Go to Home Page
Intro Mary Garden
Mary Gardens
John S. Stokes Jr.
The Marian Era III, 1962
Early Christians venerated Mary as the Blessed Virgin of
prophecy, as the Mother of Christ, as the model of Christian
virtue, and as the Mother of the beginning Church. Veneration of
Mary was confirmed and deepened in 431 when the Council of Ephesus
defined and proclaimed as dogma the truth that Christ was true God
and true man at birth and, therefore, the Blessed Virgin, his
mother, was the very Mother of God. In his mercy, the infinite
God became a child, whom one could approach in the arms of his
Virgin Mother and confidently follow, with her, to Nazareth,
Galilee, Calvary, and Heaven.
The truth of Mary's divine maternity was represented visually
to the faithful, for their instruction and meditation, in images
of the Virgin and Child, notably in the mosaics of the Church of
St. Mary Major in Rome, which commemorate the Council of Ephesus.
These images portray the Virgin holding the Divine Word incarnate
enthroned on her knees for all to adore; or pointing to him in her
arms as the Emmanuel of prophecy whom all should hear and follow.
Or they represent her alone in an attitude of prayer, interceding
with her Son in heaven for his Church on earth. Veneration paid
to Mary before such images was veneration paid through her to God,
who created her and blessed her as his mother and collaborator in
thc work of human redemption.
When the use of religious images was attacked as idolatrous
by iconoclast Christians, the Church was quick to defend them for
their importance as aids to religious teaching and prayer. Images
are a universal language, and by them the illiterate are enabled
to read. An image is not the person imaged and is not to be
venerated in itself; but it represents the truth of the person,
helps make the person present in the mind of the beholder, and
serves as an aid in directing prayers to the person. Homage
rendered to an image extends to the person imaged.
Through the centuries, Christians have offered gifts and
prayers to Mary, in veneration of her, or in confidence that she
will receive them for Jesus, as she received the gifts of the
Magi. In this sense, flowers placed before Our Lady's image are an
offering to our Lady herself in heaven, and through her to Jesus,
as well as an adornmznt of her image and a symbol of homage paid
to her.
In Christian folklore, there are several beautiful legends
telling of flower gifts to the infant Savior. One relates that
when a poor girl wept because she had no gift to place with those
brought by the shepherds to the manger at Bethlehem, an angel of
the heavenly choir swept the ground with his wings, miraculously
raising up the blooms of the Christmas Rose for her to pick as her
gift to the Christ Child. Another tells that the home of the
Child Jesus was identified for the Magi by golden chrysanthemums
growing before it, resembling the star which had stopped in the
sky above.
Picking the flowers as their first gifts, the Magi entered
and placed them in the outstretched hand of the Divine Child, whom
they found with Mary, his Mother. Yet another legend relates
that, after the star had stopped in the sky above, it burst into
bright fragments which fell to the ground and were transformed
into the flowers still known today as the Star of Bethlehem in
order to indicate to the Magi the holiness of the place.
From Old Testament times flowers have served as symbols of
God's presence and of heaven. Man was created in a garden. A
flowering staff was the sign of Aaron's election to the Jewish
priesthood. Isaiah represented the coming of the Redeemer as the
flowering of a rod out of the root of Jesse. In Christian
tradition, martyrs wore garlands of flowers when going into the
arena. Lilies and roses are said to have been found in Our Lady's
tomb after her Assumption into heaven. St. Dorothy, patroness of
gardeners, miraculously sent a basket of heavenly flowers and
fruits to her executioners.
The manuscripts of Holy Writ were illuminated with flower
designs to express respect and love for the word of God.
Similarly, the great medieval cathedrals were decorated with
flowers in paintings and mosaics, in sculpture and stained glass.
Floral designs were embroidered on priestly vestments. Flowers,
used on the altar, are symbolical of the beauty of God and his
presence; and they have been used extensively as garlands and in
carpets for liturgical processions. Dante envisaged heaven as a
great rose with God and the Blessed Virgin at the center. St.
John of the Cross, St. Louis de Montfort, and others have turned
to flower and garden imagery to illustrate the mystical life of
the soul.
Before all else, flowers recall Christ, the first-born of all
creatures, through whom all things were made. St. Bernard spoke
of this symbolism at length in his Sermons on the Canticle of
Canticles. But, since Christ is always with us in the Holy
Eucharist, in his priests and in our neighbor, flowers have come
to be associated more especially with his immaculate Virgin
Mother. Everything beautiful Christians saw in Our Lord, they saw
also in Our Lady, who of all creatures was most close to Him and
like unto Him.
