see these craftsmen at work
was awesome. Such concentrative zeal.
I feel especially attuned to this from having spent solitary
hours, days and weeks building model airplanes in the early
thirties - in the isolation of my parents farmhouse.
Ed at the outset envisaged and spoke of Mary's Gardens as 'a
prayerful religious work', and I have always applied this kind of
meditative concentration to gardening (and writing).
How it used to upset Ed when those few in his circle who did
not take objection to Mary's Gardens would say, 'Oh, now I see,
it's a religious hobby'!
The concept of a work as religion, and of a religious work, has
always been a central part of the Mary Garden idea. It was a great
joy for me to see these craftsmen, from who wee purchaed a necklace
which will always have special meaning for us.
I have written, in my two articles about her, how Bonnie
undertook her Mary Garden as a religious work, and how this sense
of religious work then extended to all her domestic and community
activities, culminating in exchange and giving.
One of the things that used to impress me on visiting the
medieval monastery garden in the Bonnefont Cloister, at The
Cloisters, in New York City (part of the Metropolitan Museum), was
that the horticulturist, Esther Ann Huebner, did all the
gardening, and was usually there cultivating the plants
(recollectedly) herself. How different from the rest of the
museum, where with the artifacts were only guards, or at best
curators. Probably Anne Hopkins has such a presence at the Knock
Mary Garden. I hope she points out how visitors can have such
gardens of their own at home.
One of the special things I heard about Mrs. Lillie - in the
50's, from the neighbor, Mrs. Goffin, across the street from the
Woods Hole Garden of Our Lady - was how she used to sit and read in
the garden, and tell its story to any visitors who came in.
Yes, our visit to the Indian living exhibit at the Boston
Science Museum was an extraordinary experience.
Brother, my review of our work in my letters has been
extending outwards in ever-increasing ripples or spirals. I hope
it is useful in further communicating and passing on to you some of
the other dimensions of this work.
The Holy Father will be visiting this country again this week.
Pray that his visit will bear much fruit in increased zeal.
I remain, zealously, your friend and co-worker in Jesus and
Mary,
+
Boston, MA
September 19, 1987
Dear Brother Seàn,
Thank, you for your letter of September 9th, which I found
waiting for me at the post office yesterday after returning from a
week in Pennsylvania.
I pray for the fruitfulness of your new responsibilities as
head of the Christian Brothers School in Ballinrobe, and rejoice
that you are now within 20 miles of Knock, thanks to your
superiors.
You mentioned that my letter of August 15th was forwarded to
you, and also that of August 25th. A also wrote you on August 20th
and 22nd, and then on August 28th and September 8th. If one or
more of these letters did not reach you, let me know and I will
send you copies, as in a way they all form one long letter inspired
through the Knock Mary Garden Booklet.
I am pleased you found the review enclosed with my August 15th
letter useful. Portions of my original review of Muire Mhathair
might be suitable for use at this time, also. Feel free to divide,
combine and edit these and any portions of my letters in any way
you see fit for review purposes.
I am pleased you are arranging for copies of the Booklet to be
sent to Jane McLaughlin and Father Dalzell in Woods Hole, and also
the additional copies which I requested to me in Boston.
I'm sure you will be more than fully occupied with your new
circumstances and responsibilities, but it was good to learn you
have had an opportunity to visit Knock several times already.
I will continue to write as the Spirit moves me, and will be
mindful of the little time you have available for replies.
After being reminded of my 'Ten Flower Meditations', through
your inclusion of them in the Booklet, I was prompted to take a
look, for the first time in about five years, at the 100 page or
more transcription of some thoughts and meditations I taped for
Bonnie in my Philadelphia Mary Garden in 1964 and 1965, using a
portable tape recorder.
These include a number of flower meditations around the time I
came to have an fuller appreciation of union with Mary as a means
for fuller formation in and service of Christ. Union with Mary's
Immaculate Heart is the sure way to (participation with her in)
union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
I hope to be able to assemble some of these from the larger
ruminations, as 'Some Mary Garden Meditations', in the next few
weeks, and will send you a copy.
In re-reading the 'Ten Flower Meditations' and thinking about
the list of plant names, keyed planting plan, and plant markers of
the Woods Hole Mary Garden, I see that a helpful addition to a
leaflet for use by visitors to a Mary Garden - Woods Hole or Knock
- would be a the inclusion of a small colored illustration of each
flower listed, or a number of the principal ones, highlighting its
symbolical form in such a way as to directly illuminate the basis
for the name. While the names of the Mary-Flowers appealed to my
imagination when I first read of them, this was as nothing compared
to the impact of first seeing the actual form of Our Lady's
Pincushion (Armeria) or Our Lady's Tears (Tradescantia) - and also
the impact of the Pinchard kalendar illustrations, and the four
Medici Mary-Flower 'Holy Cards' portraying Our Lady, attended by
angels, with Our Lady's Eardrops at her ears and Our Lady's
Pincushion in her lap, etc., as well as portrayed separately. (I
regret that I loaned a fifth one of these cards, Our Lady's
Slipper, to a woman in Iowa in 1952 and never got it back. When I
wrote the Medici Press in England around that time, they said that
the series had been discontinued. From the gaps in the card serial
numbers, I's sure there were still more. Perhaps they will show up
one day).
Such a leaflet would help the Mary Garden visitor find the
flowers in the Garden, and also to meditate on the flowers, and
rejoice over them, at or away from the Garden, by just beholding
their illustrations in the light of their religious names. The
little flower prints in the Knock Booklet serve to this end.
While illustrations or photographs of flowers seen according
to their symbolical names quicken us to love - especially when we
first see them thus - ultimately it the actual flowers themselves,
and especially a garden of these flowers, that we penetrate,
through their endowed symbolism, in such a way as to rise to
heavenly love and reality.
True realism, as distinguished from nominalism. Bernard, not
Abelard.
In terms of Realism this 200th year of the United States
Constitution has been most providentially instructive.
