Our Lady's Sorrows and the Iris

“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."

(Luke 2:34-35. Douay-Rheims Bible.)

On September 15, the Church honors the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary: 

Hearing the prophecy of Simeon

Fleeing into Egypt

Losing the Holy Child at Jerusalem 

Meeting Jesus on his way to Calvary

Standing at the foot of the Cross

Seeing Jesus taken down from the Cross

Witnessing the burial of Christ

According to Mary Gardener John S. Stokes, the Blue Flag iris or iris versicolor symbolizes Our Lady’s Sorrows because of Simeon’s prophecy that a sword would pierce her soul. The iris has sword-like foliage and is also known as the Sword Lily.

Image: Photograph of iris versicolor, from Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.

The Holy Cross and the Basil Plant

Today, September 14, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The liturgical color is red.

The herb basil, which should be in every sacristan’s garden, is associated with the Cross. The word basil is related to the Greek word for king and is associated with Christ the King. There are various traditions connecting basil to St. Helena's discovery of the True Cross. It is said that a sprig of the fragrant plant was found growing from the sacred Wood.

Image: Ocymum basilicum, from Wikimedia Commons. Pursuant to Free License.

St. Bartholomew and His Star

 

August 24 is the feast day of St. Bartholomew, one of the twelve apostles and a martyr. According to the flower calendar in the Collectanea of V.S. Lean, the sunflower becomes a star for the feast of St. Bartholomew: 

"And yet anon the full Sun-flower blew,* And became a star for Bartholomew" 

 

It is not entirely clear whether this metaphor for reaching full bloom (or detaching and becoming airborne) is a Roman Catholic or an Anglican tradition. Some sources claim it was already an existing tradition in 15th or 16th century, which would likely place its origin at a time prior to Anglicanism. On the other hand, many sources say the sunflower was not brought to Europe until the 16th century, after Pizarro discovered it in Peru, so there could hardly have been an existing tradition before that time. In any event, Ward and Lovejoy relate:

"The Old English church recommended decorating with the sunflower on St. Bartholomew's day, 24 August, because it represented constancy and devotion [.]"

And Forster says:

"The sunflower is called in the Floral Directory, St. Bartholomew's Star".

See also Gemma's post Summer Yet Solemn for some beautiful sunflower arrangements.

Sources: Forster, Circle of the Seasons (T. Hookham, London, 1828), p. 237. Ward and Lovejoy, A Contemplation Upon Flowers (Timber Press, 1999), p. 347.

 Image: A sunflower in Germany, from Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.

 ---------------------- 

*Some sources substitute "below" and others substitute "flew"

The Rose and the Precious Blood of Christ

In the traditional calendar, next Wednesday, July 1, is the Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Many of us will pray the Litany of the Precious Blood daily throughout the month of July and will honor this aspect of Our Divine Savior in some special way in the sacred spaces in our homes.

While many Catholics are aware of the symbolism of the rose in relation to the Virgin Mary, fewer may be aware that Our Lord's Precious Blood is also symbolized by the rose:

"Albert Magnus . . wrote of 'the rose made red by the blood of Christ in his passion' and described Christ as the rose of Jericho blossoming in the resurrection,' A popular guide to rosary devotion similarly alluded to the rosary as crimson 'because the Precious Blood of Our Lord has fallen upon it.' In medieval texts, 'Christ is the rosebush,' 'each drop of his precious blood is like one of its blossoms,' his blood is 'rose colored,' and his wounds correspond to the rose's petals' . The rose represents Christ's wounded sacred heart, the cup that collects his spilled blood and the resurrection as a blood-red blossoming out of death."

A relationship between Christ's blood and the rose is also found in the title and first line of Joseph Mary Plunkett's poem, I See His Blood Upon the Rose.

Source:
The quoted material is from Graziano, Frank; Wounds of Love (Oxford University Press U.S., New York, 2004); p. 72. (Please note that this book on the whole is NOT recommended as it presents a distorted view of St. Rose of Lima.)

Image:
Rose bush from Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.

