Mary gardens bloom in Philadelphia
Susan Brinkmann              Catholic Standard & Times Phildelphia
CS&T Correspondent           July 14, 2005


   


   WALKING THE ROSARY - MMR's unique rosary path is paved with the
   hand-made stepping stones representing the five decades of
   rosary. The path is wide enough to permit wheelchair access, 
   and wends its way through plants and flowers  associated with
   Mary.
                           (Sarah Webb)


The centuries-old tradition of planting gardens in honor of the
mother of God is blooming anew in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

The latest planting is underway at Mary, Mother of the Redeemer
Parish in North Wales. Known as a Mary garden, it was blessed on
Sunday, June 26, by Msgr. Philip C. Ricci, who founded the parish 18
years ago.

"Hundreds of people are stopping by here before and after Mass,"
Msgr. Ricci said. "It's become a focal point already, before it's
even finished. They all stand here in awe of the project as it
unfolds."

And for good reason.

Support for the garden was so overwhelming the plans had to be
accelerated.

"We weren't going to start the landscaping until October," said
parishioner Dr. Frank Shafer, a pediatric hematologist at St.
Christopher's Children's Hospital. "Because so many people wanted to
donate, within weeks all of the stones were donated."

Shafer, who is a member of the parish's Saint Francis Ecology
Council - which spearheaded the project - said people became
involved for various reasons.

"So many people said their parents were buried in Maine, and mine
are buried in Iowa, but we can spiritually visit them here, through
donating a plant, or a stepping stone to this garden," he said.

The garden has a wheelchair-accessible rosary path consisting of
homemade stepping stones arranged for the five decades. Parishioners
may donate stones or flowers with a particular intention; one woman
donated a pretty pink flower, known as Mary's Pincushion, in honor
of her mother-in-law, who was a seamstress.

Moving along the rosary path and reading the inscriptions is like
looking into the soul of the parish.

"Blessed Mary, inspire us to live our lives with purpose," one stone
reads. "Those whose touch I miss are always in my heart," says
another. And yet another: "She was the wind beneath my wings ‹my
Mom."

The path is lined with more than 30 different flowers that invoke
the name of Mary: Lily-of-the-valley is also known as Tears of Mary;
marigolds are Mary's Gold Crown; pansies are also called Our Lady's
Delight; the iris is Mary's Sword of Sorrow; purple-wave petunias
are called Our Lady's Praise, and even the common alyssum is known
as Mary's Flower.

"This garden is for all ages, "Shafer said. "There will be quiet
reflection for our seniors; families can experience it together.
Children will like it because it's very tangible. You could almost
make a hopscotch game out of the rosary stones. And that's okay,
because Mary would smile upon it."

The garden surrounds a Lourdes grotto, which was crafted by another
parishioner, Joe Cioppi, the the 83-year-old father of Father Martin
T. Cioppi, who is pastor of St. John Bosco Parish in Hatboro.

In building the grotto, Joe Cioppi used stones that were excavated
from the site of the recently built parish school.

"It took me about two or three months to build it," Cioppi said. "I
was cutting stone in the winter when it was too cold to work."
Statues of Mary and St. Bernadette come from an old church in
Philadelphia. "I cleaned them up and put a little sealer on them,"
Cioppi said. He and fellow parishioner Rich Roller, also did the
stonework lining the rosary path.

Everyone pitched in. Parishioner Jackie Giglioti created
extraordinary drawings of the mysteries of the rosary; Al Gryga lent
expert landscaping advice; Diane Jebran contributed by selecting
plants, while John McCoy did the dirty work of cleaning up and
landscaping. Therese McCoy designed brochures, and Pat Bergauer did
the proofreading. Ecology Council members Mary Brock, Frank Cech,
Diane Garvey, Bob Reynolds and Roller kept the project's energy
level running high.

The dedication of gardens to Mary is a tradition that dates back to
the 7th century. St. Fiacre, the Irish patron saint of gardening,
planted a garden in Mary's honor around his hospice for the poor and
infirm in France. Three centuries before, St. Benedict is said to
have cared for a rose garden at his monastery that he referred to as
a "rosary."

The first mention, by name, of an actual Mary garden is from a 15th
century sacristan in Norwich Priory, England, who recorded the
purchase of plants for his monastery's "St. Mary's Garden." The
gardens flourished throughout medieval Europe.

The modern movement in the United States began with the planting of
the Garden of Our Lady in 1932 beside the Angelus Tower of St.
Joseph's Church in Woods Hole, Mass. That garden still blooms.

The idea came to Philadelphia in 1951, when John Stokes and the late
Edward A.G. McTague read an article about the garden in Perpetual
Help Magazine. The two founded Mary's Gardens of Philadelphia as a
spare-time, avocational, religious project.

In addition to starting local gardens, such as one at Our Mother of
Consolation in Chestnut Hill, Stokes and McTague undertook extensive
research into the flowers of Our Lady. Their Web site is full of
practical tips for would-be Mary gardeners (www.mgardens.org).

In 1968, Stokes teamed up with Martha "Jane" Garra of St. Anthony
Parish in Ambler to exhibit a Mary garden at the Philadelphia Flower
Show. Garra created Mary gardens at St. Genevieve Parish in
Flourtown, which is still in bloom, and at St. Anthony's Parish in
Ambler.

The tragic Christmas Eve fire at St. Anthony's in 2000 destroyed its
garden, but Barbara Daly, director of parish services, is hoping to
resurrect the project: "We were very good about reclaiming our
heritage when the church burned down. We salvaged our stained glass,
our steeple ‹ and this is just one more piece of our history that we
would love to find a way to bring back."

Although garden space is limited, Daly believes the Mary garden
would be a great way to bring people back into the life of the
Church. "We work very hard at inviting people to participate in our
parish life in whatever way they want. If it's gardening, then
that's how we'll get them in here," she said.

A Mary garden was dedicated by the Most Reverend Gabriel Montalvo,
Papal Nuncio to the United States, at the National Shrine of the
Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., on June 10, 2000.

The gardens are meant to inspire prayer and lift the soul to God
through the tender heart of His mother.

"In the garden, we participate in the fundamental relationship
between God, man and nature," Stokes wrote in a 1991 article in
America magazine.

"We deal with the essence, the seeds; and with substances, the grown
plants," he said. "We see the effects of original sin in the disease
and death which enter our gardens each season. We also witness the
promise of our resurrection the following spring."

    Contact Susan Brinkmann at fiat723@aol.com or (215) 965-4615


A Mary garden prayer

     Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, As our
     hearts are raised to you in love and thanksgiving through
     the light, grace, fragrance and symbolism of these pure,
     blessed, transfigured flowers of Our Lady ‹ Your direct
     creations, showing forth and sharing with us Your divine
     goodness, beauty and truth ‹ we commune with You in
     awe and rapture, and pray that we and all our brothers and
     sisters may be opened to the fullness of the divine love
     of God and neighbor, through which we are to transform the
     fallen world into the culminating, earthly, peaceable
     kingdom and paradise, that all may be lifted up, resplendent
     in the eternal, new heaven and new earth of our crucified
     and risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen