LITERALLY LITERAL

In the dome of our nation’s capital is a painting entitled, “The Apotheosis of Washington.”  You can read more about it HERE.  This is the Wikipedia description of it:  “The Apotheosis of Washington depicts George Washington sitting amongst the heavens in an exalted manner, or in literal terms, ascending and becoming a god (apotheosis).”  There is a tendency somewhere in man that makes us want to make our great ones god-like.  Think of movie stars.  Think of the Beetles coming to America.  Think of Super Bowl winners.  

This was even more literal for pre-Christian rulers.  The emperor was not like a god, he was a god and demanding of worship.  That is how he kept his rule and his people in check.  

Then comes along Jesus from some back water town with a unique message: the emperors, kings, supreme rulers?  They are not gods.  They are men.  God is God and these men are just as much under the same rule of the Heavenly Father as the lowliest of their enemies.  They do not have the right to do as their will pleases any more than you do.  Their “powers” (if you will) are held in check by the One True God Who is the true ruler over all the earth.

At the same time Jesus was saying this, He was saying other radical things such as, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, visit the lonely, care for the sick, welcome the stranger, for when you do these things, you do them for me.

What is amazing about this?  It is just this:  While there are a few ways this line can be interpreted, I think one of the most amazing interpretations of this particular line from Mary’s Magnificat is so incredibly powerful because it is literally literal.  (HA!)  Bearing in mind what said above, how cool is it to say, “You have cast down the mighty from their thrones, and have lifted up the lowly.”

GUEST BLOGGER - A SPECIAL INVITATION

Today's blog is written by Mr. David Stavarz, seminarian for the Diocese of Cleveland.

We, as human beings, oftentimes make things more complicated than they need to be. I would actually say that, in general, we tend to make the whole of life more complicated and busy than it needs to be. A good portion of our younger years is filled with schooling - of studying, test taking, and paper writing. After graduation, our lives are filled with schedules, meetings, and long work hours. Careers in business, marketing, politics, the medical field, engineering, and the like require refined skills and immense learning and seem very complex to those not within those particular fields. In today’s technological age, our heads are filled with news of events that happen all around the globe and to be a good citizen we can sometimes think we need to constantly know what is going on in the world. Sometimes, doesn’t it seem like life should be more simple?

When it comes to religion, Catholicism is a faith that can seem especially complicated. In Catholicism there are loads to teachings, doctrines, documents, heresies, councils, popes, saints and so on that can seem to make living the Faith a very involved and complicated reality. But does living a good Catholic life really mean knowing all the little Catholic details?

It is certainly important that we know the Faith and know the Faith as best we can. Growing in our understanding of Catholicism can truly transform our lives. But the standard of living a good Catholic life isn’t just knowing every theological detail and being able to articulate the complexity of the Faith at any time. Living the Catholic faith, in today’s world especially, is and can be much simpler than we sometimes make it.

So what is essential to living a good and simple Catholic life? What can simply ground our faith to make it not just a complicated list of things to do and know? 

What makes our faith powerful and simple is a living relationship with Jesus Christ. That’s it. When we truly realize this relationship in our lives it breathes life into our every action and becomes the reason for our existence. Relationship is what helps us to live a good Catholic life. St. Therese of Lisieux knew this good life lived in relationship as “The Little Way”. She knew that a simple faith was best lived out in love, mercy, and devotion to Jesus in small ways everyday.

One of the greatest and generally lesser known ways we can come into a closer relationship with Jesus is by strengthening our relationship with Mary, His mother. In the Scriptures we do not hear much from Mary, but what we do hear from her is profound and forms the core of what our faith life should look like - namely, trust, self-gift, and mercy. Mary is one of the single most important persons in the Church behind Jesus not because of how she made faith more complicated, but through her example of how to live a powerfully, simple faith.

Fr. Michael Gaitley is a nationally recognized Catholic priest and writer who knows very well the importance of having Mary guide us to leading a simple life devoted to Christ. Fr. Gaitley also believes that having a relationship with Mary will lead us to encounter Jesus especially as He is the source of Divine Mercy. Mercy is what living a simple, yet powerful, faith looks like.

From June 23-25th Fr. Gaitley will be leading a retreat at Walsh University on Mary and Mercy. Throughout this weekend retreat, Father will help show just what a simple and devoted relationship of faith and mercy looks like, particularly through the example and intercession of Mary and other saints such as Therese of Lisieux, Maximillian Kolbe, and John Paul II. 