The Archangel Gabriel and The Lily

In the traditional Roman Catholic calendar, March 24 is the feast day of the Archangel Gabriel, the angel of the Annunciation.* Gabriel is often depicted as presenting a lily to the Virgin Mary on that occasion. For this reason, the Lilium Candidum is called the Annunciation Lily. It is also known by other names related to Mary, such as the Madonna Lily.

Solomon's Canticle of Canticles, 2:2, "As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters," can be understood as referring to the Virgin Mary as well as to the Church.

While his role as the angel of the Annunciation is likely the most prominent in the minds of the faithful, it was not his only mention in sacred scripture.  New Advent has an interesting entry about this.

---------

*This was the feast date set by the 1921 calendar.  In 1969, it was moved to September 29, merging it with the feast of other archangels.

The image above is The Annunciation (ca. 1489) by Pietro Perugino.
Scripture from the Douay-Rheims version.   For another lovely image of Archangel Gabriel and the Blessed Virgin at the Annunciation, see the post Silence, Annunciation, Incarnation.

St. Joseph, Mary Garden Patron

This is the third in a series about St. Joseph leading up to the Solemnity of St. Joseph on March 19, one of the Lenten days during which altar flowers are permitted.

Artist Ade Bethune, a Mary gardener, designed the statue depicted above for placement in her Mary Garden. I found an article about the statue on the extensive Mary Gardens website years ago.  Unfortunately, the University of Dayton, the holder of Mary gardener John Stokes' very rich Mary Gardens treasure trove, recently reconfigured the website and I am no longer able to provide a link.

Here is what the article said about St. Joseph:

"As prayerful workman, most chaste spouse of the Blessed Virgin, and foster father of Jesus, he is the example and inspiration for every aspect of our Mary Garden work, both prayerful and practical. . . .

"To bring St. Joseph closer to us as we work with the soil, and to assist us in meditating on his example, in beseeching his intercession and in contemplating his life with Mary and Jesus, we can use to advantage a suitable outdoor image or likeness of St. Joseph. . . .

"This statue is identified as that of St. Joseph, most chaste spouse of the Blessed Virgin and foster father of Jesus, by the flowering staff, the traditional emblem of St. Joseph, clasped in his left hand.

"St. Joseph, patron of all workmen and provider for the Holy Family, is represented in a special manner for garden and farm workmen as kneeling at garden work with a small cultivating tool in his right hand.

"A sense of St. Joseph's fidelity to grace and to the interior life, and of his faithful watchfulness for God's will and providence, is conveyed by the artist's representation of his countenance and of the entire bearing of his body.

"At the same time, the statue's body and countenance show a strength which bespeaks St. Joseph's fitness as protector of the Holy Family and the Church and also as model for all workmen. It likewise testifies to the strength of his purity and chastity.

"The cultivating tool recalls for us that garden work and all work is a stewardship of God's creatures. It recalls also the analogies between the cultivation of plant life and of the spiritual life. . . .

"Beholding the statue as we work outdoors, we are reminded that all our work, too, should be performed recollectedly, with prayerful intentions and custody of heart, and that from time to time we should pause for a moment to give our attention fully to Our Lady and to the divine Child, that our work, like St. Joseph's, will become a continual prayer of devotion, praise and thanksgiving."

 

Assumption Day and Our Lady's Bower

Upcoming on August 15 is the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, celebrating the day Our Lord took Our Lady to heaven.

According to the flower calendar in the Collectanea of Vincent Stuckey Lean (1820-1899), the blossoms of a certain plant fall around Assumption Day:

"When Mary left us here below,
The Virgin's Bower begins to blow."

The plant V.S. Lean is referring to is Clematis vitalba, known in Catholic horticulture as "Virgin's Bower" or "Our Lady's Bower".

Clematis vitalba is a member of the ranunculus family. It is a climbing vine with medium green leaves shaped like elongated hearts. The plant grows vigorously and forms a canopy or thicket. It blooms during the summer with starry white blossoms. When the blossoms fall, they leave greenish seed heads. As the seed heads ripen, tufts of wispy, silver fibers emerge. The seed heads and fibers are lovely in winter.