Thus, the Church Fathers applied to Mary the titles Rose of
Sharon, Lily of the Valleys, and Garden Enclosed, from the
Canticle of Canticles, in which they saw her typified as the
mystical bride of Christ. Likewise, she was given the title
Mystical Rose, preserved today in the Litany of Loreto together
with her title, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary.
In the eighth century, Venerable Bede wrote of the lily as the
emblem of the Blessed Virgin, the white petals symbolizing her
pure body and the golden anthers the beauty of her soul. In their
quest for the most perfect likeness of Mary, medieval Christians
discovered that of all God's creatures none could surpass flowers
in suggesting the immaculateness of her purity, the beauty of her
holiness, or the splendor of her heavenly glory. Similarly,
fragrant herbs and flowers were unexcelled in recalling her
spiritual sweetness; soothing and healing herbs, her heavenly
mercy and succor; and bitter and sour herbs, her bitter sorrows.
St. Francis is said to have taken care never to step on the least
wayside plant because it might bear a flower, symbol of Mary, the
Rose of Sharon.
In her appearances on earth, notably at Guadalupe and
Lourdes, Our Lady has brought heavenly flowers with her. Speaking
of Lourdes, Pope Pius XII stated in an address cited at greater
length further on, "When Mary appeared to St. Bernadette on the
rock at Maisabielle, where the speckled rose bush grew, each of her
feet was adorned with a blooming rose. She whom the Church had
just proclaimed the Immaculate Conception, manifested in this way,
to a poor and artless child, the fulness of her perfections and
the delicacy of her goodness."
Similarly, the placing of flowers before Mary's image is
also, in a way, the completion of the image, showing forth for the
beholder's consideration her attributes which elude artistic
representation in the image itself. The rose was adopted as the
emblem of Mary's love of God. The white lily, particularly the
Madonna lily, was used to represent her purity, the myrtle her
virginity, the violet her humility, and the marigold (Marygold)
her heavenly glory. With the adoption of painting in the
fourteenth century as the principal means of imaging Mary,
representations of her flower symbols were incorporated directly
into the paintings themselves as symbols of her attributes.
While flowers were gathered for Mary's images, it became
apparent in each locality or region that certain flowers were best
suited for this purpose because they were better loved, more
abundant, bloomed longer, or lasted longer after being picked. For
this reason, evidently, these flowers came to be especially
dedicated to Mary and were given names such as Mary's Flower, Our
Lady's Flower, or The Virgin's Flower.
In some regions today such flowers are still reserved
exclusively for use before Mary's images. Special prayers may be
said when they are picked. Whenever possible they are picked in
remote spots where they previously have been unseen and untouched,
and care is taken not to look at them or smell them for personal
enjoyment, so they will truly have been reserved for Our Lady.
Other flowers were adopted as symbols of Our Lady as they
grew in gardens or in the countrysides. Many were used and named
to recall the mysteries of Our Lady's life: the Madonna Lily, the
Annunciation; Our Lady's Slipper, the Visitation; Our Lady's
Bedstraw, the Nativity; and so on through Assumption Lily which
recalled Our Lady's Assumption, and Mary's Crown, recalling her
coronation as heaven's queen.
In some instances these associations came from the color or
form of the flowers. In others they arose because the flowers
were usually in bloom for certain of the liturgical feast days of
the Blessed Virgin. The Old English Table of Flowers lists the
flowers which were said to be used on the altar for Our Lady's
feasts, and all the principal feasts of the Church year. A book,
The Mary Calendar, by Judith Smith, published in England in
1930 follows the bloom cycle of Our Lady's flowers throughout
the year.
An instance of the liturgical use and naming of a flower is
the snowdrop, which in England is in bloom for the feast of the
Purification of the Blessed Virgin, or Candlemas, February 2nd. It
is recorded that, on the feast of the Purification, Our Lady's
statue was carried from churches in procession to recall her trip
to the temple with Joseph and the Child Jesus. Then pure white
blooms of snowdrops were strewn for the entire day in the statue's
place as special symbols of Mary's unstained purity. Because of
this practice, the snowdrop was known as Purification Flower,
Candlemas Bells, Our Lady of February, Fair Maids of February and
The Virgin's Flower.
A large number of flowers were known by names denoting their
fancied resemblance to Mary's pure eyes, or to her tresses, hands,
or fingers. Others were envisaged as her mantle, smock, belt, or
shoes; or her pins, needles, thread or sewing work - as though
everything she touched partook of her purity.