For some years now several Public Television series, produced
by the Columbia School of Journalism, 'The Constitution, a Delicate
Balance', and 'The Presidency and the Constitition', have been run
and re-run', examining 'the separation and balance of powers' -
Executive, Judicial and Legislative - through the consideration of
decisions to be made in various hypothetical political situations
very close to reality, and participated in by top government
officials, journalists and jurists, including several former
presidents.
Then, two very real situations have presented themselves, both
fully televised. The first was the joint, Senate/House Committee
hearings on the 'Iran-Contras' matter where some persons in the
Executive branch used the National Security Agency to arrange for
the sale of arms to Iran at a marked up price to accumulate funds
for use in support of the Nicaraugran 'Contras' anti- government
military forces - both acts in evident violation of Legislative
prohibitions of this by the Congress.
The second, currently ongoing, are the Legislative branch,
Senate, Hearings for the approval or disapproval of the Executive
branch nomination of Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Robert Bork,
for appointment as Associate Justice of our Judicial branch,
Supreme Court - involving detailed examination of the many
decisions, and also the extensive speeches and writings of Judge
Bork, also a former professor of law, relative to the 'checks and
balances' of power between the three branches of government.
In addition to this, a number of books have been recently
published on these issues. Also Public Broadcasting TV ran a
series of daily two or three minute 'Reports from Philadelphia' of
what happened each day exactly 200 years ago in the deliberations
and debates on these matters by the framers of the Constitution in
Philadelphia.
At stake in all this are basic current issues such as minority
and women's rights, personal freedoms and privacy, the exercise of
foreign policy, the declaration of war, government regulation of
finance, business and commerce, environmental protection,
assistance of the sick and the poor, labor union rights, abortion
rights, pornography, the teaching of religion in public schools,
etc., etc..
Focal to all this is the Supreme Court's on-going
interpretative application, to pertinent legal cases and reviews
brought before it, of the language, original intent, and derived
legal precedents of the Constitution and its amendments - many
decided by the vote of one judge in 5-to-4 decisions of the
9-member Supreme Court.
This has all come to a critical focus in the Judge Bork
hearings where there has been extensive and intensive questioning
as to the ultimate basis for his (or any Supreme Court Justice's)
interpretive decisions on cases applying constitutional law to new
matters brought before the Court. Specifically, the issue is to
what extent such decisions are to be grounded in the fundamental
statements of principle in the Declaration of Independence and
Preamble of the Constitution, and in the Bill of Rights (first 10
amendments)and other constitutional amendments, as distinct from
the interpretive legal precedents derived from the wording of the
body of the Constitution - some of which was a temporal compromise
at the Constitutional Convention itself, such as the acceptance of
slavery, the subordinate position of women, and the limitation of
voting rights.
The ultimate concern here is that there should be ongoing
recourse to the basic principle and spirit - as understood in the
living, 'oral' tradition of 'We, the People' - rather than just to
the formal wording of the body and derived decisional precedents at
any date.
This in turn comes down to how we live our daily lives, where
our living tradition of respect for the freedom, rights and
well-being of others (or the lack of this living tradition) is
expressed in our interpersonal family, neighborly, workplace and
community relationships and in our participation in the furtherance
of this tradition in the political process.
Thus, the vitality of our political beliefs is measured
ultimately in the little, even 'trivial', things and attitudes of
everyday life, just as is the vitality of our religious faith, as I
have been re-affirming in respect to the flower symbolism of
popular religious tradition - (which is reason, Brother, why I have
gone into these matters at some length, as I have into other 'non-
gardening' matters, in the context of our Mary's Gardens
correspondence).
The U.S. Founding Fathers were Deists - 'In God we trust' -
founding 'A New Secular Order'. They believed equally in Church
and State, but also in the importance of their separation.
The profoundly significant thing about this was that in
founding a secular order, they, as religious believers, necessarily
founded one that was 'congruent', as it were, with religious order,
while at the same time 'separate' from it.
While there are prohibitions against the political
'establishment' of any particular religion - to avoid sectarian
religious tyranny, exclusion or privilege - it was realized that
the secular order is ultimately dependent for its sustenance,
vitality and survival on faith and morality. Thus the First
Amendment both prohibits the establishment of religion and
safeguards religious freedom.
A most profound 'congruence' of the U.S. secular order to the
religious order lies in the correspondence of the three 'balanced'
branches or powers of government - Executive, Judiciary and
Legislative - to the three Persons of the Trinity: Father, Son and
Holy Spirit: Prime Mover, Word and Fashioner. Distinct, yet united.
'E pluribus unum'.
This correspondence is a particular articulation and
institutionalization of the fundamental principles of cardinality,
fixity and mutability underlying all creation, and manifested in
human nature as will, intellect and feeling.
As Ed McTague repeated so often, 'We are to live by the Will
of the Father, the Mind of Christ, and the Promptings of the Holy
Spirit'.
It is because of this mirroring correspondence of the U.S.
Constitution to the Divinity and to the principles of Creation and
human nature that it is, I believe, the oldest continuously
operative constitution of the nations of the world.
Seen, blest and used sacramentally - 'God bless America' -
these institutional, functional, mirrorings or 'symbols' of the
Trinity can become, as we reflect upon them, instrumental vehicles
of spiritual grace, light, wisdom and power, for our individual and
community lives - just as can the forms of nature, as we have
learned from the Flowers of Our Lady.
This is of course true of the constitutions and laws of all
governments - all of which manifest cardinality, fixity and
mutability and recognize inherent, inalienable rights endowed in
all human beings. But the U.S. Constitution is very special in
that it sets forth these distinctions in a highly explicit manner.
Seen in the sweep of the history of the Church, the Patristic
period, of Kings, mirrored the Father. The medieval period, with
its scholastic philosophy, universities and imitation of Christ,
enhanced the mirroring of the Son. And the modern period, with its
democratic institutions and flow of communications, enhances the
mirroring of the Holy Spirit.