The idea is that the canopy the plant makes is a bedchamber for Our Blessed Mother.  When she is taken up to heaven, she no longer needs the canopy so the blossoms fall and blow away.

One can learn more about the plant here.

Image:
Clematis vitalba, from Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.

The Assumption Lily and Our Lady

Aside from the rose, the flower most often associated with the Blessed Virgin Mary is the lily. John S. Stokes, the Mary Gardener, said that Venerable Bede (673-735) discerned “the translucent whiteness of the petals of the white lily as symbolizing the purity of Mary’s body and the gold of its anthers* as symbolizing the glory of her soul, as she was assumed into heaven”. The Fish Eaters website says that early rosaries had Ave beads shaped like lilies.

The Assumption Lily, also called the plantain lily or August lily, blooms during August and is therefore associated with Assumption Day on August 15, the principal feast of the Blessed Virgin.

The Assumption Lily is actually a variety of hosta -- the hosta plantaginea, native to China and Japan. After visitors to Asia brought it to Europe for cultivation, it was given its Marian name. It is the only species of hosta that is highly fragrant, making even more significant its association with the Assumption of Our Lady into heaven.

“Today the spotless Virgin, untouched by earthly affections, and all heavenly in her thoughts, was not dissolved in earth, but truly entering heaven, dwells in the heavenly tabernacles.” St. John Damascene (676-754)

Image:
Photograph of hosta plantaginea, from Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.
-------------
*An “anther” is the pollen-bearing part of the stamen of a plant.

The Magdalene and Her Precious Ointment

Tomorrow, July 22, is the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, Penitent. It is a day to attend the Mass said in her honor, to pray St. Anselm's Prayer, and to bake Madeleines. Fish Eaters has a beautiful web page on St. Mary Magdalene that includes the prayer of St. Anselm, a recipe for Madeleines, scripture references, and many apt thoughts and reflections on this beloved saint. In keeping with the theme of this blog, today's post is about the plant involved in the Magdalene's anointing of Christ, which she does first in the house of Simon the Pharisee and later at her home in Bethany:

"And one of the Pharisees desired him to eat with him. And he went into the house of the Pharisee, and sat down to meat. And behold a woman that was in the city, a sinner, when she knew that he sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment; And standing behind at his feet, she began to wash his feet, with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment." (Luke 7:36-38. Douay-Rheims.)

"Jesus therefore, six days before the pasch, came to Bethania, where Lazarus had been dead, whom Jesus raised to life. And they made him a supper there: and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that were at table with him. Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of right spikenard, of great price, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment." (John 12:1-3. Douay-Rheims.)

The ointment "of great price" with which the Magdalene anointed Our Lord was made from the plant Nardostachys grandiflora (depicted above), commonly called spikenard or nard. Spikenard has pink, bell-shaped flowers and rhizomes that are crushed to produce a thick aromatic oil that is used for incense or perfume. Spikenard is also mentioned in the Canticle of Canticles:

"While the king was at his repose, my spikenard sent forth the odor thereof." (Cant. 1:11.)

"Thy plants are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruits of the orchard. Cypress with spikenard. Spikenard and saffron, sweet cane and cinnamon, with all the trees of Libanus, myrrh and aloes with all the chief perfumes." (Cant. 4:13-14.)

It is interesting to reflect that when St. Mary Magdalene anointed Christ at Bethany, her "king was at his repose" and her "spikenard sent forth the odor thereof", just as in Canticle of Canticles. 

Image: 19th century botanical illustration of Nardostachys grandiflora, from Wikimedia Commons. In the public domain.

St. Thomas More's Flowers

 

July 9 is the traditional feast day of St. Thomas More.  It would be interesting to try to identify the flowers in the above image and reproduce them in his honor on his feast day.

The arrangement depicted above is from a famous painting of the family of St. Thomas More (1478-1535).  Most readers likely know that Thomas More was the lawyer, scholar, and statesman ho was martyred by Henry VIII because he refused to accept Henry as the head of the church in England or the legitimacy of Henry's marriage to Anne Boylen.

