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Intro Mary Garden
FLOWERS OF OUR LADY AND MARY GARDENS SLIDE LECTURE
50 SLIDES AND NARRATION TEXT
SLIDES 41-50 AND TEXT
41. Home Mary Gardens
The Mary Garden is first of all an appeal
to the heart - as the Flowers of Our Lady are
envisaged with the illumination of their
symbolism. May it be that they bloom
spiritually within the garden of your interior
life. Then, with your garden stewardship,
foliage, buds, and blooms will come of God's
creatures, the seeds and plants, in due season
and according to his established order.
This is a home Mary Garden in which the Flowers
of Our Lady are planted around a small pool and
in adjoining flower beds, before a pole-mounted
wayside shrine with figurine of the Madonna and
Child.
In such a garden further love is engendered as one tends the
Flowers of Our Lady through the year, leading to a desire to share
this love with others.
42. Plant Nursery Mary Gardens
A special means which
both inspires and gives
practical support for Mary
Gardening is a Mary Garden
at a plant nursery.
This is a 30' by 60' Mary
Garden maintained at a herb
nursery in Hagerman, Idaho
for 20 years from 1959 to
1979.
Shown here in springtime bloom are some dozen varieties of thyme,
"Mary's Bedstraw", planted in the large cross extending from the
garden gate to the focal sculpture of the Virgin Mother and Child,
"Seat of Wisdom".
After being shown the Mary Garden, visible from the highway,
visitors and customers were accompanied on tours of the nursery beds
where they were told of the symbolic names and lore of the plants
examined.
Those desirous of starting Mary Gardens of their own were then
provided with informative literature, and plant lists from which to
make selections for a foundational planting.
43. Small Parish Mary Gardens
Parish Mary Gardens are
typically started, with the
supportive permission of
the pastor, by home Mary
Gardeners who wish to
share the joy of the
Flowers of Our Lady with
their fellow parishioners.
This Mary Garden at Our
Lady's Parish, Wangaratta,
Victoria, Australia was
established for the 1985
Marian Year by the Pastor
and parishioners after he visited the Mary Garden at Our Lady's
Shrine in Knock, Ireland, whose raised bed design it follows.
The attractive, earth-colored brick enclosure (now landscaped with
shrubbery) matching the color of the building, provides a degree of
permanance, eliminates the need for edging or borders and raises the
level of the plants in a way which makes both their viewing and
their care more convenient - an excellent basis, together with the
small size, for continuity through the years with a minimum of
expense and gardening expertise.
44. Larger Parish Mary Gardens
A larger parish Mary
Garden provides a more
private enclosure within
which groups of
parishioners can assemble
for ceremonies or
celebrations, or where
individuals may go for
moments of relaxation or
prayer.
This is the Mary Garden at
St. Mary's Church in Annapolis, Maryland, adjacent to historic
Carroll House - established in 1989 and cared for by parishioners
who were first home Mary Gardeners. (Photograph by Amy Davis,
reprinted with permission of The Baltimore Sun, from article,
"Seeds of Devotion" by Susan Reimer.)
Much of our work at Mary's Gardens has been assisting parishes in
incorporating their Mary Gardens into parish life and in planning
for their care throughout the year and years.
Of primary importance has been the organization by the pastor and/or
founding Mary Gardeners of a parish Mary Garden Society or Guild
which assumes the responsibility for care of the Mary Garden, above
and beyond the work of basic parish grounds maintenance such as
grass cutting and leaf raking.
Essential elements of Parish Mary Garden Establishment
45. Monastery Mary Gardens
Due to limitations of
time and space, Monastery
Mary Gardens for
recollected meditation
and reflection are
often planted as niche
Mary Gardens in the
landscaping or in a
corner of a sacristan's
or kitchen garden.
This is a niche Mary
Garden planted in a
corner of a formal
garden of the Christian
Brothers' Monastery at
Iona, Tullamore, Co.
Offaly, Ireland.
Behind the miniature statue of Our Lady of Knock is a small piece
from the apparition wall in Knock. Beside the grotto are plants from
Fatima and Medugorje. Our Lady's Mantle and Heathers are in the
background. The irregular shaped stones on top are from the Burren,
Co. Clare. Some twenty-five Flowers of Our Lady in all are
included in the slope planting.
46. Shrine Mary Gardens
Shrine Mary Gardens provide
a fit embellishment of the shrine
grounds for Mary, the "Flower of
flowers", and serve to present to
pilgrims a further means of devotion
to Our Lady upon returning home.
