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Intro Mary Garden
By John.S. Stokes, Jr.
AVE, Society of Mary, London Annunciationtide and
Assumptiontide, 1984
(An article by John S. Stokes, a Roman Catholic member of the
Society, attached to the American Region.)
The association of plants and flowers with the Blessed Virgin
Mary originated with the early Church Fathers, who saw her
prefigured in passages from the Old Testament containing nature
imagery:
"I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valley."
(Canticles 2: 1)
"I have struck root among the glorious people, . . .
in the portion of the Lord, his heritage,
Like a cedar on Lebanon . . . a cypress on Mount Hermon,
Like a palm tree in Engedi, like a rosebush in Jericho,
Like a fair olive tree in the field,
Like a plane tree growing beside the water . . .
I give forth perfume . . .
I spread my branches . . .
I bud forth delights like the vine,
My blossoms bear fruit fair and rich."
(Sirach 24: 13-17)
From this period, also, comes the legend that after Mary's
Assumption into heaven, roses and lilies were found in her tomb.
Many biblical figures from nature were also incorporated in
the early liturgical breviaries which began to appear in the tenth
century, including the "Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary":
Holy Paradise of Eden, Tree of Life, Rod of Jesse, Bush Burning,
Unconsumed.
Perhaps the first recorded symbolic association of distinct
parts of plants with Mary was that of St. Bede in the eighth
century, who saw the translucent white petals of the lily to be a
symbol of her body as she was assumed into heaven, and its golden
anthers, the glorious resplendence of her soul.
The earliest association of a number of plants with Mary is
the listing of plants included in the "Assumption Bundles" of
plants blessed in Church on the Feast of the Assumption - going
back to the ninth century.
By the twelfth century, St. Bernard referred to Mary as "The
rose of charity, the lily of chastity, the violet of humility, and
the golden gillyflower of heaven".
The concrete application of this ideal imagery to actual
plants and flowers in the popular rural traditions of Christendom
may have originated in the thirteenth century with St. Francis of
Assisi, who is said to have taken care never to tread on the least
wayside flower, as it was a symbol of Mary, the Rose of Jericho.
Such a symbolical view of wildflowers was presumably spread through
the countrysides by mendicant friars, wandering minstrels, poets and
itinerant players.
Another possible origin of the wildflower symbols of the
Blessed Virgin may have been in the new preoccupation of the
faithful with the concrete reality of the Holy Land; the life of
the Holy Family; and the details of Christ's arrest, trial and
crucifixion, as a result of the Crusades.
This preoccupation was intensified by a number of "relics of
the Virgin" reputed to have been brought back to Europe from the
Holy Land by returning Crusaders.
One collection of such relics, as described in Benedicta
Ward's Miracles and the Medieval Mind (1982), was taken on tour
on the continent in 1112 and in England in 1113, accompanied by
many miracles. Included among these relics was "Our Lady's Hair",
pieces of which were reputed to have been preserved by St. John
after Mary tore them from her head in grief at the foot of the
Cross, and eventually brought to Europe from the Holy Land.
Other relics taken on this tour included a piece of Mary's
Mantle, and objects bearing the dried traces of her Tears and of
her Milk Drops. Another famous relic of the Virgin of that era
was "Our Lady's Slipper". For all of these relics there are
corresponding symbolically named plants: Our Lady's Tresses, Our
Lady's Mantle, Our Lady's Tears, Our Lady's Milk Drops and Our
Lady's Slipper. We suspect that the Slipper Chapel at the
Walsingham Shrine of Our Lady originally received its name as the
repository of the relic, Our Lady's Slipper, and that the practice
of pilgrims removing their shoes for the final walk to the main
shrine was instituted in honor of the relic.
The new concreteness given to the Holy Land; to the life of
the Holy Family; and to the details of Christ's passion and death,
through the Crusades, may very well have prompted the imaginative
discovery and naming of a great many additional plant symbols,
beyond those immediately inspired by relics.
