Chat and Photos


Inspired Flowers of Our Lady Imagery

May 29, 2001 

John Stokes, Philadelphia, PA


In the Mary Garden, as in the medieval countrysides. the Flowers of
Our Lady delightfully "teach themselves" to adults and children, as
their symbolism of our Lady's life, virtues, mysteries and
prerogatives is recognized from their old medieval names.

A child's imaginative thoughts as thus quickened by the Flowers of
Our Lady as they came into bloom through the year in a home Mary
Garden are to be found in the journal narrative, "In Mary's Garden."

Through the years this time-unctioned flower symbolism - with origins
in Scripture and the writings of the Church Fathers, and
incorporated in the Liturgy - was enriched through the stories,
songs, plays, poems, tales and legends of the oral traditions by
which the 90% of the faithful who were illiterate largely knew and
celebrated the Faith in the 1500 years of the Church prior to the
introduction of printing, books and general literacy in the 16th
century; and when the Mass was in latin, the churches were cold,
damp and without benches, and there were no microphones and speakers
by which sermons and homilies could be heard.

Legends, poems and tales for 30 Flowers of Our Lady have been
collected in Vincenzina Krymow's classic "Mary's Flowers - Gardens,
Legends & Meditations".

While those who meditate today from verbal texts struggle with
distractions, spiritual dryness. "dark nights", etc., while waiting
for illumination; the time-unctioned flower symbols luminously
appealed to the imaginations of those of simple faith who regularly
reflected on them in the course of daily rural living - quickening
an affective, loving sense of the presence of Jesus and Mary and of
spiritual communion and union with them.

Another source of flower imagery for meditation has been the
inspired locutions and writings of ascetics, mystics and
charismatics, which, when consistent with Church teaching, serve
further to enrich these meditations.

There have recently appeared in English translation some passages,
excerpted here, from Maria Valtorta's "The Poem of the Man-God", of
the 1940's - neither officially approved nor disapproved by the
Church, but individually endorsed by Pope Pius XII and several
Vatican officials - which, whether imaginative or inspired, augment
for meditation the richness of traditional Marian flower symbolism.

                              o O o


Poem of the Man-God

Maria Valtorta

(excerpts)


Volume I

Chapter 4

(Mary, Immaculate in Anna's Womb)

"The world has its flowers, but did not yet know, the true, unique
Flower, that blooms eternally:  Lily and rose, sweet smelling violet
and jasmine, helianthus and cyclamen blended together and with them
all the grace and virtue is gathered together. . .

"In April the land of Palestine looked like a huge garden and the
fragrance and colours delighted the hearts of men.  But the most
beautiful rose was still unknown.  She was already flowering to God
in the secrecy of Her Mothers womb, because My Mother loved since
she was conceived.  But only when the vine gives its blood to make
wine and the sweet strong smells fill the yards and the nostrils,
would She smile to God first and then to the world, saying with Her
most innocent smile: 'Here, the vine that will give You the bunch of
grapes to be squeezed in the winepress, so that it will become
eternal medicine for your disease, is amongst you'. I said: 'Mary
loved since she was conceived!'  What is it that gives light and
knowledge to the soul?  Grace: What is it that removes Grace?
Original sin and the mortal one.  Mary, the Immaculate, was never
deprived of the remembrance of God, of His closeness, His Love, His
light, His wisdom.  She was therefore able to understand and love
when she was but flesh forming around an immaculate soul that
continued to love."


Chapter 5

(Infant Mary's Hands)

"Her tiny hands ... what are those two little things groping in the
air and ending up in Her mouth?  Closed, as they are now, they are
two rose buds that split the green of their sepals and show their
silk within.  When they are open, as now, they are two ivory jewels,
made of pink ivory and alabaster with five pale garnets as nails.
How will those two tiny hands be able to dry so many tears?"


(Admonition to Anna and Joachim and to Angels to protect the Infant
Mary's Immaculate Conception purity)

"Cover, do cover this bud of a lily which will never be opened on
earth and which, still remaining a bud, will bear its Flower, even
more beautiful then Herself. Only in Heaven the Lily of the Triune
Lord will open all its petals. Because up there, there is no
particle of fault that may unwillingly profane its spotlessness.
Because up there the Triune God is to be received, in the presence
of the whole Empyrean, the Triune God that within a few years,
hidden in a faultless heart, will be in Her: Father, Son, Spouse."

Chapter 7

(The little girl, Mary, brings flowers to Anna - seeing in them
symbolism)

"Little Mary comes forwards from the shady pergola . . . She has in
her hands poppies, cornflowers and other flowers that grow in
cornfields . . . She lifts her head and offers her mother flowers.
They are all for her mummy and of each one she tells the story she
has invented.

"This blue and big one, is a star which has come down from Heaven to
bring the kiss of the Lord to My Mummy.  Here: kiss this little
celestial flower there, on its heart, and you will see that it
tastes of God.

"This other one which, instead, is a paler blue, like daddy's eyes,
has written on its leaves that the Lord loves daddy very much
because he is good.

"And this tiny one, the only one to be found, it is a myosote, is
the one that God made to tell Mary that He loves her.

"And these red ones, does mummy know what they are? They are pieces
of King David's dress, stained with the blood of the enemies of
Israel and sown on the battlefields and the fields of victory. They
originated from those strips of the heroic regal dress torn in the
struggle for the Lord.

"Instead this white and gentle one, that seems to be made with
several silk cups looking up at the sky, full of perfumes, and that
was growing over there, near the spring - daddy picked it from there
amongst the thorns - is made with the dress of Solomon.  He wore it,
so many many years before, in the same month in which his little
granddaughter was born, when he walked in the midst of the
multitudes of Israel before the Ark and the Tabernacle, in the
splendid majesty of his robes.  And He rejoiced because of the cloud
which returned to encircle his glory, and he sang the canticle and
the prayer of his joy."