Significantly, the Holy Father has been visiting the U.S. at
this time of the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the
Constitution - exhorting us to hold onto the 'fixed' dimensions of
Catholic tradition, dogma and teaching in this time of expanding
mutability. We need to retain this balance in the Church as well
as in constitutional democracy. The parallel has often been drawn
between the 'fixity' of the Church and that of our constitutional
government - each requiring the preservation and restatement of
fundamental principles, at the same time 'ajournamento' updating is
made to accommodate the infusion of these principles into the
changing circumstances of the modern world.
Brother, I am so full of all this from the extensive TV
coverage of all these events, that it has sort of 'taken over' this
letter. However, it all has to do with the deepest dimensions of
the sacramentality of our Mary's Gardens work, and as I have
mentioned from time to time, Mary's Gardens was born (in the year
of the dogmatic definition of Our Lady's Assumption) in the midst
of Ed's and my economic and political deliberations.
With all prayerful best wishes, Brother, for the continued
spiritual fruition of your teaching and Mary's Gardens work, I
remain sincerely your friend, in union with Mary, and through her,
with Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
+
Boston, MA
September 29, 1987
Michaelmas
Dear Brother Seàn,
This week's Mary's Gardens anecdote has to do with one of the
receptionists in our building. This man is quite esthetic - a
playwright, currently writing a play about Edna St. Vincent Millay -
and every day has a beautiful fresh flower arrangement on his desk
in the foyer, which we pass to reach the elevator.
Yesterday he had a beautiful bouquet of lavender asters, and
when I remarked about it he said, 'I don't know what they are, do
you?' I told him they were asters, probably New England asters,
and that their more traditional name, from England and Europe, was
'Michaelmas daisies'. He asked how you spelled 'Michaelmas' and
what it meant, 'because Edna St. Vincent Millay mentions it in one
of her poems.' This, of course, gave me an opportunity to tell him
(he is not a Catholic) about the religious names of flowers, etc..
His bouquets have always been a joy to me and to the other
residents here, and it is nice to have this occasion for an
exchange going beyond amenities.
As I was reflecting further (after the constitutional
celebration and the Pope's visit, about which I wrote in my letter
of September 19th) about the immediate spiritual needs of our
country, I lifted my heart to Ed and Bonnie, and the words came to
me:
(What is needed are) 'merciful reminders of Mary's
love and motherhood - which nurture right reason
based on faith.'
and:
'Mediation of mystical appreciation of Mary as model
for our lives - in her sustenance of God's will in all
things.'
This brought to mind Jesus' teaching in respect to to Mary:
'Blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it, ...
(and) act upon it'.
(Luke 11, and 8,21).
(Continuing my prayerful query, now to St. Luke): To hear the
word of God means:
'to feel the stirrings of God in our hearts as we read
scriptures, or experience life.'
To do the will of God, we are to look for his word through:
Spiritual elections, for initiatives
Queries, for truth
Promptings, for direction
Petitions, for strength
This is very different from the proposal of the 'human church'
that we break with the teaching authority and law of the Rome in a
purely rational, discursive, confrontive manner whenever this is
necessary to further secular human values.
We are to affirm secular human values, endowed by the Father,
but also the human values of Salvation and Kingdom wrought by the
Son and the Holy Spirit - which are mediated by redemptive,
reparational and recreative action transcending discursive
rationality and analysis. It is human to hear and do to will of
God. This is right reason.
To this end, the Flowers of Our Lady are instructive because
of the way in which they serve as, and are examples of, the
supports which can be found everywhere for the the elections,
queries, promptings and petitions by which we learn and do the will
of God, for each activity and at each moment.
While the definition of the Seven Sacraments, and of the
sacramentals (holy water, crucifix, Rosary beads, sign of the
Cross, etc.), as the formal channels of Spirit, at the Council of
Trent, was evidently necessary to offset rampant religious
superstition, and the buying and selling of indulgences, etc., this
had the 'side effect' of destroying practical appreciation of blest
nature, artifacts and symbols as universal channels of spiritual
light, grace, pneuma and power - as demonstrated, for example, in
the life of St. Patrick, and incorporated as an integral perception
and recourse in the medieval Age of Faith.
Thus, after the Council of Trent, the sacramental blessing of
objects was seen in practice more as a protection of their secular
use from errant or evil influences, than as a their
sentimentalization as supports and channels for the mediation of
spirit to life and work.
Everyday, 'trivial', things such as flowers were seen as much
more than religious signs and symbols in the age of faith. Blest,
they were sacramental channels of Spirit.
This is not to say that they were in any way equivalent to the
ritual sacraments and sacramentals. Rather, they were extensions
and channels of them. Just as the Liturgical, Hours are still seen
today as extensions of the Mass and Eucharist, sanctifying time,
so were blest objects seen as sanctifying space. The ringing of
the Angelus, and other ringings of blest church bells, was seen as
'sanctifying the air'. I think someone has collected some
inscriptions from old bells.
My file of quote cards (which I hope one day to have ever at
hand as a computer data base) is in Woods Hole, but a very rough
recollection of an Angelus bell inscription comes to mind:
'The bell when struck,
sends forth melodious sound,
The heart of Mary,
when shaken through earnest prayer,
Scatters grace and love everywhere.'
When I behold Our Lady'S Bells, and all bell-Shaped flowers, I
think of the very air of the Mary Garden being sanctified as they
sway in the breeze (and of Our Lady's Candle as sanctifying the
light. Someone has pointed out that all flowers are 'lights' -
'stars in earth's firmament' (Longfellow).
In thinking further about Michaelmas Daisies, asters, I
recalled their naming (and that of other flowers, such as the
daffodil) as Our Lady's Star. Previously this naming has brought to
mind Our Lady as Star of the sea, and the old medieval hymn, Stella
Maris, beloved by St. Louis de Montfort, and also St. Bernard's
exhortation: 'Look on the star; think of Mary.' And the Star of
Bethlehem comes to mind, which led the Magi to the Infant
Savior/King and also to his Virgin Mother who adored him, nursed
him and held him in her arms and on her lap.