Fr. Gaitley wants you to see that the time is now for you to live a simple and real faith that is full of love and mercy. Maybe it’s time to strengthen your faith by making it a little less complicated and more about a simple and living relationship with Jesus, the Divine Mercy. If you want to grow closer to Jesus and Mary in your faith life please consider this retreat. This retreat could change your life forever. It could lead you to a life of faith that is simple, powerful, and renewed. 

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: DID IT REALLY SAY THAT?

Granted, this was earlier on in the whole Vatican II frenzy and has (at least in my experience) largely passed, but for a while there was a strong push to rid the Catholic Church of too much Mary.  Statues were taken down or moved aside, devotions were cancelled, and songs not sung because Vatican II said we should stop focusing on her and solely focus on Jesus.

 

That’s what was said about Vatican II (along with a host of other things) not what Vatican II actually said.  (Thank goodness we seem to be recovering well from this misconception.)  In one of the Church’s constitutions, Lumen Gentium, (para. 67) it, in fact, says the Council, “admonishes all the sons of the Church that the cult, especially that the liturgical cult, of the Blessed Virgin, be generously fostered . . .”

 

Now what it did advise against is an extreme in either direction.  On the one end, we do not attribute to Mary that which is not attributable to her or does not point toward her Son (makes sense) especially when such false doctrine would cause scandal to our “separated brethren,” but neither should our attention of her grow sterile lest we miss out on her excellence as Mother of God and in her example of virtues.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: MAKE SURE YOUR WINDOW IS CLEAN AND CLEAR

One of the images of Mary is that of a window.  One does not look at a window, one looks though it at something else.  Mary is a window through which we look to see her Son.  Another image of Mary is that of the moon.  The moon is a cold rock.  But when the sun hits it, it gives a glorious brilliance for us to see on earth on a dark night.  So Mary’s brilliance is in that she reflects her Son to us.  “My soul magnifies the Lord.”

 

In the same way this next paragraph (66) of Lumen Gentium states it, William Wadsworth once said more poetically is that Our Lady is “our tainted nature’s solitary boast.”  She is our exemplar par excellence.  Where Jesus is a divine person, Mary is fully human and so is set at our head to lead us in the way of fully following her Son.  Such has been the case since the very inception of the Church.  This is attested to in Luke where Mary says, “All generation shall call me blessed.”

 

A devotion to Mary is essentially different from the devotion given to the Trinity.  A devotion to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is an end unto itself.  The buck stops there so to speak.  God is the object of all true worship.  Devotion to Mary is a pathway to a deeper understanding and love of the Trinity.    

 

Think of it this way:  You might have a particular devotion to a preacher that simply wows you.  You might follow this person around, attend many services, and listen to numerous recordings of sermons and teachings.  But if the person’s preaching only leads you to like that person more deeply, that person has failed.  The inspirational talks are supposed to be a pathway to heaven and entice you further up that glorious trail.  True and loving devotion to Mary is to do the same thing.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: THAT WORD YOU KEEP USING, I DON'T THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS.

“If you want to know the wrong definition of a word, look it up in the dictionary.”  This was maxim given to us in the seminary.  Often words that the Church uses to describe something has been co-opted by popular culture and given a new meaning so that when the Church uses it the way it had for a very long time, all of a sudden she appears not to be saying what she intends.  A parallel example would be the word “gay.”  150 years ago describing someone with this word let you know that the person was happy.  To describe a guy with the same word today intending to imply that he had a positive disposition might lead one to assume something about him that could lead to an awkward situation.

 

That being said, the next section of Lumen Gentium is called, “The Cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Church.”  The word “cult” has fallen on hard times within the Church as of late.  It has been reinterpreted as meaning something controlling and the phrase, “Drink the coolaid” comes to mind.  But that is not at all what is meant in this context. 

 

In Church speak, “cult” means a devotion or honor afforded to a particular person.  Of course there are healthy and unhealthy cults.  Somebody who bases their faith on a particular priest, for example, would be unhealthy.  The cult of Mary, for example, as far as it leads a person more deeply into the faith and into the arms of her Son would be healthy.

 

Another unhealthy cult, written about here before, would be a type of cultish dependency on a saint that says something like, “Sure fire novena!  Say these prayers for nine days in a church and leave nine copies of this prayer for others to find and you will get your prayer.”  That delves into superstition and the idea that we can control God.  This is very unhealthy.