The flowers called "Mary's Cross" recalled that Mary
participated in the Redemption by sharing interiorly offering to
the Eternal Father and the sufferings of Christ. "Mary's Mantle"
symbolizes her motherly protection of the faithful. And "Mary's
Heart" moved Christians to implore the intercession of her
Immaculate Heart with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Research conducted by the project, "Mary's Gardens," of
Philadelphia, into the medieval flower symbolism of England,
Ireland, Germany, Flanders, France, Italy, Spain, and other
countries has documented so far over one thousand distinct plant
names and symbolisms referring to Our Lady. These have been
obtained largely from general, dialect, horticultural, and
folklore dictionaries which, starting in the sixteenth century,
recorded them from the prior oral traditions of the countrysides,
and referred to them as plants or flowers of Our Lady. Authorities
are in agreement that the prefix "Lady," "Lady's," or "Ladies,"
in the old names of plants is almost always a foreshortening of
"Our Lady" and refers to the Blessed Virgin Mary, just as do the
prefixes "Mary's" and "Virgin's" in most instances.
Many plant names referring to Our Lady are explained by old
legends. Virgin Mary's Thistle, whose association with Mary is
also indicated by its botanical name, Silybum marianum, was said
to have received the white markings on its leaves when drops of
the Maiden Mother's immaculate milk dropped on them while she
nursed the Child Jesus.
The medieval period was also marked by a widespread desire to
venerate Mary through special works undertaken in her honor and
service. As the recipient of such service, Mary was invoked under
her title of Our Lady, Notre Dame, Unsure Frau. Theologians,
saints, and poets took pen in hand in her praise. Artisans
erected the great cathedrals in her honor. Artists proclaimed her
praises in sculpture, painting, and stained glass; musicians in
chant and polyphony. Crusaders marched and fought under her
banner.
Gardeners, too, wished to dedicate their work to Our Lady in
a special way. Thus came into being the St. Mary's Garden or Mary
Garden, a collection of her symbolical flowers cultivated in
Mary's honor.
There are few detailed reports about medieval gardens, and
the exact origin of the Mary Garden has not been determined.
Cathedrals are still standing, but gardens have changed and
disappeared. With a few notable exceptions, those who gardened in
early medieval times did not write books. Those who did write and
illustrate books about plants largely relied on classical works
and exhibited little first-hand experience in the garden or
countryside. Perhaps the garden which St. Fiacre, medieval patron
saint of gardeners, tended in the seventh century around an
oratory of Our Lady can be regarded as the historical prototype
for the Mary Garden.
The first specific mention of a Mary Garden known to the
writer is in An introduction to the Obedientary and Manor Rolls
of Norwich Cathedral Priory, by H. W. Saunders, where it is
stated that the sacristan, in the fifteenth century, had a "green
garden" and "St. Mary's garden." In her book, Green Enchantment,
Rosetta Clarkson devotes an entire chapter to the St. Mary's
Garden at Melrose Abbey, Scotland, in the 1530's, which was
likewise a part of the sacristan's garden. Presumably the
monastic Mary Gardens were centers where Flowers of Our Lady were
collected from the surrounding countryside. In this connection,
Edward A. G. McTague, co-founder with the writer of the
present-day Mary Garden restoration movement, has written:
"It seems to us that the religious symbolic plant
associations, having entered into use in one area, came to be
reported in other regions mainly because of travels: through
missionaries, monks and friars, pilgrims, members of the Crusades
and other warriors, the wandering scholars, roving singers and
traveling players, and merchants. The people of a region chose to
give the general, basic religious associations to those native
plants.
"We must keep in mind that, during the centuries when
Europe was Christendom, the centers of religion and learning - the
monasteries - were places of refuge and offered hospitality for
travelers. In fact, a supplementary practical purpose for the
location of some monasteries on pilgrimage routes, for example,
was to fill a dire need: safe and honest hostels, the reduction of
the severe hardships of travel, protection from local robber
bands, and freedom from petty swindling and gouging by tradesmen.
Also, the monks were adept in agricultural and horticultural
works, and the monasteries were almost the sole repositories of
the knowledge for such pursuits. Being dedicated to religion in
the sense of a binding to God, the monks (like their transient
guests) were probably the main source for the spread of plant and
flower 'love names' of religious association or significance."
Originally sacristan's gardens were established as "cutting
gardens" to provide flowers for the altar and for church
processions. And when Flowers of Our Lady and their symbolism
were introduced into them, they became of themselves special
places for prayer and meditation. It is not established with
historical certainty, either, just when statues of Our Lady were
first used in Mary Gardens. Perhaps they were placed in
previously established sacristan's Mary Gardens; or perhaps small
Mary Gardens were planted around statues in other parts of the
monastery grounds, such as the cloister garth or orchard.