But, today it occurred to me that an association, and possible
derivation of the Mary's Star flower symbolism might be the crown
of twelve stars of the Woman Clothed With the Sun, of the
Revelations of the Apocalypse. This, mindful of the lovely legend
of the origin of buttercups in heavenly stars which wanted to come
down to earth as flowers of Mary's praise blooming around her
statues.
Then (returning to my previous train of thought) we have
Frances Lillie's inscription of the Woods Hole Angelus bells;
'I will teach you of life and of life everlasting.'
'Thanks be to God.'
The blessing of everyday objects, homes, tools and work places
was as more than as channels of grace in general. It was as
sources of grace in particular, pertinent to the immediate
activities, problems and sufferings at hand.
It is because Mary is Mediatrix of All Grace that we can turn
to her as the mediator of particular graces of which we are in
need. It occurs to me that the relics of the Virgin were used as
sacramental supports of prayers to Mary or particular, as well as
general, graces, in each case - as we use particular Mary-Flowers
similarly.
Even, and especially, if we 'pray always' our prayers and our
sense of the divine omnipresence are quickened, and given immediacy
of application, by the beholding of, and reflection upon,
particular flower or other religious symbols - and ultimately of
all objects and events, favorable and adverse;
'Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.
'The angels keep their ancient places;
Turn but a stone and start a wing!
'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces,
That miss the many-spiendored thing.
'But when so sad thou cans't not sadder cry;
And upon thy bare loss shall
Shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross,
'Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry,- clinging Heaven by the hems'
And lo, Christ walking on the water
Not of Gennesareth, but Thames'
- Francis Thompson, The Kingdom of God
Brother, I am mindful of the coming feast of St. Francis, and
of your birthday, and send all prayerful best wishes on this
occasion.
Sincerely, your friend, in Jesus and Mary,
+
Boston, MA
October 4, 1987
St. Francis
Dear Brother Seàn,
After writing you on September 29 regarding the recourse to be
made to elections, queries, promptings and petitions that we may
effectively learn and do the will of God, I am moved to share with
you a prayer I have composed and developed through the last ten
years or so for use in spiritual queries:
Dear Heavenly Father
- eternal Creator, Sustainer and Provider,
In the name of Jesus Christ, thy Only Begotten Son,
- our incarnate, crucified, risen and ascended Lord
and Savior,
In union with his close union with you in the procession
and spiration of the divine person of your holy love,
the Holy Spirit,
- our indwelling Sanctifier, Purifier, Illuminator,
Counsellor, Strengthener, Advocate and Friend,
And, through the intercession of Blessed and Glorious
Mary, Ever Virgin,
- your beloved Daughter, Spouse of the Holy Spirit,
Mother of your Divine Son and our Mother also;
our Intercessor, Mediatrix, Distributrix, Nurturer,
Model, Mold,Guide and Way;
Through the ministry of all the angels,
the intercession of all the saints,
the prayers of all our brothers and sisters in Christ,
and the acts of good will and intention of all persons
throughout history since the beginning of the world,
I humbly ask, pray, beseech, implore and importune your
gifts of utter purity, humility, openness, obedience,
responsiveness, fruition and preservation, for the
reception and instrumentation of your infinitely
outpouring divine light, grace, wisdom, power,
overshadowing providence and governance of love.
I beseech this through the same Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the Union of the same
Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
This day, at this moment in Sacred History, through the
heavenly intercession of ______ and ______, I humbly ask
your illumination, wisdom, counsel and promptings as to
______.
When I have written that after lifting my heart to Bonnie or Ed,
etc., the words came to me...it has been within the context and
recollection of this prayer.
In written form, it may seem sort of extensive, but orally it
flows forth for me (after all these years) very naturally. I
recall thinking how elaborate the prayers of St. Gertrude were, but
I'm sure they flowed forth smoothly for her.
In respect to spiritual elections, I have have come through
the years to rely on the counsel of St. Ignatius of Loyola, as set
forth in the Exercises, ex 169-189 & 313-336 (as so lucidly
elaborated upon in Harvey D. Eagan, S.J.'s 'The Spiritual Exercises
and The Ignatian Mystical Horizon', 1976):
- Obedience to God's direct movement and attraction of
the will,
or,
- Reliance, for direction, on consolations and desolations
experienced after reaching a clear perception and
understanding of the proposed action under consideration,
or,
- Re-examination of the action under consideration in a
state of spiritual peace and tranquility in which the
soul is not agitated by various spirits and can calmly
make use of its natural powers, viz: of the intellect,
in the light of a review of the end for which we were
created,
or,
- finally (if still no clear word), of the feelings, in
a simple discernment of the affective movement of the
love of God within us, as we reflect on the matter.
We are not 'strangers alone and afraid, in a world we never
made' (Matthew Arnold, 'Dover Beach'), but creatures of a loving
God, whose will we can reliably ascertain at any time, with
sufficient ascetic disposition.
An endless stream of books keeps being published about some
'new' secular way that we should place more trust in our feelings
and 'live by our heart instead of our head'; or should approach our
problems in a more rational manner; or should act instead of being
caught up in the 'paralysis of analysis' etc. (depending on whether
the author is more mutably, fixedly or cardinally).
Ideally, we should be spiritually obedient, formed, composed
and tranquil, so that we can be attuned and responsive to God in
whatever mode he wishes to speak his word to us - through our will,
intellect or feelings - as he chooses at each moment.
Since we never achieve earthly perfection in this, God, in his
mercy, speaks to us in the context of our situation and the mode of
our spiritual development in each instance. 'Seek and you shall
find . . .'
And this is universally true, not just within Christianity, in
that God has spoken 'in diverse ways' to the different peoples,
cultures and nations of the world, in anticipation of and as
precursors for the final coming of his only begotten Son.
St. Paul, as Apostle to the Gentiles, saw his face (as had to
be explained to Peter, at the first ecumenical Council of
Jerusalem, and which was confirmed for Peter in a dream) - and had
recourse, when addressing the Athenians - to be the 'unknown God'
of the precursive Greek religion as a point of opening to
Graeco-Roman Christianity.