An original drawing for a painting of the family was done by the artist Hans Holbein the Younger around 1527.  Holbein also painted the famous portrait of More in his attire as Lord Chancellor of England that is now in the Frick Collection in New York.

Holbein did complete the family painting but it was destroyed.  Rowland Lockey painted the version just above based on Holbein's drawing.  The sketch by Holbein showed a vase of flowers and Lockey elaborated on them.

It seems likely that the flowers were grown right there in More's gardens at his estate at Chelsea.  According to one of More's biographers, Peter Ackroyd:

"[T]he gardens were filled with a variety of trees and herbs and flowering shrubs.  In particular there was a mulberry tree, because its name is morus, as well as rosemary and lilies, gillyflowers and sweet cabbage roses.  There was an orchard with its apple trees and pear trees, plums and apricots and spreading vines.  The house was approached by a path, with a few steps leading up to a front porch decorated with jasmine and honeysuckle." 

(Ackroyd, The Life of Thomas More, Doubleday, 1998, p. 252.)

Interestingly, although the manor house is long gone, the mulberry tree is still standing and pilgrims often visit it.  There is a commemorative plaque at the foot of the tree.  According to the plaque, More, his family and friends liked to gather there to talk and enjoy the company of one another.  You can read more about the tree at More's Mulberry blog.

Rosemary and Our Lady's Teacake

During medieval times, many flowers and other plants were known by names associated with Our Lady or the saints. One such plant was the rosemary. Legend has it that its flowers are blue because Our Lady once spread her veil over the plant and the pale blue color remained as a reminder. The Latin name for the plant -- rosmarinus -- may actually reflect the legend because it means "dew of the sea", while the Virgin Mary is associated with the sea. (One of her many titles is "Star of the Sea".)

Rosemary branches were often used in liturgical processions because of their pleasant fragrance. Rosemary is also a key ingredient of a delicious teacake. While it is baking, the rosemary fills the kitchen with a wonderful scent. Serving it seems particularly appropriate during Eastertide.

Our Lady's Teacake (Makes one 9" round cake)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 cup milk
1 tb. finely chopped fresh rosemary or 1-1/2 tsp. dried rosemary
2 eggs
4 tb. butter or 1/4 cup extra light olive oil
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
Optional: 1/2 tsp. salt

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease the pan.
Combine the raisins, milk, and rosemary in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Cook gently for two minutes, then set aside to cool.
Beat the eggs in a large bowl until they are frothy, then stir in the butter and sugar. Mix well.
Stir and toss together the flour and baking powder (also the salt if you are using salt). Mix well, then add to the egg mixture and beat until the batter is smooth. It will be very stiff.
Add the cooled rosemary mixture and beat again until the batter is smooth.
Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
Remove from the oven, and cool in the baking pan for 10 minutes, then turn onto a rack to finish cooling completely.

To serve: Garnish with sprigs of fresh rosemary, if available.

Source:
Recipe adapted from Marion Cunningham, The Fannie Farmer Baking Book (Knopf, 1984), p. 578

Mary Gardens - An Introduction

May, the month the Church dedicates to the Blessed Virgin Mary, brings to mind the Mary Garden:

". . . the Mary garden is an old idea, a very old one indeed, which dates back to the Middle Ages when many flowers referred to the Virgin's life and virtues. Every monastery and convent had a special Mary garden to provide flowers to adorn the altar. It was because of the abundance of flowers in May that it became Mary's month, and the people delighted in decorating her statue and altar with flowers.

"The little people found their Mary gardens in the field and forests, where so many flowers spoke to them of some aspect of Our Lady and her Divine Son. It is said that then, in those happy days of Faith, the flowers honored Mary, the choicest Flower of All, the Mystical Rose; everyone knew that it was she of whom Solomon sang: I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys."

For anyone interested in starting a Mary Garden, a good place to begin is here.