 

The next couple of paragraphs of Lumen Gentium will describe the proper cult of Mary and how she is to lead us more deeply into the heart of Christ.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: THE ARK OF THE COVENANT

Lumen Gentium paragraphs 63 - 65

 

Wow.

 

If you didn’t want to read this whole chapter about Mary, these last three paragraphs will carry the day.  They are awesome.  They explain well why we Christian Catholics (and as of late even much of the Protestant Church) thinks Mary is the bomb.

 

Now, obviously Mary is close to God right?  She is, after all, the mother of Jesus (Who is God) and she is “full of grace.”  In the other direction she is close to the Church.  She is a symbol of the whole Church in faith, charity, and unity with Christ.  She does what we all strive for – to be full of grace.  Mimicking her our Catholic Church is the womb in which new sons and daughters of God are conceived and born just as Jesus was conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, both through the action of the Holy Spirit.  She remains chaste, loyal to God alone and so does her Church in perfection. 

 

Interesting how we speak about the Church remaining every pure and spotless – “without wrinkle.”  And we also speak about how we are the Church and “we” are certainly not without spot or wrinkle.  In fact, we quite desperately need to see a dermatologist.  In one sense, we stop being Church when we sin.  And it is that Church, both as community and as an organ that provides guidance and grace, that leads us back to that purity and unity.  In that way she is our spotless mother as was Mary Jesus’.

 

So why do we hold her up and try to follow here example?  It is she who gives us an example of how to be united as Church to her Son.  When we preach about Mary, when we pray for her intercession, we follow the example of how to be united to Him.  She is the perfect fingerpost to her Son.  Her whole being magnifies the Lord.  She is a window through which we see Him.  To, in any way, honor her, is ipso facto to be lead more deeply to her Son.  And that is who we are to be as Christians to others.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: COME ON BABY, LET'S DO THE TWIST

One of the reasons I like G. K. Chesterton so much as he takes conventional wisdom that is aimed against the faith, gives is a slight twist, and throws it back at his adversaries who then go scrambling.  The next paragraphs of Lumen Gentium (59 – 60) do much of the same thing.  It is often a criticism of the Church that we rely too much on Mary and that somehow diminishes God and makes out tie to Him appear weaker.  Au Contraire says the Church.  It proves just the opposite.  It is true, there is but one mediator between man and God and that is Jesus Christ.  The devotion we have for Mary does not lessen this fact but show’s God’s great power.

 

By the fore merits of her Son, Mary is declared by the angel “full of grace.”  Grace is any Divine help that we receive to bring us closer to God (simple definition – work with me.)  Mary isn’t touched, or has a bunch of, or even is pretty close to having it all, but is declared full of grace.  As a human person, she is as close to God as a human person may be.  She was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and conceived the God child, was with Him through His life and death, persevered in prayer with the apostles after His death, and was then assumed into heaven. 

 

So full of God’s presence is she that it flows from the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to touch us.  It is His super abundance of grace and power that we feel.  Our connection to the Father rests solely on the shoulders of Christ “and depends entirely on Him and draws all its power from Him.”  Devotion of Mary in no way hinders the immediate union with us and God but fosters it, bringing us closer through Christ.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: I BEG YOUR PARDON

When I was a kid the song was out with the words, “I beg your pardon.  I never promised you a rose garden.”  I remember taking it quite literally and wondering if the song was about some door to door salesman scam gone awry: someone made an assumption of services, paid the cash, and then was disappointed in not getting what they assumed they were getting.

 

Sometimes it seems that this problem exists with Christians.  They sign up thinking, “Since I gave myself to God and try to be good, everything will now be great in my life.”  Read: Prosperity Gospel (a bunch of malarkey.)  In fact, expect quite the opposite.

 

In Lumen Gentium we are reminded that Jesus said, “blessed are those who hear the world of God and cherish it!”  Mary, who was full of grace (grace being Divine help that brings us closer to Him – can you imagine being full of that?  Wow!) heard the word of God and said yes with her entire life.  One would think that if anybody would be promised a rose garden in this life it would be Mary.  She heard the word of her Son, her Creator to Whom she gave birth, and faithfully contemplated these things in her heart and lived them out.  She was present at the beginning of His ministry and “faithfully persevered with her Son unto the Cross, where she stood keeping with the Divine plan, enduring with her only begotten Son the intensity of His suffering, associated herself with His sacrifice in her mother’s heart, and loving consented to the immolation of this Victim which was born of her.”  Is that not devastating?  No rose garden (at least in this life.)  And by that same Son, she is given to us through St. John when He says, “Woman, behold your son.  Son, behold your mother.”