Iconographers tell us that the fifteenth and sixteenth
century Flemish and German Mary Garden paintings of the Madonna
and Child, surrounded by symbolical flowers, were modeled after
the small private gardens of the period, known as "cortiles" or
paradises. Perhaps some of these gardens contained statues of our
Lady as well as her flowers, depicted so realistically in the
paintings.
When figures of Our Lady were placed outdoors in Mary Gardens
a new alliance of art and nature was achieved in Mary's honor. An
artistic image of Mary as woman and mother, not fully imaged in
flowers, was surrounded by flower symbols of her attributes
surpassing anything to be found in art.
As a place of quiet and solitude, a garden is eminently
suited for prayer. As a place filled with flower symbols of Our
Lady's perfections and graces, rising up around her image, a Mary
Garden is eminently suited for prayer to Mary and for meditation
on her life and mysteries. The ever-present flower reminders of
Our Lady prompt the gardener to constant and fervent renewal of
the spiritual intentions and dedication of his Mary Garden work.
The central statue of Our Lady serves as a focal point for
offering these intentions and this dedication to Our Lady herself,
our Mediatrix with her Divine Son and Lord.
On gaining more intimate knowledge of each plant, one extends
the religious associations initially based on its blooms to all
its parts and its stages of growth: from seed or root to shoots
and foliage, and, after bloom, to seed pods and aftermaths, and
thence to dormancy or death. In this way, each plant comes to
have its religious associations throughout the year, not just when
it is in bloom, so that all year round a Mary Garden is a full
litany or encyclopedia of Our Lady.
Like the sculptured and stained-glass representations of the
great cathedrals, the rich symbolism of our Lady's Flowers is
evidence that, in the ages of faith, Marian teaching and devotion
were not confined to the books of the schoolmen but penetrated
down to the grass roots of popular religious culture and
tradition. Through symbols, as well as images, the illiterate
were enabled to read; and nature's printing press reproduced our
Lady's flower symbols by the millions.
The usefulness and importance of religious symbolism has been
rediscovered by contemporary educators and the leaders of the
liturgical revival. Symbols have a power to communicate and to
recall religious truths more directly than verbal constructions,
and with an immediacy which touches the heart and quickens the
soul to prayerful thoughts and acts.
Writing in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record of the medieval
flower symbols of our Lady, Robert Ostermann has said: "Suddenly,
like a dream ending, we begin to appreciate how terrible, how
unabridged is the distance separating us from medieval piety. We
are complex and muddled, uncertain of our postulates or
allegiance. It takes an entirely different view of things to see
in the shape of a flower a mirror into which our Lady may have
gazed."
Yet it is precisely to the profound faith and piety of
medieval times that our Holy Father, Pope John XXIII, exhorts us
to return. In a letter to Cardinal Micara of September 28, 1960,
in which he called Romans to renewed fervor in praying the Rosary,
His Holiness said: "We have the liveliest interest in the worthy
men and heads of state . . . in high positions over peoples and
nations.... We follow their work with all our heart and fervently
encourage them and bless them.... But above all else, in union
with the Christian people, We issue an invitation to greater
fervor in praying to the Mother of Jesus and our Mother: Mary,
Help of Christians and Queen of the World. How moving the
invitation to prayer that St. Bernard suggested for his own times
still is today! We mean his words: 'Look at the star, call upon
Mary.'"
Working regularly with the Flowers of Our Lady is a means,
for those who garden, of entering into the piety of medieval
Christians, whose thoughts were never far from Mary. Surely, St.
Bernard, who praised our Lady as "the violet of humility, the lily
of chastity, and the rose of charity," and also as "the balm of
Gilead and the golden gillyflower of heaven," would have us call
upon Mary as we look at flowers, the stars in earth's firmament.
And going back farther, to the life of the Holy Family in
Nazareth, we can reflect to advantage on St. Joseph, the model and
inspiration of all work for Mary and Jesus. Because of his
adoption by the Church as universal patron of workmen, he is
doubly suited as the patron for our Mary Garden work. Finally, we
can consider that the Boy Jesus surely must have gathered and
perhaps even cultivated flowers for his most pure Mother.