St. Patrick, too, understood and practiced this in addressing
the nature worship of the precursive Celtic religion of Ireland,
and transforming it into into Celtic Christianity. And I'm sure
this is one reason the great Irish missionaries of the European
continent were so successful in converting the various Druidic and
other 'nature' religions to Christianity.
St Patrick, as 'discoverer of God's power everywhere in
nature', is properly the patron for the conversion of all
precursive 'primitive', 'tribal', nature religions to Christianity
everywhere, and also for the incorporation of nature within
Christian worship - so that he probably should be adopted as the
co-patron saint of the Mary Garden movement, along with St. Joseph.
It is interesting how the religious use of plants and plant
symbols, including Mary-Flowers, was a component of the conversion
of the native Central and South Americans to Christianity -
building to an extent on Incan, Aztec, Mayan, etc. religions
(despite the Spanish conquest and plundering of these
civilizations) - whereas the native North American religions were
attemptedly exterminated and replaced pro forma. As Ed used to
say, 'A missionary or priest might not have returned to a given
South American local for 100 years, but all that time the people
were reminded of the Gospel as the first missionary taught it to
them with the Passion Flower.'
There are marvelous precursive elements of the native North
American 'Indian' religions for Christianity, just as there were
among the celts and druids. I consider the nature religions in the
aggregate as one of the seven great world religions of today's
heritage, along with the Graeco-Roman, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian,
and Islamic religions, and the 'chosen' precursive religion of
Judaism (with its Mosaic, Egyptian input).
These insights are derived from the response to a query I
addressed to the Holy Spirit regarding the Seven Spirits of the
Revelations of the Apocalypse 'sent to all parts of the world' (Rev.
5,6):
'The Holy Spirit divides himself into seven spirits for
mystical penetration of the precursive world religions
to illuminate them as paths for transformative
conversion to Christianity.'
I constantly reflect and query about the 'practical details'
of the processing, spirating, Holy Spirit's renewing 'rose-petal
circulations' over the face of the earth.
Sometimes answers come providentially and graphically, and one
such answer came to me at the visit I made to the Boston Museum of
Science some weeks ago, about which I wrote you. (A large laser
demonstration there gave me important insights about the interior
of the Trinity some years ago).
In the (East) Indian exhibit we saw a large painting of a
seven-petaled flower on one of the walls, which I photographed ,
per the enclosed print. I couldn't find anyone who could tell me
what its name was or give me an 'official' explanation of its
symbolism, but its inherent universal meaning was pretty clear to
me. Clearly the central spiral represents the processing,
spirating, Holy Spirit. While it isn't too clear in the photo, a
close inspection of the original, which was maybe 5ft. by 5ft.,
showed that the yellow 'dots' against the more orange-brown
backgrounds of the 7 flower petals were human heads, so that each
petal circumscribes a multitude of people.
The 7 standing human figures - 1 in each of the 7 petal -
represented to me the 7 spirits of God - each indwelling in one of
the 7 multitudes, which could represent, universally, the 7
continents, 7 precursor world religions, or the 7 Churches, as well
as whatever 7-fold representation they might have within the Hindu
context, with rulership by the 7 visible 'planets' (sun, moon,
Mercury, Venus, mars, Jupiter and Saturn), etc.. The 7 leaves or
garland strings in turn could represent 7 overshadowings of spirit
over the 7 multitudes.
Seen thus, the painting illustrates or symbolizes the
macrocosmic 'rose-petal' (or lotus-petal) circulating and
indwelling circumscription of the entire world by the renewing Holy
Spirit. In this case a supernatural 7-petaled rose.
A booklet on Hinduism, of a comparative religion series I
obtained back in the late 1940's, proposed how interesting and
'natural' it would have been if Hinduism and the Vedanta, instead
of Graeco-Roman philosophy, had become a major vehicle for the
translated dissemination of original Judaic Christianity.
Actually, this can be said for all of the major world
religions ('I have other sheep . . .'). And more than this: the
universal Catholic faith is ultimately, 'when the tale of the
gentile nations is told', to encompass within it the elements of
all the precursor religions - with their repositories of the
divisions of the primordial Edenic revelation, from Babel, and
their subsequent revelations and inspirations from the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps one of the most profound acts of the Second Vatican
Ecumenical Council (along with 'error has its rights') was the
positive recognition of Judaism and the other major religions.
The problem has been historically that the Roman Church
attempted to convert those of other religions by stamping out these
religions, as in the case of the Native North American religions,
rather than supernaturalizing them and building on them, as St.
Patrick did with the Celtic religion in Ireland. Or, that persons
who have yearned for the diverse elements of these other
revelations have sought them outside of Catholicism, instead of
permeating them, encompassing them, and building on them with
Catholicism (as certain Mayan temples were converted into
churches). 'Every heresy contains a seed of truth.'
The Jesuits made several marvellous starts in this - one in
China (philosophically) and one in Ecuador (politically) - both of
which were stopped by Rome.
The nature religions, with their ritual invocations of
protective powers, their healing herbs, their stone rings and
astrology, and their 'environmentalism' have so much to offer for
Catholicism to encompass and build on. Likewise the stages of
mystical 'via positiva' ascent of Indian Vedanta and Yoga to the
'Supreme Identity' ('The Atman is the Brahman'; 'Thou art That');
the 'via negativa' mortificational asceticism and discipline of
Buddhist monasticism and Nirvana (manifesting itself secularly in
the current dynamic capitalism of the Pacific Rim: Japan, HongKong,
Singapore, Taiwai, and Korea); the peace, harmony and tranquility
of Chinese Taoism, Confucianism and the I Ching; and the
monotheistic, kingdomal and paradisal sense of Islam - as well as
the philosophy and natural science of Greece and Rome; and the
Chosen revelation of Judiasm.
All of these religions await adventive opening to the fullness
of the Trinitarian God, as first revealed to the world, within the
context of Judiasm, through Mary, at the Annunciation, and which
represents the culmination for all religions and the ultimate basis
for their incorporation into and contribution to the 'trinification
of the world' for the coming earthly Kingdom of God.