 

Only by meditating (praying) on His words and promises could she accept such tragedy and understand that from such devastation true life would spring: eternal life – a life of joy.  And so the lesson, though the mother, is given to us.

 

Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis!

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: TYING UP ADVENT

Paragraph 56 of Lumen Gentium

 

God is so cool.  In the same way He allows us to make up for sin by our asking forgiveness just as He allowed us to sin by an act of our own free will, so also is Salvation brought about.  In Eve, we have a person who chose to act against God by an act of her free will.  In Mary, we have a person who chose to radically unite man and God together by an act of her free will.  Thus, as Scripture says that Eve became the Mother of all the living since she was our first mother, Mary again becomes our Mother since it is she, through saying yes to God, brought all of us a life of grace. 

 

Someone recently was telling me that one of their favorite images of Mary is “Untier of Knots.”  Eve’s knot of disobedience is untied by the Virgin.  I saw this images for the first time at the bookstore at St. Paul Shrine this past month.  Still learning new things!

 

Happy almost end of Advent!

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: NEVER COUNT YOURSELF OUT

Now here’s a case when I will use the term “the spirit of Vatican II” and think it has merit.  As we head into the last throws of advent (or perhaps slow boil of advent would be better,) we enter that part of Lumen Gentium that makes clear Mary’s role in salvation history – Totally unplanned which makes it cool.

 

One of the reasons the Harry Potter books were so popular was that it held out hope that even if it seemed completely unlikely, there is a chance that you are special; your ordinary life was masking great power, notoriety, talent, and all that.  So can you think of being a young girl in a backwater town, dirt poor, and of no note?  What if, in actuality, your life was actually part of one of the greatest stories ever told – of the greatest family lines in history – of a dynasty that would last forever?  And look at you sitting at home wishing something exciting would happen in this one light town.

 

The story concerning Mary goes back to Genesis (para 55 of LG).  There will be a virgin and a conquering of the serpent.  In Isaiah further prophecies are made.  Throughout Scripture, a blurry picture becomes clearer and clearer until one night it snaps into sharp focus on a young, faith filled woman, by the announcement of an angel.  From obscurity she is plucked, though in God’s eye she was never out of the center of His plan.  From her our God is given flesh and entrusted to her care until He could go about the business of saving us from our self destructive ways.

 

(This is not in this paragraph but my own thought.)  You, Christian, are not much different.  Scratch just below the surface there is greatness.  It is not in your wealth, your ability to command, your ancestry, or your prospects (or lack thereof!)  All that will pass and be forgotten.  But like in a C. S. Lewis novel, you have already been named a king or queen with great dignity, inheritance, and rule, and it will only come to light for the faithful who remain true to their nature and enter into the kingdom of our heavenly Father.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: WHAT WERE YOU PONDERING MARY?

Lumen Gentium paragraphs 53 &54

 

What was she thinking?  What was she feeling?  What was she facing?  To some extent, these are easier questions to ask about Mary than they are about her Son.  Mary is, after all, a human person.  Jesus is a Divine Person and therefore it is often very dangerous to say, “At this point, Jesus was feeling (fill in the blank).”  How do we know?  True, He was fully human, but He was also fully Divine and to think we could know the inner workings of His mind might be presumptuous.  (This is my opinion, not part of this document.)

 

Mary on the other hand is fully human without divine being a divine person.  True, she was also sinless from her conception, but still, it is a little less tricky to ponder what she might be thinking.

 

As she was the Mother of God and Mother of the Redeemer, she is also our Mother.  By her saying yes to God, she helped bring about our birth into Christ and everlasting life.  In this way, while being the best of us, she is still one of us, “who occupies a place in the Church which is the highest after Christ and also closest to us.”  (54)

 

The II Vatican Council did not write a complete end all be all treatise on Mary and even allowed for further development of our understanding of her place and our relationship.  Immediately following VII, there was the erroneous thought in many circles that Mary was being downplayed in order to more fully focus on Christ.  Nothing could be further from the truth to anyone who actually read the documents.  In fact, all valid schools of thought on Mary were upheld while still allowing for future development by theologians.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: THE SPIRIT OF THE YOF

Greetings,

 

Sorry there was no post yesterday.  A funeral took up so much of the day that there was no time to post.