 
Source of quoted material:
Galitzin, Margaret C.; A Renewed Interest in the Mary Gardens

The Virgin Mary and the Wild Rose

According to Mary Gardener John S. Stokes, in medieval times the wild rose was called Mary's Rose and it was the wild rose that was the model for the central rose windows of the medieval cathedrals. Mary herself was compared to a rose, and:

“[A]n entire garden of roses was used to symbolize the fullness of Our Lady's virtues and glories, and as Pope Pius XII has said . . . ‘The rosary represents primarily a garden of roses offered to Mary, an adornment of her image, a symbol of her graces’.

“For prayer everywhere, as well as in the garden, the symbolism of the rose and the garden of roses has been embodied in the string of rosary beads, which serves as an aid for meditating on fifteen of Our Lady's mysteries."

Mary's titles include Mystical Rose and Queen of the Most Holy Rosary.

Source of quoted material:
John S. Stokes.  Mary Gardens at University of Dayton website.

Image:
Rosa Acicularis (wild rose) from Wikimedia Commons.

Pink Roses and the Virgin's Immaculate Heart

Today August 22 is the traditional Catholic feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Fish Eaters has an excellent page on the Immaculate Heart and also a page on the related Miraculous Medal devotion.

In keeping with the theme of this blog, this post is about why -- as I mentioned in an earlier post -- devotional pictures and statutes of the Immaculate Heart usually show the Blessed Mother's heart surrounded by a wreath of pink roses. Why pink?

I found the explanation in an article at EWTN on another topic. The answer is that pink is a mixture of red and white. In turn, red stands for love and sacrifice while white stands for purity. That is, Immaculate = white, Heart = red, Immaculate Heart = pink.

It's as simple as that -- and rather nice, I think.

Image:
19th century devotional picture of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, from Wikimedia Commons. In the public domain.

Pink Flowers for Church Decoration

In their book Arranging Flowers for the Sanctuary, Patteson-Knight and St. Claire provide a list of pink and rose-colored flowers for church decoration.

The month of the Immaculate Heart (August) is coming soon. Since many depictions of the Immaculate Heart show the Blessed Mother's heart surrounded by a wreath of pink flowers (usually roses), August is an especially good time to decorate churches and sacred spaces in the home with pink flowers.

Here is the list of pink and rose flowers from Patteson-Knight and St. Claire:

Amaryllis, Anemone, Aster, Azalea
Calla lily, Camellia, Canna, Carnation, Chrysanthemum,
Clove Pink; Coxcomb; Cyclamen
Dahlia
Foxglove
Geranium, Gladiolus
Hyacinth, Hydrangea
Iris
Larkspur, Lilac, Lily
Magnolia
Peony, Petunia, Phlox, Poinsettia
Ranunculus, Rhododendron, Rose
Scabiosa, Snapdragon, Stock, Sweetpea, Sweet William
Tulip
Zinnia

By "amaryllis" the authors are referring to the flower commonly called "Pink Ladies" not hippeastrum, which is often marketed under the name amaryllis. Pink Ladies bloom in late summer.

I was astonished to see iris on the list since I had never heard of a pink iris before but I did find some images of pink irises online. They are very beautiful!

I also learned that Clove Pink (Dianthus caryophyllus) and Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus) are both types of carnations and can be very similar in appearance.

Geranium, gladiolus, petunia, phlox, rose, snapdragon, stock, and zinnia all bloom during the summer, so any of them might be a good choice for church and home decoration during August.

For a formal arrangement, I might use pink roses or cut-down gladiolas for form and pink snapdragons for height. For home, potted pink geraniums or phlox or a simple vase of pink stocks might work well.

Source:
Patteson-Knight, Francis and St. Claire, Margaret McReynolds; Arranging Flowers for the Sanctuary (Harper & Bros., New York, 1961), p. 39.

Image:
Pink gladiolas from Wikimedia Commons. In the public domain.