Another manifestation of this concreteness was the
proliferation of miraculous "Legends of the Madonna", many of
which involved plants. Thus a number of "Manger Plants" - Holy
Hay, Cradlewort and Our Lady's Bedstraw - were reputed to have
bloomed when the new born Saviour was laid on them, testifying to
his divinity; and a number of "Milk" plants were said to have
received the white spots on their leaves after drops of the
Nursing Madonna's milk fell on them, testifying to his humanity.
From the milk drop legend, botanists gave the milk thistle the
botanical name, Silybum Marianum.
The earliest record of a plant actually named for Mary known
to us is "seint mary gouldes" (St. Mary's Golds or Marygolds), for
the Pot Marigold or Calendula officinalis, in a 1373 English
recipe for a potion to ward off the plague.
The oldest botanical record we know of is that of "Our Lady's
Slipper" (trans.), as recorded in the herbal of Vitus Auslasser
published in Germany in 1497.
The first book listing a number of plants so named together as
a group is Bauhin's De plantis a divis sanctissime nomen habentatus,
published in Switzerland in 1591.
Still further impetus was given to the religious naming of
plants of the countryside by the use of flower symbols in
religious painting. As with painted and sculpted images of the
Virgin, symbolical plants evidently served to evoke for the
faithful a heightened sense of Mary's reality and presence.
Thus, the universe of the Flowers of Our Lady came to include
a diversity of symbols of the Manger at Bethlehem, of the daily
life of the Holy Family in Nazareth, and of Christ's passion and
death; as well as more abstract symbols of Mary's excellences,
virtues and glories, deriving from the Fathers and St. Francis.
As one author summed it up:
"Mary-Flowers bloom in the greatest abundance throughout the
countryside: and as varied as they are in form and colour, in
character and attributes, so diverse are the origins and
associations of their names.
"To begin with, purity, whiteness, delicacy and fragrance
belong to the Mother of God whose praises they proclaim according
to the words of the old song (Gottfried von Strassburg's 'Song of
Praise to Mary'): 'Grass, flowers and clover join in her praises .
. . laughing roses and playing blossoms . blooming hedges . . .
rose blossoms and lily petals . . . valleys of roses and fields of
violets . . . flowers shining through blooming clover . . . all
praising the Noble Plant of Fruitful Purity.'
"Additionally, healing plants which were especially loved and
esteemed were honored with the name of Mary, in whose lap the true
healing of the world lay. Accordingly, in Tyrol . . . the days
between the 'Lady Days' (The Assumption of Mary and the Nativity
of Mary) were valued as the best time to gather roots and useful
plants, and because of this, the first of these days was called
Root-Blessing.
"Further, according to long-established folk outlook, the
flower kingdom was given over to the household articles and the
apparel of the Mother of the Child Jesus. In order that in the
loving eyes of children looking backwards in time to where Jesus
was born in the flesh, nothing associated with the Mother of the
Heavenly Child, no matter how insignificant would fail to excel
all others on earth, or would appear too insignificant for the
Mother of the Heavenly Child not to have the best before all
others, it was seen as fitting that she be thus served by the
direct creations of God.
"Legendary stories often provide the explanation for these
and other names: and if legends, and also the outlook, generated
by a childlike sense, which we no longer find much room for - or
which, rather, are like flower petals blown away from the stems -
if the sweet fruit of evangelical truth begins to ripen on these
stems, then the blown away petals still have at least as much
right as each bloom and each children's game to bring us joy.
Many of the names are explained by legends and associations to
which, alas, the key is missing. Is it indeed possible to find it
again?"
(Johanne Nathusius, The World of Flowers - According to their
Names, Sense and Meaning, 1869. translated.)
The full extent of the association of flowers with Mary as
symbols, by name, was not appreciated in the modern era until over
a thousand such namings were catalogued by botanists, folklorists
and lexicographers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Yet, before the founding of the Garden of Our Lady on the
grounds of St. Joseph's Church, Woods Hole, Massachusetts by
Frances Crane Lillie in 1932, there is no authenticated record
known to us of a number of these plants being specially planted
together to comprise a whole Mary Garden of Flowers of Our Lady.