Flower symbolism was first brought to the Americas by Spanish
explorers and missionaries, who named the native American marigold
(Marygold) and other plants for Mary. St. Rose of Lima tended her
garden for religious purposes; but it is not clear that it was a
Mary Garden or that she regarded the flowers in it as formal
symbols of our Lady, although this has been stated in some
accounts of her life. English settlers imported English names for
familiar wild flowers found in North America, such as Lady's
Slipper, Lady's Tresses, and Lady's Thumb, still commonly used
today. German Benedictines brought with them the custom of using
flower symbols as a basis for meditations on our Lady; and in 1894
the Benedictine Sisters at St. Mary's, Pennsylvania, published a
book, "Flowers of Mary", by Fr. Louis Gemminger, translated from
the German (4th edition, 1858), consisting of thirty-one
meditations on Mary, each based on a different flower, for the
thirty-one days of May.
The first public Mary Garden in the United States of which we
know was the Garden of Our Lady at St. Joseph's Church, Woods Hole
on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, established in the early 1930's by a
summer parishioner, Mrs. Frank R. Lillie. This garden, now
maintained through a perpetual fund established by her for the
purpose, occasioned the inspiration for the project, "Mary's
Gardens," of Philadelphia, which has been promoting the
restoration and spread of Mary Gardens throughout the United
States and in foreign countries since 1951.
Meditating on flowers as symbols of the immaculateness of
Mary's purity, the beauty of her holiness, and the splendor of her
heavenly glory, we are moved to give glory to God as the soul of
Mary magnified the Lord. Reflecting on flower symbols of our
Lady's life and mysteries, we thank God for the privileges and
graces he bestowed on Mary for her role as his mother and
companion in the salvation of the world. We rejoice in Mary's
love of God and her perfect obedience to his will, the model and
inspiration of our own love and service of God. Reminded in this
way of how pleasing Mary must be to God, and of his appointment of
her as our heavenly Mother and Mediatrix, the instrument of his
mercy, we confidently beg her to pray to him for us and to make
our prayers hers.
In offering flowers to Mary, we ask her in turn to offer our
prayers to her Divine Son. Always it is the interior disposition
which matters, not the external means. Interior spiritual
bouquets may be offered to our Lady with or without the external
aid of flowers or her image. In Italy an act of self-denial is
spoken of as "a flower for the Madonna."
Lest we become too attached to our flower devotions, we have
for our instruction the example of Peter of Luxembourg who was
called by our Lady, it is said, to give up his practice of placing
flowers at her wayside shrine in a time of persecution that he
might enter upon studies in preparation for the priesthood. Our
Lady never lets us stop with her, but ever beckons us on to
Christ.
There is also, in the annals of the Franciscan Order, the
account of the origin of the Franciscan Crown of seven decades,
also called the Rosary of the Seven Joys of Our Lady. James, a
pious youth and a fervent client of our Lady, was received into
the Order of Friars Minor at Assisi in 1422. Previously he had
daily decked a statue of our Lady with a wreath of flowers. But
in the novitiate he was not able to continue this practice; and for
this reason he thought of leaving the order. Kneeling at Mary's
altar, he told his heavenly Mother what he planned to do and why.
Then the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and said: "Remain here,
and do not grieve because you can no longer weave a crown of
flowers for me. I will teach you how you can daily weave a crown
of roses that will not wither, and will be more pleasing to me and
more meritorious for yourself." And she taught him to pray the
seven-decade Rosary with two additional Aves in honor of the
seventy-two years she lived upon this earth.
Nevertheless, for those who garden, the work and sacrifices
of caring for a Mary Garden can be offered in praise and
thanksgiving to God; in penance and reparation for sin; or for
general or private spiritual intentions. For parents, the Mary
Garden is a beautiful means for teaching children reverence for
God's creatures, knowledge and love of God and our Lady, and the
religious offering of work and its fruits. Those whose home
duties or other circumstances prevent them from taking as large a
part as they would like in regular works of mercy or in the active
social apostolate of the Church, can have the assurance that
"hidden" domestic work such as gardening, when undertaken for the
love of God and for spiritual intentions, can obtain from God
consoling and healing grace for those who are suffering, or graces
of enlightenment and good will for world leaders. With the aid
and reminders of the religious symbolism of the flowers, such
intentions can make us habitually recollected during work in the
Mary Garden; and from there such recollection can be extended to
all our daily work and activities.
And always, the special suitability of flowers for suggesting
our Lady's spotless purity, her spiritual beauty, her queenly
magnificence and her motherly tenderness, makes them important
spiritual means for those who wish to follow the sure, swift road
to knowledge, love, and service of God through knowledge, love,
and service of God's Mother.
(Photo Caption: The placing of flowers before Mary's image with
interior devotion is an act of religious homage which has its
origins in the first centuries of the Christian Church.)
Reprinted with permission.