How appropriate is the inclusion of the Pansy, Shamrock and
other 'Trinity Flowers' and 'Trinity Plants' in the Mary Garden! I
recall someone asking, 'Why do you consider the Pansy, 'Trinity
Flower' a Flower of Our Lady? And why is it called 'Our Lady's
Delight?' Answer: because it is a reminder that the Trinity was
first revealed to the world through Mary, at the Annunciation.
Each secular collision of cultures (e.g. between the United
States and Iran) has its implicit ultimate solution in their
reconciliation at the Trinitarian level.
I have reviewed all this here, Brother, because the Mary
Garden blessing and sentimentalization of nature - as a sort of
transfiguring and transforming 'conversion' of the good of the
nature religions, following the example of St. Patrick - is an
example of how all the religions of the world are to be 'converted'
- as St. Paul transfigured and transformed the good of Greece and
Rome.
While good Catholics, in the local parish, may say, as they
said to Ed, 'I don't need this!' (for salvation), the world and the
building of the earthly Kingdom need this.
In sum, Brother, the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens seem
significant to me as a means for renewed appreciation of St.
Patrick and Celtic Christianity, and I wanted to share this with
you for your consideration and wisdom (many of the insights
developing in the course of writing this letter).
Sincerely, your friend, in Jesus, Mary and St. Patrick,
+
Boston, MA
October 15, 1987
Teresa of Avila
Dear Brother Seàn,
Today I made a day trip to Woods Hole in 'October's Bright
Blue Weather', which was a real joy.
Day before yesterday the package of 20 copies of the Knock
Mary Garden booklet arrived, in excellent condition. My thanks to
you and to Tom Neary.
I was delighted to have the pages 7, 8, 33 and 34 missing from
the first copy I received (as you noted in sending it). Needless
to say, your Introduction, 'Plants for Your Mary Garden' and the
photograph of the principal shrine statue - Our Lady of Knock,
Queen of Ireland: The Rose of Sharon - are valued additions, as are
the four plant prints on p. 8.
Not knowing what was on these pages, I limited the
'statistics' of my review to the pages I did have at hand
initially, so please change the 'photograph count' in my Review
draft accordingly.
Your Introduction of course 'adds' intelligibility to the
entire booklet, and the 'Plants For your Mary Garden' page enhances
the practical 'You can have one too' dimension. I was especially
delighted that the Shrine statue photo faces the 'Ten Flower
Meditations', as it provides a more concrete focus for making the
meditations - just as the focal figure of Mary does for meditations
when we are in a Mary Garden or before a wayside shrine.
I have come to look for a little 'surprise' each time I visit
Woods Hole. Sometimes it is something I see along the way, or a
flower in bloom in the Garden. This time it was a meditative
insight. Along with the Marigolds, Petunias and Asters still in
bloom in the Garden, there were also a few Vinca fall blooms, and a
single Nigella, 'Our Lady-in-the-Shade' - probably self-seeded from
the spring blooms and seed pods.
For some 35 years I have associated the 'in-the-shade'
symbolism in my mind with our Lady's rest on the Flight Into Egypt,
although the fine bracts surrounding each bloom don't provide much
'shade'. Today, it struck me, in the Garden, that that what is
symbolized here is, more profoundly, Mary's overshadowing by the
Holy Spirit - a most important meditative contribution to this
Angelus or Annunciation Mary Garden. The slender bracts
surrounding each bloom are most appropriate to the overshadowing of
the Holy Spirit (whereas a more 'leafy' shade would be appropriate
to the Rest on the Flight). Further, the bracts continue to
overshadow the seed pod, and its actual opening to release the seed
- a marvellous symbol of the blessed fruition of Mary's womb. I am
awed by this insight after all these years. Maybe it has been
obvious to you all along. I thought of how lovingly Jane's sister
and her husband nurtured these annual plants from seed for the
Jubilee replanting of the Garden.
I had an opportunity to talk with Jane over the phone, but we
were not able to meet due to an experiment she was monitoring in
the lab. We rejoiced over the Booklet, of which she had received
copies, and discussed details about the Garden. (The hedge is
growing out nicely, and was just trimmed.)
I left an additional copy of the booklet at her house for her
to give to Dr. Frank Egloff, Mrs. Lillie's grandson, along with a
borrowed book, 'Letters of Baron von Hugel to Frances C. Lillie', I
was returning. (Frank was out of town). You may recall that there
was a photograph of Frank in one of the 1982 QUEEN articles. He is
most active in the Episcopal/Anglican Church, serving on committees
and attending national and international conventions, etc..
I recall seeing him and his wife in some sort of Lillie family
gathering in the Garden of Our Lady, in connection with a wedding
or a baptism, on one occasion back when I was spending a summer in
Woods Hole. An short biography or memoir of Mrs. Lillie, written
by one of her daughters, makes brief mention of the Angelus Tower,
but none of the Garden. I am happy that they make use of the
Garden. I hope that the true magnitude of her unique and important
contribution in respect to the research and the Garden (her
'valiant deed', as Ed termed it and the establishment of the
Angelus Tower) will be increasingly appreciated by her family with
the passing of time.
I also had a short chat with Father Dalzall after
my visit to the Garden and Church, and gave him a copy of the
Booklet. I told him he might be receiving one directly from Knock,
and he said, 'Oh, then I'll put this one in the Angelus Tower
Library so visitors con see it.' He mentioned that the Angelus
Bills are ringing (I missed them at noon, due to being in the
basement of our house with a plumber at the time, and not looking
at my watch. How I love those bells). Father said, 'People love to
hear the belle. We'll have to stop ringing them for a while, when
we replace some of the rusted iron supports in the near future.
The bells themselves are in fine condition."
Father mentioned that several parishioners had visited Knock
and the Garden this past summer, 'but they weren't able to find
Brother Sean'. I told him you wore in Dublin, or perhaps Rome, at
the time, although you were now heading up a Christian Brothers
school within 20 miles of Knock. I didn't have your exact new
address at hand, but will as soon I get it.
