U.S. National Shrine of the
                  Immaculate Conception

                        Mary's Garden

Progress Report and Perspective

The Kane Group, LLC, landscape architects for the new U.S. National
Shrine Mary's Garden in Washington, advises us that, despite
setbacks due to inclement weather (over 5" of rainfall in the
Washington area in April), the Garden site construction and planting
are expected to be completed for the dedication on the feast of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary, June 10th.

We are now in receipt of drafts of the Garden Site Plan and
Narrative, from which the following details are taken.  For
June, we hope to be able to post to the website final versions of
these and photo(s), or hyperlinks to the same on the National
Shrine and/or NCCW websites.

The Shrine Mary's Garden is circular, some 80 ft.in diameter, and
is located to the north of the Basilica.  It is reached by an
entrance walk leading from a welcome kiosk at the Basilica
informing of the Garden and inviting pilgrims to visit it.

The walk leads to an entry court, with pier-mounted urns of
seasonal flowers (which can be reflective of the liturgical
seasons), from which one views the Central Fountain and circular
pool and Prayer Terrace, around which are located four 30 ft. 
by 10 ft. garden beds following the circular contour, with a
sculpture of Mary and the Child Jesus and a Sculpture Reflecting
Pool as the the terminal focus across the fountain, terrace and
beds from the entry court.

On the Prayer Terrace there are two stone benches before each of
the four garden beds, on which visitors can rest and pray.
Visitors can also sit on the raised garden bed walls.  Or the
garden beds may be viewed from an outer perimeter walk with
additional stone benches and four prayer niches - accessible from
the entry court, or by four radial paths from the Prayer Terrace.

The circular garden form is in the venerable medieval monastic
tradition of circular "O" central cloister garden pools,
symbolizing the Advent O antiphon, "O Rod of Jesse, come" -
recalling Isaiah's prophecy of the virgin birth of the Messiah
under the symbol of a miraculously blooming rod (Isaiah 11:1), and
which was intoned in choir on the day of the antiphon (now December
19th) by the gardening monk.  The flower bearing rod (or root, stem
or shoot, depending on the translation) of Jesse, emerging from
the root, was understood to be a miraculous reference in that the
flower bearing shoots of the grape vine normally emerge from the
points of pruning, not from the roots.  In medieval times this
symbolism was extended to the rose, as in Dante's "Behold the rose
wherein the divine word was made incarnate"; in the rose windows of
the cathedrals; and in the Christmas Carol, "Lo How A Rose 'ere
Blooming."

Isaiah's Rod of Jesse prophecy, recalled by the circular garden
symbolism of the O Antiphon, was seen by the Church Fathers as
the revealed source for the dedication of all flowers to the
Blessed Virgin - "the Flower of flowers" as she was praised by
Chaucer - as her symbols or signatures.  This symbolism thus was
sought out in the texts of the Wisdom Books, such as "Rose of
Sharon" ("Flower of the Field") and "Lily of the Valley" (Canticles
2:1); and was the basis for old Marian titles of the Fathers such
as "Spotless Lily", for Mary's flower symbols in the liturgy, for
the Marian flower symbols of St. Bernard - "Violet of Humility,"
"Rose of Charity," "Lily of Chastity" and "Golden Flower of Heaven"
-  eventually attaining popular expression in the hundreds of
symbolic Flowers of Our Lady of the medieval countrysides and of
Mary Gardens.

In Mary's Garden, Medieval tradition is also followed in the
display of stone-engraved scriptural passages referring to Mary -
at the central fountain and the prayer niches - reminiscent of the
old capital in the ancient Abbey of Cluny on which is engraved,
surrounding an aureole figure of the Blessed Virgin, the gracious
Latin hexameter:

         "Ver primos flores adducit honores."

         ("Springtime's first flowers give thee honors.").


 
The elements of this magnificent setting - the overall circular
form, the focal Marian sculpture, the fountain waters of grace, the
engraved Marian texts, and the prayer benches and niches - join
together to create an atmosphere conducive to inspiration
and quickening to Marian meditation and prayer through the essence
of the Garden, its medieval Flowers of Our Lady of symbolism.

In view of the large size of the Garden, the color symbolism of Our
Lady's Flowers has been selected as primary, and in particular that
of white flowers symbolizing Mary's immaculate purity - especially
suited to Mary's Garden of the Basilica of the U. S. National
Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

Here again the designers of the Garden draw on ancient tradition.
One of the earliest recorded symbolic associations of distinct
parts of plants with Mary's attributes was that of St. Bede, the
Venerable, in the 8th century, who saw the translucent petals of
the white lily to be a likeness of her pure body as she was assumed
into heaven, (and also its golden anthers, as a likeness of the
glorious resplendence of her soul).

According to the Garden Narrative, supplementary plantings of
"colored perennials and groundcovers (presumably red and purple)
occur at intervals connoting passion and suffering also part of
Mary's life", and "all flowering plants have been chosen for their
connotations of Mary" (presumably including - in keeping with the
primacy of color symbolism - golden flowers symbolizing Mary's
glories).

In accordance with the need at all Mary Gardens to inform visitors
of the "connotative" Marian flower symbolism "on location" with the
actual flowers - so there will be immediate illuminative quickening
to reflection, meditation and prayer by their perceived symbolic
colors and forms - it is to be hoped that pilgrims visiting the
Shrine Mary's Garden will be so informed by bronze plaques at the
garden beds with identifying inscriptions of the symbolic colors
and names of the flowers included in the plantings.  These are
found to be more suitable than plant name markers, which are more
difficult to see, and subject to obscuring, displacement or loss
over time.

Such information as to the flower symbolism, and also as to the
overall symbolic design of the Garden, can be provided in "take
one" narrative leaflets available at Garden or at the Shrine
pamphlet racks; but there is a certain permanence of such
information and also an immediacy of recognition and of
time-unctioned prayerful quickening when it is available inscribed
directly at the garden beds where one actually beholds the symbolic
flowers.

Narrative leaflets are, however, necessary sources of information
supplementing the essentials permanently displayed at the Garden -
for pilgrims who wish to retain photos and descriptions of Mary's
Garden, and for reference by those inspired to plant smaller Mary
Gardens at their homes, parishes and schools on return to their own
communities.  Such leaflets can also inform that more extensive
information is available as to the fullness of flowers'
time-unctioned symbolism of Mary's privileges, virtues,
excellences, mysteries and divinely bestowed prerogatives - in
books (on display at the Shrine book store and gift shop) and on
the Internet.

The challenge of the National Shrine Mary's Garden is thus how best
- through its Marian sculpture, its design and flower symbolism,
its enduring informative and inspirational stone and bronze plaque
inscriptions on location, and its "take-one" leaflets - to
inspire pilgrims, in the short time of their visits, to meditative
veneration of Mary and to prayerful recourse to her divinely
bestowed co-redemptive, merciful, motherly and queenly prerogatives
of nurturing, help, guidance, advocacy, intercession and the
mediation of grace, for the spiritual perfection of souls, the
healing of bodies, and the building of God's Peaceable Kingdom of
truth, justice, love an freedom, on earth as it is in heaven.


"Look upon the flower, think of Mary."


Copyright Mary's Gardens 2000