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Intro Mary Garden
Seasonal Flower Reflections
(Candlemas Bells)
John S. Stokes Jr.
A number of the medieval Flowers of Our Lady have been associated
with the feasts or seasons of the liturgical year for which they
are in bloom, and for which their characteristic forms or colors
have been seen as symbols.
Such flowers include Christmas Rose, Candlemas Bells, Annunciation
Lily, Lent Lily, Easter Lily, Ascension Flower, Pentecost Flower,
Corpus Christi Flower, Assumption Flower, All Saints Flower and
also numerous flowers of the saints.
In the north temperate climatic zones of Europe and the United
States one such flower of special significance for Mary Gardeners
is the snowdrop or Candlemas Bells, Galanthus nivalis - the first
bloom of the new growing season - named for its bloom around the
time of Candlemas, the Feast of the Presentation of the Child
Jesus in the Temple, February 2nd.
Accordingly, in mid-January each year we begin a close watch of
weather forecasts and of our snowdrop plantings to see if a
January thaw, moist soil and warming sunshine will provide the
softened ground, moisture and warmth required to produce buds or
blooms for Candlemas. If the blooms are late, we try for the next
year a more southerly and protected planting; if early, one less
southerly and more exposed to cold winds.
Because of its position at the beginning of the bloom season,
Candlemas, February 2nd, has long been the European bellweather
day on which predictions of coming spring weather are made, based
on whether the badger emerges from his lair to see his shadow - a
custom adapted in the United States for the same date as
"Groundhog's Day".
Snowdrops, because of their first bloom in many areas, are symbols,
more generally, of hope itself, giving rise to the ancient legend
that in their desolation over the seemingly unending winter cold
and winds and the death of plants displacing the continuous
temperate summer of Eden - through the rupture of the original
integrity and equilibrium of the sensitive attunement of the world
soul by the effects of original sin - the merciful hope of spring
was introduced through the discovery by Adam and Eve of the first
snowdrop blooms.
While the Flowers of Our Lady are ever in bloom in the virtual
gardens of the heart, when they bloom in nature and the garden,
their reborn symbolism serves further to quicken and sustain
reflection and meditation on the truths symbolized. Because of
the close attention given to each flower's first bloom, to the
duration of its blooming and to its care in the garden, the
reflective quickening of its ever-present symbolism is almost
continuous - supporting deeper and more extensive reflection and
meditation on the truths symbolized than a reading of scripture, or
the liturgy for a feastday, or a momentary focus among the
multiple mysteries of the Rosary.
The truth symbolized by Candlemas Bells is that of Simeon's
prophecy, at the Presentation of the infant Jesus in the Temple, of
the co-redemptive piercing of Mary's soul by a sword of sorrow at
the foot of the Cross (Luke 2:34, 35):
"And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother:
Behold this child is set for the fall and for the
resurrection of many in Israel and for a sign which
shall be contradicted.
"And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of
many hearts thoughts may be revealed."
From our familiarity with the spear-like foliage of Iris, "Mary's
Sword of Sorrow", symbolizing, for Good Friday, Mary's actual
Co-redemption at the foot of the Cross, we note the similar tiny
soul-piercing spears of the Snowdrop foliage, and see the Snowdrop
buds or flowers as symbols of Mary's soul which was pierced - a
dual symbolism brought to our attention through the discernment of
Nanette Sears, prime-mover of the Mary Garden at St. Mary's
Church, Annapolis.
Reflecting on this, we come to understand that as the graces of
redemption flowed from the pierced heart of Christ on the Cross,
so did the graces of openness and assent to the reception of these
graces flow from the co-redemptive mediation of Mary, Mother of
the Church, at the foot of the Cross, through her pierced soul and
heart - by the reception or non-reception of which the thoughts of
many hearts are revealed. We are to emulate Mary's "yes" to the
graces of the Redemption as well as to those of the Incarnation.
In this we recall the discovery of St. Francis Xavier that the
conversions from his missionary preachings were greater on days
when, in praying for them the previous night before the Crucifix,
he prayed also for the mediation by Mary, Co-redemptrix, standing
at the foot of the Cross, for the graces for the opening of hearts
to Christ's graces of conversion.
In the Liturgy of Hours, the Second Reading for the feast of the
Presentation of Mary, from a sermon by St. Augustine, instructs us
that:
"The Virgin Mary...the chosen one from whom our Savior
was born among men...believed by faith and conceived by
faith....
