Mary Garden Design Philosophy
(Excepted from a Letter)
John S. Stokes Jr.
With respect to the meaningfulness of the Flowers of Our Lady, the
symbolism of the each flower as recognized from its name first of all
quickens devotional reflection as it blooms - as flowers must have in
the medieval countrysides, and as we found in our first Mary Garden,
described in the 1955 article, "In Mary's Garden" - indexed on the
website under
GARDENING
Home Mary Gardens.
However, in selecting flowers for a Mary Garden, they can be
considered more broadly from the perspective of our overall approach
to our life as Christians, which has been reflected on extensively in
57 years of articles, posted on the website under OVERVIEW >
"Developmental Articles", and summarized in HOME & SCHOOLS EDUCATION >
"Home School Mary Garden Projects" and "Background Reference/Index
for Teachers" - and as condensed in the following.
A summary of some length is made here because of the special
contribution Mary Gardening makes to Marian devotion through the
comprehensive scope of its visual symbolism.
As we clear our minds of worldly concerns and distractions on
entering the garden, the flowers first of all as creatures turn our
thoughts to Creation, and its purpose: to show forth and share the
divine goodness, beauty, truth and action with us humans, created to
this end "in the divine image and likeness" - as revealed in the
Bible, preserved in the creedal deposit of faith, taught by the
Church, and mirrored in creatures.
Our devotion to Mary is to her both as the blessed mother of the
Jesus, Divine Word Incarnate through the conception of the Holy
Spirit - and as given to us by Jesus from the Cross, our spiritual
mother, advocate, intercessor and mediatrix; but also more basically
to her for her union with God ("the Lord is with you") through her
Divine Maternity and co-parenthood with God the Father, and through
which union God was enabled likewise to share with her the fullness
of divine action as Co-Redemptrix, with God the Son, in his
redemption of the world; and, assumed into heaven, as universal
Mediatrix with God the Son and Holy Spirit of all grace; as Queen of
heaven and earth, with Christ the King; and even, in the
"retroactivity of eternity", as Co-creatrix with God the Father in
the very creation of the world (per Proverbs 8: 22-31) - all in an
unique fulfillment of God's desire and will for the fullness of
divine/human sharing.
Accordingly, each prayer we raise to Mary for her intercession and
mediation affords God with a further opportunity for sharing the
divine action with and through her, for accomplishment of the purpose
of Creation; and this is the ultimate warrant for our Marian
devotion, which otherwise Protestants see as detracting from our
devotion to Jesus, and Deists see as a diversion from our direct
relation to God.
From this basic view of Marian devotion, each of the Marian Gospel
passages and Rosary Mysteries, symbolized by her flowers, is thus
seen to be a further fulfillment, to God's greater glory, of his
sharing purpose for Creation, as well as an incentive to our further
meditation on Mary, emulation of her virtues, and recourse to her
blesses motherly privileges in prayer.
In detail, then,
Basic to flower meanings is the belief that flowers, like all
creatures, were created by God to show forth and share with us the
divine goodness, beauty and truth - to be perceived physically
through our senses; and intellectually through their "signature"
mirrorings of divine revelation. In the Mary Garden this perception
is quickened by their planting around a Marian sculpture - so as to
symbolize a range of Mary's mysteries, life and prerogatives, for a
fullness of reflection and prayer.
The culmination in Creation of the divine/human showing forth and
sharing is revealed to be the building in grace, and coming, of God's
Peaceable Kingdom "on earth as it is in heaven" - for which we pray
each day in the "Our Father" - which kingdom is to be transfigured on
the last day, with the General Resurrection, into the new heaven and
new earth of eternal divine/human sharing.
But, as we learn in Genesis, immediately following upon Creation our
first parents fell from harmony and grace through the viewing and use
of creatures for their own gratification, rather than for the
building of the Peaceable Kingdom in grace.
However, God, in his continuing desire and will for divine/human
sharing through Creation, prophesied, and then initiated, the divine
plan for the redemption of the world, likewise fully to be shared in
by us humans in grace. In this, God - revealing himself as the
Trinity of divine persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit - sent the
Divine Son, Incarnate as Jesus Christ, to redeem the world by taking
upon himself all its sins and through his suffering and death
sacrificially banishing them into the nothingness of the outer
darkness in offsetting satisfaction to the Father; and by taking upon
himself all the human sufferings of the fallen world repairingly, to
dissolve the temporal effects of sin circulating in the world, that
the work for Kingdom might be resumed in restored grace.
God has revealed that for our human sharing in this, we are enabled
to continue and to re-enact Christ's sacrifice until the end of the
world in the celebration of the Mass, in continuing satisfaction to
the Father for all sins through the years; and in this also to join
with Christ in repairing for all the continuing temporal effects of
sin in the world, by sacrificially offering with him all our duties,
tasks, frustrations, sorrows and sufferings as he ever take them upon
himself with those of all the world.
In discerning the mirroring of spiritual truths in creatures - the
basis of all poetic figures - the Church Fathers perceived flowers to
be the signature symbols of the Blessed Virgin Mary - from Isaiah's
prophecy of the virgin birth of the redeeming Messiah as the
miraculous blooming of a flower from the "Rod of Jesse".
Accordingly, flowers were seen and named as symbols of Mary's
immaculate purity, her utter humility, and her total fidelity to the
word of God, enabling the Holy Spirit to overshadow her, to indwell
in her, and to conceive in her the Incarnate Redeemer - St. Bernard
thus speaking of Mary as "the rose of charity, lily of chastity,
violet of humility and golden gillyflower of heaven".