Such a garden, when sacramentally blessed, provides a
confluence of all the grace, light, wisdom and power flowing
through individual symbolical flowers in one holy symphony of
praise, meditation and regeneration,
In a 1946 article, "Lillie Tower", Rev. James J. Galvin
C.S.S.R. saw the Woods Hole Garden of Our Lady as a call to
restore flowers and their names from the secular domain to "Our
Lady's Dowry".
In 1951, Edward A. G. McTague, on learning of the Garden of
Our Lady, queried: "Why not more than one?" Acting on this, he
and the writer with the blessing of Mrs. Lillie and the cooperation
of Father Galvin, founded the spare-time, non-profit, religious,
project, Mary's Gardens, in Philadelphia to introduce and spread
the idea and practice of planting private and public Mary Gardens
of Flowers of Our Lady as a prayerful, religious work. In the
over 30 years since then, over 60 articles have been written on
this work and over 30,000 inquiries answered, from throughout the
United States and from many other countries around the world.
In this we drew on the medieval vision - as portrayed in art
- of small gardens as "paradises", symbolic of both the earthly
and the heavenly paradises. We also adopted the mediaeval
practice of the liturgical blessing of gardens as holy places, and
plants and flowers as holy objects.
Thus, Mary Gardens of Flowers of Our Lady took on a
sacramental and illuminative quality - providing a support for
meditation and mystical life, and a vision for the renewal of the
face of the earth.
As Mrs. Lillie informed us that the inspiration for her
founding of the Garden of Our Lady came from English monastery
gardens, we at first assumed that there was an established
religious custom of growing Mary Gardens in England and other
European countries, and that our work was mainly that of
introducing the custom in the United States.
With the passing of time, we discovered that this was
evidently not the case. In response to articles on our work
published in England and Ireland, a number of people wrote us from
these countries asking us for information, saying that such gardens
were unknown to them. This was corroborated by correspondence we
entered into with the writer of a letter to the London "Church
Times" asking if anyone could provide him with information on the
Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens.
Further corroboration came through correspondence with
Teresa McLean, author of English Mediaeval Gardens (1981) who
advised us she had researched all available documents on English
monastery gardens and had found no reference of a Mary Garden
comprised of symbolical Flowers of Our Lady. Notwithstanding the
fact that the Mary-names of flowers as they grew wild or were
cultivated in gardens were common knowledge - as evidenced by the
Oxford English Dictionary and numerous gardening books and
dictionaries of old English plant names - evidently there was no
custom of growing special gardens comprised only of such flowers.
Recently a collection of Plants of the Virgin Mary was
incorporated in the cloister gardens of Lincoln Cathedral as a
matter of historical interest, as illustrated in a beautiful
leaflet, "Plants of the Virgin Mary", published by The Flower
Arranger in London.
On reading in "AVE" of the ancient English Marian shrines
being rediscovered and restored by Horace Keast and others, we
reflected that the English Flowers of Our Lady of the Mediaeval
period, too, were still growing in England and only awaited the
rediscovery of the rich content of their symbolism. It is hoped
that members of the Society of Mary will be moved to restore this
richness to English piety and gardening, as summoned by "The
Marygold":
Long years ago, ere faith and love
Had left our land to sin and shame,
Her children called my blossoms bright
By their sweet Mother's gentle name.
And when amid the leaflets green
They saw sweet "Mary-buds" unfold.
In honour of the Angels' Queen
They plucked the Royal Marygold.
I was the favourite of the poor,
And bloomed by every cottage door.
Speaking of Heaven's Fair Queen to men.
They loved me for the name I bore.
There is no love for Marye now,
And faith died out when love grew cold.
Men seldom raised their hearts to Heav'n
Though looking at the Marygold.
But Marye from her throne on high
Still looks on England and on me:
The namesake of the Queen am I,
The Ladye of the Land is she.
And surely she must win once more
Her heritage to Christ's True Fold:
Then to her children, as of yore,
Will preach again the Marygold.
(Legends of Our Ladye and the Saints, London. (1870)
Reprinted with Permission