"Mary heard God's word and kept it, and so (was) blessed.
She kept God's truth in her mind, a nobler thing than
carrying his body in her womb. The truth and the body
were both Christ: he was kept in Mary's mind insofar as
he is truth, he was carried in her womb insofar as he
is man; but what is kept in the mind is of a higher
order than what is carried in the womb."
It is the graces of belief in Christ - to which she opened herself
as a maiden, prior to the Annunciation - that Mary, her soul
pierced by a sword of sorrow, nurturingly mediates for all hearts.
Indeed, it is in this nurturing of the birth of Christ in hearts,
minds and souls, that Mary first of all is Mother of the Church,
of the Mystical Body of Christ - as proclaimed by Jesus to her and
to the disciple John from the Cross (John 19:26, 27).
Reflecting further, we come more fully to understand the human
equality of Mary as Co-redemptrix with Christ the Redeemer as a
manifestation of her overall intimate union and close cooperation
with him as human equal, on earth and continuing in heaven, in the
total work of Redemption, Sanctification, Renewal and Kingdom -
beginning with her privileged, prerogatived and freely, lovingly
accepted role as his divinely conceiving and nurturing Mother.
From our belief in an all-just God, we conclude that there is no
injustice to women involved in God becoming incarnate as man -
any seeming injustice being the consequence of a failure to
discern Mary's human equality with Jesus. Indeed, there was also
a divine-human equivalency between Mary and Jesus in that the
hypostatic union of the divine and human natures in the person of
Jesus, true God and true man, was paralleled by Mary's espousal to
God the Holy Spirit such that "the two became one", and the Holy
Spirit was thus her spirit.
From the overall viewpoint of the divine purpose and will for
Creation - of the eternal sharing of the divine goodness and
action with humans - the co-redemptive immolative fruitfulness of
Jesus and Mary together, and their general fruitfulness in grace,
is the ultimate mirroring and sharing by human nature, created on
earth in the divine image and likeness, male and female, of the
eternal heavenly generation of the Holy Spirit in fruition of the
eternal love and communion between the Father and the Son.
It could be said that, after Christ's Ascension and Mary's
Assumption into Heaven, a general equivalence was established
between men and women, such that women, through their endowed gift
of nurturing, continue through their prayers and their acts of
mercy, in emulation of and union with Mary and through her
mediation, to give birth to Christ in hearts, minds and souls;
while men, beginning with the Apostles, distribute Christ, under
the consecrated species, so that he may be ever more fully present
to those receiving them, in whom he has come to reside through
Mary's giving spiritual birth.
Pope John Paul II has spoken of these united and equal
continuations and extensions of Mary's Divine Motherhood in hearts
and Christ's apostolic continuation in the sacraments as the Marian
and Petrine Churches, in which he discerns the Marian Church as
prior.
In the medieval cathedrals, the Marian Church was symbolized
architecturally by the cathedral itself, named for Mary, and the
Petrine Church by the altar and bishop's chair. Interiorly, the
dominant rose window, symbolizing "the Rose wherein the Divine Word
was made incarnate", clearly represented the Marian Church - as
distinct from the subordinate Marian side altar and no rose window
in many churches today.
Through the special endowment of women by the Creator as mothers
and nurturers - so that a blessed virgin might conceive the
Redeemer in her heart, mind and soul; might give him birth in the
flesh; might nurture his growth in wisdom, grace and strength; and
might nurture his birth and growth in the members of his Mystical
Body - all women are likewise vocationally called to the
fullfillment of their respective nurturing potentials for
restoring Christ, giving birth to Christ, in every area of human
activity: personal, familial, religious, social, economic,
vocational and professional . . .
Or, stated in another way, God, having created women with the
capability of motherhood and of motherly nurturing, in preparation
for the giving birth by a divinely conceiving blessed virgin to
the Divine Word Incarnate, thus endowed all women with the special
potential and dignity of emulating, participating in and extending
Mary's divine motherhood in hearts. In justice to men, lacking the
fullness of womanly nurturing endowment, Jesus, from this viewpoint,
therefore conferred on them the privilege of apostleship, of
continuing and extending the human birth of Christ and his
Crucifixion, under the consecrated species of bread and wine.