The fullness of Mary's divine union with the God the Holy Spirit
("the Lord be with you") for her Divine Maternity - in co-parenthood
with God the Father - was subsequently manifested in her union with
God the Son as Co-Redemptrix in his sacrifice; and in her union,
assumed body and soul into heaven, with God the Son and Holy Spirit
in the mediation and distribution of all grace - in personal human
fulfillment of God's creational desire for divine/human sharing, to
be fulfilled ultimately in the endless number of humans, her
spiritual children, each like her, showing forth and sharing the
divine attributes and action in an unique way in the
Creation-culminating earthly Peaceable Kingdom.
By medieval times many flowers of the countryside were seen to be
symbols of Mary's virtues, life, mysteries and divinely bestowed
prerogatives of her union with God - enabling us to compose them
devotionally today in Mary Gardens to honor her, to quicken our
meditation on her special place in the Divine Plan for the world, and
to quicken our prayerful recourse to her as our protecting, nurturing
and counseling spiritual mother and our advocate, intercessor and
mediatrix with God.
o O o
Our desire therefore for the Mary Garden is thus both to honor Mary
through the planting and tending of an attractive arrangement of her
flowers around her statue; and also to have a comprehensive flower
imaging of her life and mysteries for the quickening of our ever
fuller meditation on them and our constant recourse to her in prayer
for her protection, spiritual nurturing, and counsel and for her
divine advocacy, intercession and mediation.
In this, as stated, the flowers as such show forth and share God's
goodness and beauty; and our composition of them and care for them in
the garden honors God's will for the care and enhancement of all
Creation in the building of the Peaceable Kingdom.
Symbolism of Mary can begin with "her flowers": white lilies for her
immaculate purity at the Annunciation; roses for her Divine
Motherhood at the Nativity; Iris spears for the sword of sorrow
piercing her soul at the Passion and Crucifixion, and marigolds for
her heavenly queenship and mediation. More generally, white roses
and all white flowers are seen to represent the Rosary joyful
mysteries; red roses and flowers the sorrowful mysteries, and gold
and yellow the glorious mysteries.
According to Apocryphal legend, in the opening of Mary's emptied tomb
following her bodily assumption into heaven, there were found roses
and lilies. The titles, "Rose of Sharon" and "Lily of the Valleys"
were applied to her from scripture by the Church Fathers.
Roses were especially identified with Mary's Divine Maternity in
medieval times, in their adoption by the Church as representing
Isaiah's miraculously flowering Rod of Jesse prophecy of the virgin
birth of the Messiah - "miraculous" in that the blooms of roses, like
those of other shrubs and vines, characteristically are from upper
and pruned branches and not from new rods shooting up from the roots.
This symbolism of the rose was expressed by Dante as "the rose
wherein the divine word was made incarnate", and was shown forth in
the central rose windows of the cathedrals, and celebrated in the
Christmas Carol, "Lo, See How a Rose 'ere Blooming". As mentioned,
white, red and gold roses came to be seen, respectively as symbols of
the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries; and Mary herself
appeared at La Salette adorned with with three rose garlands, and at
Lourdes with a rose adorning each of her feet.
Especially important for our troubled times is our quickening by the
flower symbols of Christ's passion and crucifixion regularly to offer
all our daily hardships, oppositions, frustrations, sorrows and
sufferings sacrificially for and with him, through Mary's immaculate
and sorrowful heart - as he takes them upon himself, together with
those of all the world - in reparation for the temporal effects of
sin in the world; that, through deliverance from the evil of these
effects, all, and especially world leaders and dissidents, may, in
their innate created goodness, be responsive to the graces of
reconciliation, peace and Kingdom beseeched through the Rosary
prayers and sacrifices of all the faithful, in consecration to and
with the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
There is much talk in the media of the need for the de-escalation of
violence, and for reconciliation, dialogue, compromise, cooperation,
freedom, democracy and diplomacy - but little call for the
sacrificial sharing, "Making up what is wanting in the sacrifice of
Christ (Col., i, 24), God desires, in the fullness of divine/human
sharing desired for Creation, to repair for the effects of sin in our
world environment of values blocking reception of the graces of
peace, as called for by Our Lady at Fatima. In the Gospel Jesus
speaks of those evils which must be repaired by both prayer and
sacrifice (fasting).
Meditation on the Rosary Mysteries and aspects of Mary's life is
quickened by the symbolism of the numerous other Flowers of Lady, as
signified by their names. Reflection on the many flower symbols of
the features, clothing, and Nazareth household articles of Mary
serves to quicken our viewing of the same in relation to our own
work, action and prayers in grace for Redemption and Kingdom.
Thus, as we enter the Mary Garden familiar with all Our Lady's Flower
symbols surrounding her sculptured image, we are first quickened by
them to reflection on God; on the divine plan of Creation, Redemption
and Kingdom; and then on Mary's divinely established central
motherly, queenly and mediational place in this plan.
Quickened by Mary's flower symbols to emulation of her Annunciational
virtues of immaculate purity, utter humility and total fidelity to
God's will, word and grace, we open ourselves to the graces prompting
our recourse in prayer and sacrifice to her divinely established
co-redemption, advocacy, intercession and mediation.
In this way we continuously enable the extension of God's desired
sharing of the divine action in the world through Mary, and through
ourselves and all, as we make recourse to and participate in her
divinely established spiritual motherhood, nurturing, counsel,
co-redemption, advocacy intercession, mediation, mercy and healing.
Ever primary, as requested by Our Lady at Fatima, is - to repeat -
the sacrificial offering of the duties, work, adversities and
sufferings of our daily lives for and with Christ, through her
immaculate and sorrowful heart, in reparation for the temporal
effects of sin in the world - in which we are assisted through the
quickening to reflection by her flowers.
And, finally, as to begin with, we have a lovely garden honoring Mary
by surrounding her statue with her flowers.