As with the monastery niche Mary
Garden just viewed, plants or
stones from the shrine region,
"from within the radius of Mary's
presence", may be placed in the
focal area of one's home Mary
Garden as "relics" of the shrine.
To our knowledge the first
contemporary Mary Garden planted
at a diocesan shrine was that
planted at the Lourdes Shrine at
Dayton, Ohio in 1954 by Father
Thomas A. Stanley, S.M. - who years later established the major Mary
Garden at St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Portage, Michigan when he
was Pastor there.
This is a view of the grounds of Our Lady's Shrine at Knock, Ireland,
where an 8-bed Mary Garden with grotto was established at the shrine
Blessed Sacrament Chapel in 1983, and subsequently the entire grounds
were planted with the Flowers of Our Lady, making it an Our Lady's
Meadow.
47. Indoor Dish Mary Gardens
Indoor dish Mary Gardens
planted around small
figurines of Our Lady
provide an opportunity for
those unable to garden
outdoors to have a Mary
Garden, and to have it
throughout the year.
Through the closeness to
the Flowers of Our Lady
while living with them
and caring for them indoors,
one comes to experience
their symbolism with a
greater intimacy and devotional illumination than in the outdoor
Mary Garden.
Dish Mary Gardens also provide an opportunity to compose plant
tableaux around Mysteries of Our Lady, as in this dish Mary Garden
tableau of the Mystery of the Crucifixion, composed with Mary's
Sword of Sorrow (Iris), Our Lady's Tears (water drops on Lady's
Mantle), Crown of Thorns, and Our Lady's Rue (Rue).
48. Windowsill and Classroom Mary Gardens
Windowsill Mary
Gardens provide the same
benefits as dish Mary
Gardens plus a larger
number of plants, and
the mobility of potted
plants permitting
rearrangement for overall
balance or composition
of tableaux for the
liturgical seasons.
This is a home study
windowsill Mary Garden,
keeping the Flowers of Our Lady symbolism at hand for the quickening
of reflection and prayer while writing or doing research.
Such windowsill Mary Gardens are especially suited to sunlit
classroom windowsills.
49. Greenhouse Mary Gardens
Greenhouse Mary Gardens,
provide an opportunity for
those in the temperate
climatic zones of North
America and Europe, to
experience firsthand the
beauty and symbolism of a
variety of tropical
Flowers of Our Lady found
and named by missionaries
and their converts in
Mexico, Central and South
America.
This is Our Lady's Solar
Greenhouse at the Hagerman,
Idaho herb nursery -
employing the engineering
principles of passive
solar energy to provide
for: the most effective exposure to the sun; the storage of the
sun's heat in black drums of water and bottles of dyed water for
nighttime and cloudy weather warmth; the use of insulating panels
and blinds to minimize heat loss at night; and the control of air
circulation.
Statues of Our Lady of Fatima, recalling the Fatima miracle of the
sun, and of Our Lady of Guadalupe, representing Mary as the Woman
clothed with the sun of Revelations, were used as focal figures on
greenhouse plant tables, as shown.
The individual flower pots in which the tropical Flowers of Our Lady
were grown permitted ready movement of the plants to arrange blooms
around the statues at all times.
Another greenhouse table was used for the composition of plant
tableaux for the various liturgical seasons - such as those of the
Immaculate Conception, the Nativity, Lent, the Sacred and
Immaculate Hearts.
Also on display for visitors - in the greenhouse and on various
windowsills of the connecting house - were numerous dish Mary
Gardens.
50. Woods Hole Mary Garden
We conclude this
presentation with a
return to the mother
Mary Garden at St.
Joseph's Church in
Woods Hole.
Here we see the focal
statue of Mary, Queen,
as Our Lady of the
Annunciation with
Madonna Lily blooms -
reminiscent of the
Renaissance paintings
of the Annunciation.
As we meditate on the Annunciation while praying the Angelus or the
first mystery of the Rosary in such a setting, the pure translucent
whiteness of the blooms quickens our interior sense of Mary's
spotless maidenly purity with which she received and responded to
the message of the angel.
The illumination of these and the other flower symbols of the
mysteries of Our Lady assist our active imaginations "that while
meditating on these mysteries of the Blessed Virgin Mary we may
imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise" (concluding
Rosary prayer); that we, like Mary, may be open to God's call and
responsive to his promptings in our lives.
And so may it be with all the Flowers of Our Lady in our hearts
and gardens.
(THE END)
Copyright, Mary's Gardens 1961, 1997