Those who judge as an injustice to women the reservation by the
Roman Church of the privilege of the holy orders of the priesthood
to men, appear not to comprehend the unique equivalent privilege of
all women, through their created motherly and nurturing
endowments, of participating, in grace, in Mary's divine
maternity, nurturing and cooperation. From this viewpoint, those
who do not appreciate the fullness of women's potential for Marian
emulation, and who hold the erroneous belief that the differing
divine endowments of man and women are an injustice, can be said
to participate in what psychiatrist Alfred Adler has termed the
"masculine protest" - the attempt to find the fullness of womanly
potential in the emulation of men rather than in the development
of the uniquely womanly potential in itself.
In attempting to find womanly fulfillment through participation in
men's endowment of the privilege of Holy Orders, rather than in
the development, in grace, of their own endowned unique motherly
and nurturing spiritual potential - through union with Mary in the
nurturing of the birth of Christ in human hearts - women indeed
make the masculine protest.
On the other hand, once the just equivalence of the Marian and
Petrine churches, of women's privileged Christ-nurturing endowment
and potential, as well as men's ordainment by Christ to Holy
Orders, is fully understood and appreciated, it is conceivable
that the Magisterium of the Roman Church might then extend Holy
Orders to women as an alternate mode of fulfillment, for those so
called, of their womenly potential - as men may now consecrate
themselves, with women, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the
Immaculate Heart of Mary.
It is a massive omission and injustice in the history of the
fallen world that men, through their endowment with superior
strength, have largely discriminatively confined women and their
nurturing potential, to child-bearing, home-making, domestic
service, gardening and animal husbandry, and to caring work such
as nursing and teaching - instead of esteeming and looking to
their equal participation, with full exercise of their special
nurturing potentials, in all areas of human activity.
This was emphasized by the Church in the Second Vatican Council:
"It devolves on humanity to establish a political,
social and economic order which will to an ever better
extent serve (humankind) and help individuals as well as
groups to develop in dignity proper to them.
"As a result very many persons are quite aggressively
demanding those benefits which with vividness they
judge themself deprived either through injustice or
unequal distribution. . .
" . . . While they have not yet won it, women claim for
themselves an equality with men before the law and in
fact."
- The Church in the Modern World, par. 9
and,
"The Church is proud to have glorified and liberated
woman, and in the course of the centuries, in diversity
of characters, brought into relief her basic equality
with man. But the hour is coming, in fact has come,
when the vocation of women is being achieved in its
fullness."
- Closing Address to Women
With such clear affirmation of the equality of men and women, and
of their needed mutual contributions to human society and the
building of God's Kingdom on earth, the question arises as to the
basis on which, in the Roman Church, women continue to be excluded
from the Holy Orders of the priesthood - especially since it has
now been demonstrated in the Anglican Church that they serve there
vocationally as priests and bishops equally with men.
This exclusion is based, scripturally, on Jesus' calling of only
men as his apostles; while the argument for the ordination of
women is that it would further the fullness of sharing of the
divine goodness and action with humans, created to this end, male
and female, according to the purpose of Creation, and that the
appointment of only male apostles was not for all time but a
prudent temporary accomodation of the Church in the male-dominated
society of the time of Christ, continuing up until the present
time.
Reflecting on this as we behold the symbolism of snowdrops in the
Mary Garden - and fully respecting and appreciating the
magisterium and teaching authority of the Roman Church, lovingly
established by God as the source of religious truth for the world -
it would appear to us that even if women are one day to be ordained
in the Church, it would only be after the full human dignity and
equality of Mary with Christ in the deposit of faith are
appreciated and celebrated in the Church in the fullness of the
anticipated dogmatic definition of Mary's co-redemption, advocacy
and universal mediation, with Christ.
o O o
The foregoing reflection and meditation based on the snowdrop
Candlemas symbolism of the sword of sorrow piercing Mary's soul
illustrates the efficacy of the Flowers of Our Lady symbolism for
meditation as one works in the Mary Garden.
The snowdrop, "Candlemas Bells", is further treasured by
Mary-Gardeners in that it commemorates the heavenly birthday, the
beginning of the eternal season of heavenly bloom, of Frances Crane
Lillie, founder of the Woods Hole mother Mary Garden, who died on
Candlemas, February 2nd, 1958.
* In preparing to post the graphics to this text (posted January
1st) on January 4th, we rejoiced to find these "Millennial
Snowdrops" in bloom on the south side of St. Mark's Episcopal
Church in center city Philadelphia, thanks to a late December
and early January thaw.
Copyright Mary's Gardens, 2000