For years a resident member of the Lillie family used to
administer the practical expenditures of the trust fund established
at a Chicago bank by Mrs. Lillie for the maintenance of the Tower
and Garden. This is now handled by Fr. Dalzall. In the 1960's, when
it was handled by Mrs. Lillie's cousin, Mrs. Florence Gigger, some
funds had to be taken from principal to re-point the stonework
of the Tower, and it would be nice to see this restored, and
increased).
So, Brother, the Booklet is beginning to make its impact
here. In the next few weeks I hope to write to Father Roger of
QUEEN and Father Stanley of OUR LADY'S DIGEST (now
discontinued), enclosing copies of the booklet - also Ed
NcTague's relatives and my own children.
I also received a further insight on driving back to Boston
this afternoon. Wa are at the height of the yellow and red tall
foliage colors here, and they were more brilliant to behold driving
back because the low setting sun from the side reflects better then
the low eastern sun in the morning, which is more directly ahead.
After marveling at the foliage, I turned to the more
meditative mode, about which I have written, of consciously moving
from reflection on the beauty of nature to a sense of awe of the
creating God; to a sense of the divine aura inhering in the created
beauty; to a consideration of the emanation of this aura from the
divinity itself; to a consideration of all nature as a mirroring of
God's radiance; to a consideration of all nature and individual
creatures as comprising 6od's face, or intelligible elements of it,
through which he shows forth and shares himself with us; and,
culminatingly, to a prolonged quiet contemplation of nature an
resplendent with the fullness of this awesome beauty, radiance and
face of the divinity.
The new insight was the practical realization that I could
follothis same reflective path in beholding each individual flower,
in field, garden, vase or hand - the Mary-Flower names and
symbolism (drawn in memory from popular tradition) ramifying the
perception of God's face - culminating, again, in quiet
contemplation. I Garden, in the setting summer solsticial, St.
John's, sun), in my 1962 Queen of All Hearts article 'Gardening
with Mary', but I'm speaking here of a more consciously initiated
reflective exercise.
I'm sure that when St. Columban 'found God in the woods and
fields' he did not just see them conceptually as containing God's
presence, but, rather, discovered grace in the branching; light in
the flowers and fall colors; pneuma in the leaven (especially when
they rustled in the wind). and power in the trunks and rooting.
Likewise, the fields issued grace from their contours; light from
their flowers and colors; pneuma from the articulation of their
grasses, plants and shrubs; and power from their earth and rocks.
'I bind to myself today
The power of Heaven,
The light of the sun,
The brightness of the moon,
The Splendor of fire,
The flashing of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of sea,
The stability of earth,
The compactness of rocks...
I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity...'
- The Breastplate of St. Patrick
The discovery and naming of individual religious flower
symbols was a more focused and fine-grained extension of this
broader religious view of woods and fields; mountains, valleys and
streams, etc..
Thus, the titles of Our Lady drown from nature, and nature
imagery of the Scriptures,, in the writings of the Church Fathers
and in the Breviary, as listed with my 'Mary Garden Research'
article - Tree of Good Foliage, Open Meadow, Flourishing Vine,
Mountain of God, etc. - are in principle and practice clearly
antecedents and prototypes for the more specific flower symbolisms.
In re-reading the Booklet just now, I noted how much the
Mary-Flower symbolism is enhanced by your 'full list' of the wild
Flower of Our Lady in Ireland, by county - as the background and
context for the shorter planting lists.
There came to mind St. Bernard's discernment of the difference
of religious symbolism between the flowers of field, garden and
chamber, in his 'Sermons on the Canticle of Canticles'.
The profound created correspondence between the
natural/physical world and the moral/mystical world - such that
they illuminate one another, and also interpenetrate and channel
one another - is the ontological basis on which heaven is to be
built on earth and earth in heaven. As well as the esthetic basis
for the nature imagery of Wordsworth and the other romantic poets,
(We are not to be satisfied with esthetics and poetry, but are
always to proceed with our instrumentation of the actual building
of the eternal Now Heaven and New Earth).
In living the Assumption we penetrate heaven with earth, and
in living the Coronation, earth with heaven.
God created the heavenly/earthly Paradise, and we build with
him the earthly/heavenly City.
In another mode, I recalled in my head, driving back, the jazz
instrumental, 'A Flower is a Lovesome Thing', played by a Duke
Ellington side group including some of my lifetime favorite
musicians. I am familiar with the discovery that reed instruments
(saxophones, clarinets) are vehicles, as it were, of God's grace;
brass instruments (trumpets, trombones) of his light; stringed
instruments (violins, cellos, guitars, pianos) of his pneuma; and
percussion instruments (drums) his power - but I had not extended
this to the musical mirroring of a flower of this instrumental.
In my contemplative mode, from the fall colors, and mentally
recalling the recorded rendition of this composition, I found that
when the read instruments played, I moved in my Inner vision around
the grace-channeling contours of a flower; when the brasses
played, I experienced the flower's light; when the piano played, I
experienced its over-all form and intelligibility - all
interweaving with and interpenetrating one another, and pervaded by
the power of the beet:
'those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat.'
- Francis Thompson, The Hound of Heaven
In flowers - as in music and poetry - grace, light, pneuma and
power undulatingly and dancingly complement and interpenetrate one
another, like the sparkling of light as the breeze stirs up ripples
on the larger swells of ocean waves.
(Wonderful how the memory works. There comes to mind that
when I was in Ireland, almost 50 years ago, now, we danced a square
dance, 'The Waves of Conamira').
I guess I could say that today was a Mary Garden fall
pastoral.
I hope my other letters, of the dates I gave you, Brother, in
my letter of October 4th, were all forwarded to you. It not, as I
said, let me know of any you didn't receive and I will sand you
copies.
I trust that things are going well with your new
responsibilities. I keep seeing books, articles and TV specials
about tha 'education problem' (in the U.S.), and soma new
'solution' someone is proposing. To me it seems that the problem
with education in a secular society is that it is not understood
ultimately what is to be taught (the religious, moral and mystical
love, truths and practices of Salvation and Kingdom), so that the
full being and motivation of the students - inwardly ultimately
desirous of this love, truth and practice - is not engaged. Now
fortunate you are yourself in possessing what is to be taught, and
in having a continuous stream of new souls to teach.