The Crown of Thorns and the Euphorbia Plant

As mentioned in an earlier post, the month of July is devoted to the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Litany of the Precious Blood includes the verse and response: "Blood of Christ, flowing forth in the Crowning with Thorns. Save us." Thus, July is an appropriate time to consider the plant Euphorbia Milii (also known as Euphorbia Splendens).

In Catholic horticulture, the Euphorbia Milii is called the "Crown of Thorns", "Christ Plant", or "Christ Thorn":

"The common names allude to the legend that the crown of thorns worn by Christ at the time of his crucifixion was made from stems of this plant. Interestingly, the stems of this plant are pliable and can be intertwined into a circle. There exists substantial evidence that the species, native to Madagascar, had been brought to the Middle East before the time of Christ."

Dr. T. Ombrello, the source of the foregoing quotation, gives a great deal of additional information about the plant as well as warnings about its toxic and allergenic properties.

Source:
Dr. T. Ombrello, "Crown of Thorns", website of Union County College (New Jersey), Department of Biology.

Image:
Botanical illustration of euphorbia, from Wikimedia Commons. In the public domain.

St. Salaun and His Lily

Here, a few days late, is the story of Salaun, a canonized saint whose feast day is November 1. The setting is 14th century Brittany (a region in northwestern France, on a peninsula between the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay).

According to Baring-Gold, St. Salaun's life was originally recorded by Jean de Langouezenou, a Benedictine monk who was the abbot of Landevenec and a contemporary of Salaun. The original account was lost and so it cannot be determined how much the more recent versions vary from the original. In summary, this is the story:

Salaun (also referred to as Yann Salacin, Solomon, or Salomon) was a poor child from the area of Lesneven. At school, he learned to revere the Blessed Virgin Mary. He learned nothing else.

He would gather flowers in the fields and bring them to the Virgin's altar where he spent hours every day.

He begged his food by the roadside and by knocking at doors. He would plead, "O Lady Virgin Mary! Salaun would like some bread!" He often wandered in a certain wooded area and slept in the trees or in the barns of peasants. He would swing in the branches of the trees singing "Ave Maria".

Once during the disputes between Charles of Blois and the Count of Montfort, some soldiers asked him to which side he belonged and he replied, "Neither to Blois nor to Montfort, but to Mary".

Because he was regarded as a simpleton, he came to be called "The Fool" and the woods he inhabited "Fool's Wood" (Folgoat or Follcoat).

Salaun died on All Saints' Day around 1358 and was buried in a churchyard. From his grave, a tall, pure white lily grew. The grave was opened and it was discovered that the lily sprang from Salaun's mouth. Some accounts say the petals of the lily were inscribed with the phrase he used to cry -- "O Lady Virgin Mary!" Others say they were inscribed with "Ave Maria", written in gold.

A church was erected in the Fool's Wood called "Notre Dame de Folgoat", which portrays the story in a stained glass window. The church became the most popular pilgrimage destination in lower Brittany.

Sources:
Baring-Gold, Sabine; The Lives of the Saints, Vol. 13 (1898), pp. 40-41.
Sedgwick, Anne Douglas; A Childhood in Brittany Eighty Years Ago (1919), pp. 196-197.

Image:
"Lilium Neilgherense", an illustration by Walter Hood Fitch (1817-1892), from Wikimedia Commons. In the public domain.

St. Fiacre and His Garden

St. Fiacre is the patron saint of gardeners. In his native Ireland, his feast day is celebrated today, September 1. He is commemorated on various other dates elsewhere.

Tradition in Action relates, “St. Fiacre was born . . . into an illustrious Irish family. The Scots affirm that he was the son of one of their kings who was raised with his brothers by St. Conon, Bishop of Iona.”

According to the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia:

St. Fiacre was “born in Ireland about the end of the sixth century; died 18 August, 670. Having been ordained priest, he retired to a hermitage on the banks of the Nore . . . Disciples flocked to him, but, desirous of greater solitude, he left his native land and arrived, in 628, at Meaux [France], where St. Faro" was the bishop.