 

I keep getting “Join Twitter” messages.  I know that it must be some automatic thing.  I have no idea what it is or how to sign up for it.  Just so you know.

 

This weekend marks the end of the Year of Faith.  The YOF coincided with the 50^th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council and the 20^th anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  During this year we have been looking at the constitutions of the Church on Friday Potpourri which we were encouraged to do during this year.  We did not finish and it has been suggested that we should continue to look at the Catechism and the VII documents to help guide our faith.  So, with your indulgence, we will continue to look at these documents for a little while on Fridays.

 

Chapter VIII of Lumen Gentium

 

With paragraph 52 the documents turn a special eye to the Blessed Virgin Mary in a chapter entitled, “Our Lady.”  Wishing for us full redemption, God in His supreme goodness and wisdom, sent His Son to be born among us.  Just like a good general or leader of a nation, He did not rule from a desk in a fancy office but walked with and among His people and shared our life.  It reminds me of the Food Stamp Challenge that some politicians are taking up at the moment to try to live on the Food Stamp allowance that they give to those in need.  Walk the walk and all that.

 

This mystery continues to be unfolded within the Body of Christ which is connected to Christ as its Head.  The Body is the Church (us, those in purgatory, and the saints in glory) united as one in Christ.  First among all of us is Mary.  As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said of her, she is “Our tainted nature’s solitary boast.”

 

Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost
With the least shade of thought to sin allied;
Woman! above all women glorified,
Our tainted nature's solitary boast;
Purer than foam on central ocean tost;
Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn
With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon
Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast;
Thy Image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween,
Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend,
As to a visible Power, in which did blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in Thee
Of mother's love with maiden purity,
Of high with low, celestial with terrene!

WILL THE REAL MARY PLEASE STAND UP

Happy Feast of the Queenship of Mary!  It struck me the other day how many depictions of Mary that we have in the rectory and in the church.

 

I did not dare go into the school or this presentation would have doubled with all of the classroom statues and what not.  The one above is a plaster statue that sits outside of the chapel in the rectory.  It doesn't actually belong to us.  We are "storing" it for another priest.  But why not have it out and appreciated.  The tapestry below is in the rectory chapel and is a souvenir of mine from our choir's concert tour in Italy.  I take it to the church on feast days.

I remember being somewhat young and going to a parish that had Mary depicted as an African woman.  My initial (private, thank goodness) reaction was, "That's not Mary."  Of course it was a ridiculous thought because we have not the slightest idea of what Mary looked like.  She was most certainly not the porcelain skinned woman we most often see her as. 

 

The object is not to get the picture factual, but to portray some truth.  That, in large part, is what icons are all about such as the one above.  Not much attention is even given to correct proportions of facial features but to suggest theological truths. 

 

What should our depictions of Mary lead us to?  Not to appreciate a particular face but to fall in love with who she was.  It does not really matter what she looked like.  What is important in liturgical art is that it leads us to what made her special and to what (and to Whom) she leads us.

 

For some reason there are about a half a dozen pictures that will not transfer to my blog.  Maybe it is for the best.  The above which hangs in the rectory is one of my favorites.  It is so simple.  It provides a moment of rest to a busy day whenever I pass it.  

 

 

The statue below has an exact replica in front of the rectory (one of the pictures that did not turn out.)  Legend has it that someone once stepped on the gas instead of the break and took Mary out.  She was repaired but the driver insisted on replacing her.  So below is the new statue and the old with some barely visible cracks through it now sits in front of the loggia of the rectory.

Things could not get more different than the statue above.  Mary is relative of Mr. Goldfinger. Ra ra ra ra ra.  It is a nice enough statue and goes well with the church.  I do not find it particularly enticing as a focal point for devotion.  Perhaps that is why Mary is so widely depicted.  She is the universal saint, a saint for everybody.  Could one depiction really capture her uniqueness and universality?  Perhaps there is a Mary depiction out there for everybody.

 

And above is Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Certainly here is a different depiction of our great saint.  But the Church universal has come to love her in this depiction yet Mary certainly was not an Indian looking woman.  But I wouldn't disguared this depiction of her for anything because it does tell us something about her and more importantly about God.