How beautiful the teaching of the 'Penny Catechism': 'We were
made to know, love and serve God in this world, and to be happy
with him forever in heaven'.
With all prayerful beet wishes to you, I remain, as always,
sincerely, your friend, in Jesus and Mary,
+
Boston, MA
December 8, 1987
Immaculate Conception
Dear Brother Seàn,
Thank you for your card of October 27th telling that all my
letters reached you OK, and that you have been able to go often to
Knock.
I got your hint from the card photo of the Knock Airport, and
hope that indeed I will land there one day.
Wo had an early, November, snow storm and also a cold spell so
there are no December, Immaculate Conception roses in the city
gardens here this year.
I drove to Woods Hole and back on December 3rd, and my Mary
Garden surprise for this trip wes to find just one lingering Vinca,
Virgin's Flower, bloom. The Garden looked fins, and the fall
foliage growth of Bonnie's three Madonna Lilies was healthy,
including a number of offsets. Also, one Madonna Lilly in now
growth in the central bed. Of course the herbs of the central bed,
and also the mint of the west side bed, were still in fragrant
foliage (the weather there is modified by the sea, as compared to
Boston), so I made some pinchings of Rosemary, Thyme and Mint
before saying the Mary Garden Prayer. December could in a way be
said to be the season of fragrance in the Garden.
I have found the praying of the Mary Garden Prayer to ba much
enhanced when said before a figure of Our Lady in the Mary Garden,
or a figure indoors with a flower bouquet - the flowers being made the
'global' vehicle for each thought and intercession of the Prayer.
At my desk, the cover of the Knock Booklet serves eminently for
this.
Outdoors, I have been especially attuned this year - recently
on trips from Boston to Woods Hole, and to Philadelphia - to the
naked trunks and branches of the deciduous trees, as symbols of
God's power. In raising my thoughts to St. Columba:
'Trees symbolize the rising and branching of God's
power from mundane mortifications.'
This was helpful to me because I had been endeavoring to
envisage trunks and branches as somehow receiving the
manifestations of Spirit from above, directly, as leaves mediate
pneuma and flowers (and fall leaves) mediate light. Now,I see
that grace and power are descendingly channeled to and rise from
our mortifications. 'Unless the grain of wheat die, it will not
bear much fruit.'
I have come to see that while the strength of God'a power is
symbolized by hurricanes, tidal waves, earthquakes and volcanos,
etc., its actual operation is subtle and spiritual, and its primary
manifestation is to melt, move and transform hearts.
To move individual hearts leads to conversion, and to move the
hearts of leaders of peoples to peace on earth.
Some people have said to us through the years, 'The Flowers of
Our Lady and Mary Gardens are too abstract, too ideal, to
esthetic, too precious for you to spend your time on - not to
mention to propose to others - as compared to the real physical,
material, medical, economic, political and military needs,
problems and dangers surrounding us.'
(I recall a long letter, in our Mary's Gardens correspondence
files, from a Brother a number of years ago saying just this, and
more - to 'straighten me out'. I'll have to look it up.)
I have thus found it always important to recall in relation to
our work, Brother, as with respect to the contemplative religious
orders, that, ever, God's power is 'made perfect in weakness', as
was revealed to St. Paul. It is the changing of hearts that
transforms the world; and those who deal most directly and
immediately with the poor, the sick and the ignorant - and also
with the addicted, the exploiting, the oppressing, the violent and
the sinful, generally - are the first to recognize this. Mother
Theresa of Calcutta speaks of the frequent hardness of heart of the
poor, which is to be accepted in mortification by those who
minister to them.
While the Acts and Works of Mercy, Justice and Peace may
dispose hearts to conversion, it is God's grace, light, pneuma and
power that actually effect conversion, so that our most important
task is to ba, with Mary the intercessors and mediators of the
Spirit. And to be the most effective channels and instruments of
Spirit, we must most perfectly be conformed and attuned to the
subtle paths through which it travels, which, radiating out from
the Sacraments, are the forms and symbols of nature and art, among
the most delicate (and therefore most powerful) of which are,
flowers, plants, trees and gardens.
Then, at times such as those of the present 'summit' political
negotiations in Washington (how fitting that they are occurring at
the season of Immaculate Conception graces, and actually starting
today), it is especially important for us to pray and to undertake
acts of mortification, that the changes of heart on which
diplomatic agreements must ultimately rest may in fact take place.
As I wrote extensively to you a while ago, Brother, learning
to discern the various spiritual channelings of sacramentally
blest flowers according to their respective forms has attuned me to
perceive the various spiritual mediations of persons according to
their respective subtle formations ('There are many fruits, but one
Spirit').
We of course all have the potentiality for the mediations of
all the modalities, and are called to develop them all, but we
start with those to which we are andowedly predisposed at birth -
just as we are endowed with a certain anatomy, biology and
family/national/cultural environment, etc.
Thus, it is out of spiritual ignorance that someone would
presume to suggest that we should follow one spiritual path (a.g.
the one to which they are predisposed) instead of another -
which may, in fact be our vocation. ('The world is filled with
conscript minds, each trying to make its own conscription universal'.)
On the other hand, I find it is important in our work to
understand and to appreciate those natural and spiritual
predispositions with which we are in fact endowed - since 'grace
builds on nature and 'glory on grace', etc.
Again, it is ultimately a matter of hearts - deeper than
philosophies, economics, armaments, ate., and deeper than
personal spiritual dispositions - and thus rests on our prayers;
but there to a good providential natural foundation hers, on which
we can pray with hope that grace, wisdom, power and glory
may be built, as God nurtures the growth of his Kingdom on earth.
Brother, I hope this finds you well and that you and your
family and associates are experiencing a happy and holy Advent, and
I sand my prayerful best wishes for Christmas glory.
Sincerely, your friend in Jesus and Mary,