St. Faro gave St. Fiacre a plot of land at Breuil and there, “Fiacre built an oratory in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a hospice in which he received strangers, and a cell in which he himself lived apart. He lived a life of great mortification, in prayer, fast, vigil, and the manual labour of the garden. Disciples gathered around him and soon formed a monastery. There is a legend that St. Faro allowed him as much land as he might surround in one day with a furrow; that Fiacre turned up the earth with the point of his crosier, and that an officious woman hastened to tell Faro that he was being beguiled; that Faro coming to the wood recognized that the wonder worker was a man of God and sought his blessing, and that Fiacre henceforth excluded women, on pain of severe bodily infirmity, from the precincts of his monastery. In reality, the exclusion of women was . . . common . . . in the Irish foundations. His fame for miracles was widespread. He cured all manner of diseases by laying on his hands.”

St. Fiacre is a favorite of Mary Gardeners not only because he is the patron of gardeners but because he may have been the first Mary Gardener. It is difficult to pinpoint when the Mary Garden developed as an entity separate from the sacristan’s garden. The Mary Gardens website, however, suggests the possibility that the Mary Garden originated with St. Fiacre:

“St. Benedict is known to have had a monastic rose garden, or ‘Rosary’, in the 4th Century, but the first reference to an actual garden dedicated to Mary of which we know is from the life of St. Fiacre . . . who planted and tended a garden around the oratory to Our Lady he built at his famous hospice . . . ."

St. Fiacre is also the patron saint of taxi drivers.

Image:
St. Fiacre, from Wikimedia Commons. In the public domain.

Monastic Gardens

According to Katherine M. McClinton, "The idea of a church garden is an old one, and the first church gardens on record are those connected with monasteries. Early monastic gardens . . . contained orchards, fish ponds, dove houses, vineyards, and herb plots for medicine, as well as a sacristan's garden in which were raised flowers for the church. The abbot and the prior also had private gardens. Famous monastic gardens were to be seen at the Benedictine Monastery at Montecassino, Italy, and in the rose garden of St. Francis of Assisi. . . . "The sacristan's garden usually had a fountain and a formal lay-out of paths with geometrical flower beds. Roses and lilies, the flowers most often associated with the Virgin, were always planted in these gardens. In addition to the fountain or pool, a cross or sundial was often found in the old cloister gardens, and plaques or statues spaced the ivy-grown walls." (1) The elaborate sacristan's garden spoken of by McClinton was likely a product of the High or Late Middle Ages. The oldest extant plan for a monastery, designed during the Early Middle Ages, was drawn by Abbot Haito of Reichenau for Abbot Gozbert of Sankt Gallen. The monastery plan was never actually implemented. On the northwest side of the plan near the top one can see garden beds. The named plants included roses and lilies as well as sage, rosemary and medicinal plants. This was the "physic garden". The long structure just beneath the center on the design is the church. The semi-circular areas on either side are labeled "paradise", which identifies them as gardens. (2) Since they were adjacent to the church, they were probably intended for the sacristan's gardens. (3) Sources: (1) McClinton, Katharine Morrison, Flower Arrangement in the Church (Morehouse Graham Co., New York, 1958), pp. 114-115. (2) GardenVisit.com - here and here (3) Rohde, Eleanor Sinclair, Garden-craft in the Bible (Ayer Publishing, 1927), p. 99. (Rohde describes a church where the "paradise" just outside was the sacristan's garden.) A photograph of the actual plan, which was drawn on parchment, can be found in the Wikipedia entry, Plan of St. Gall. Image: The Benedictine Monastery at Monte Cassino from Wikipedia

Dogwood and the Holy Cross

"Each delicate white or pink blossom of the dogwood has the form of a cross -- two long and two short petals. Look closely at a dogwood flower and you will see on the center of the outer edge of each petal there are small holes remindful of nail prints, and the tips of the petals are rusty on one side and brown-red on the other. It is not hard to imagine they represent the spikes that pierced the Hands and Feet of Our Lord on the Cross. And in the center of the flower there is a green cluster that recalls the crown of thorns."

From Elaine M. Jordan at Tradition in Action: The Legend of the Dogwood