The finaL picture below is of the Cosmic Madonna, a signed print by Salvadore Dali that hangs in the rectory.  The strange cross between Mary and a what appears to be church architecture and perhaps some elements of the cosmos is not a warm fuzzy.  This is not a Mary to be crowned or have flowers set in front of.  Yet it tells us of some aspects of Our Lady that are none-the-less compelling.

 

May Mary, our Queen and Our Mother bless your day and her depictions bring you peace, joy, and insight into God, her, and you.



PRIORITIES

Do you remember your definition of a sacrament? It is something close to this: “An outward sign instituted by Christ to give us grace.”

Do you remember your definition of grace? It is something close to this: “Any divine help we receive to bring us closer to God.”

Lastly, do you recall what the angel said to Mary in greeting? “Hail full of grace!”

Mary was fully open to God. Unencumbered by the baggage of sin, jealousies, insecurities, vengefulness, lustfulness, impatience, intolerance, etc., God was able to burst forth from her into the world in a most dramatic way. God walked among us!

Today we get to honor Mary as patroness of the United States. She is our model and guide, and what a perfect example for us as a nation. Like her, the fuller of grace that we can become, the more God can break in on the human scene and establish his kingdom.

Grace builds on grace. Try to make it to Mass today on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. You, your family, your parish, and you nation are enriched by your worship today.

Remaining Masses at St. Sebastian: 5:30 extraordinary form (Latin) and 7 PM.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI - MARY QUIZ

Public Library and somehow ending up in my hands. There was noticed a few entries that I had no clue as to what they were. So I sat down (and yes) read through the dictionary. Here is a quiz for you concerning some terms that I found interesting.

Perpetual Abbess
a) Because she is the abbess of the saints.
b) As head of errant French monasteries
c) An alternate title for Mother of us all.
Client
a) An old title for Mary as a servant of God
b) A non-Catholic who is pliant in their belief in Mary
c) Someone who places themselves in the care of Mary
Crown of Twelve Stars
a) From the Book of Revelation 12:1
b) As queen of the 12 tribes of Israel
c) As queen of the heavens from the 12 months of the year.
Our Lady’s Dowery
a) England
b) Money given to a monastery for accepting a lady
c) Penance that she will do for you
Dormition
a) The place where the Holy Family slept after Jesus’ birth
b) Mary’s contemplation of Jesus when He slept
c) An old name for the Assumption
Garden Eclosed
a) The new Eden
b) Title for Mary from the Song of Songs
c) The place where Mary’s followers can find safety from evil
Farced Gloria
a) From a “faked” practice Mass in honor of Our Lady (used by seminarians)
b) From a prayer service in anticipation of a Mass (such as on Good Friday)
c) Words added to fill out the Gloria adding devotions to Mary on Feasts of Our Lady

LET ME PLANT ONE ON YOU

Apart from religious symbolism, the Victorians had a rich communication using plants in every day life. There is a book on my shelf (finally unpacked) called “Parson’s Handbook of Business and Social Forms; A Compendium of Business and Social Rules and a Complete Work of Reference and Self Instruction, 1902. There is a chapter entitled, “Dictionary of Floral Sentiment and the Flowers that Represent Them”. For several pages there are possible messages listed next to the appropriate flowers or plants that signify them. Here are some examples:

A deadly foe is near: Monk’s-hood
Advice: Rhubarb
Agreement: Lancaster Rose
Aversion: Indian Single Pink
Be Mine: Four Leaved Clover

And there are hundreds more. In a single nosegay one could write a whole letter I suppose.

The Church was no slouch in this either. In symbolism plants are used extensively and there had been certain plants for certain occasions even in altar decorations that many would have recognized as easily as we do today when we see poinsettias for Christmas and lilies for Easter. Somewhere I have an interesting list that I hope to unearth for you soon.

But continuing the thoughts from last week concerning Marian Gardens, marigolds named after Mary were said to once said to have adorned the dress of the Blessed Virgin and were used extensively for decorating her shrine in summer time feasts. There are also Our Lady’s Slippers, Lady’s Mantle, Lady’s Purse, Lady’s Seal, Lilies, Lilly of the Valley (my Mother’s favorite that still surrounds her house), Violets, Spearmint, Rosemary, Thyme, and Mint all have connections with Mary and are appropriate particularly for gardens in her honor.

For a more detailed description of plants and what they mean (I would just have to plagiarize in order to tell you more) I would recommend the book, “Catholic Traditions in the Garden by Ann Ball: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing.