In the northern hemisphere, May is often called Mary’s month, the month dedicated to the Mother of God. It’s also the month we celebrate Mother’s Day, and honor our own mothers.
I like May because here in the Midwest, winter is definitely over, with spring well on its way to summer. Early spring flowers have been blooming, first the daffodils and now tulips. Trees and shrubs are flowering.
Yesterday I walked along the wildflower paths at Cox Arboretum Metro-Park in Dayton, just a few minutes from my home. My thoughts went to Mary, walking to visit Elizabeth. What flowers did she see?
On May 31 we celebrate the Feast of the Visitation.
I was reminded of the early spring blossoms of columbine, and the legend that it sprang up wherever Mary’s feet touched the ground when she was on her way to visit Elizabeth. The flower reflected the innocence of the Virgin Mary. In England the flower was called Our Lady’s Shoes and Our Lady’s Flower. The name comes from Columba, the Latin word for dove, as the blossom, usually with pink or purple and white petals, resembles five doves clustered together.
We are told that during the Middle Ages, the faithful saw reminders of Mary, the Mother of God, in the flowers and herbs growing around them. Violets were symbols of her humility, lilies her purity and roses her glory. They called her “Flower of Flowers,” and named plants after her. Marigolds were Mary’s Gold, clematis was the Virgin’s Bower and lavender was Our Lady’s Drying Plant.
People were so devoted to Mary they decorated her altars with flowers on her feast days. Poets and popes praised her in hymns, as in this 15th-century Ave Maria:
Heil be thou, Marie, that aff flour of all
As roose in eerbir so reed.
In the last century, prior to the Second Vatican Council of the early 1960’s, the faithful also honored Mary with flowers. May crownings were the tradition in Catholic schools during Mary’s month, and makeshift home altars bearing an image of Mary were decorated with the choicest home-grown blossoms.
Those traditions have almost disappeared, but the medieval custom of finding reminders of Mary’s attributes, glory and sorrows in flowers and herbs has left a legacy that can enrich our lives in this millennium.
More than 30 flowers and herbs bear legends about Mary’s life. Many of the plants can be easily grown in your own Mary Garden, a garden dedicated to Mary and containing her image and plants associated with her by name or legend. They are found in Mary Gardens throughout the world, should you want to make a pilgrimage in Mary’s honor. The legends and reflections are found in my book, "Mary’s Flowers: Gardens, Legends and Meditations," first published by St. Anthony Messenger Press and now available from Tau Publications.
(Portions of the above first appeared in "Honoring Mary in Your Garden" in the May 2000 issue of St. Anthony Messenger Press.)
For information about Mary Gardens in this country and elsewhere, go to the Mary Gardens web site, Mary's Gardens home, campus.udayton.edu/mary/resources/m_garden/marygardensmain.html
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
John S. Stokes
John Stokes would have loved the blog! The former Quaker and engineer, whose life changed when he learned about the Mary Garden at Woods Hole on Cape Cod, would have been one of the first bloggers.
John and his friend, Edward McTague, visited that Mary Garden, dedicated to Our Lady and filled with flowers named after her, and conceived the idea of promoting “the restoration of old medieval religious names, symbolisms and uses of flowers – especially those associating them with the Blessed Virgin - to present-day religion and gardening.”
They envisioned many gardens with Mary’s flowers and set about to encourage their development. In 1951 they founded Mary’s Gardens in Philadelphia as a means for publicizing and restoring the old Mary flower tradition. They advertised in Catholic publications and through the Mary’s Gardens Catalog offered “seeds, bulbs, plants, shrines and literature.”
This was long before the internet and blogging. John corresponded with those who ordered the seeds and plants, traveled to garden shows and wrote articles for Catholic publications to encourage the creation of Mary’s gardens.
He was elated when the internet emerged and on September 8, 1995, set about establishing a website, Mary’s Gardens, which increased his presence and ability to reach a greater audience.
I met John Stokes in June, 1996, when my husband and I traveled to Woods Hole to visit that first Mary Garden. He had come from Philadelphia to meet us and we spent the day together, talking about his work and his dreams. I had been inspired by him and was considering the possibility of writing a book about Mary Gardens (Mary’s Flowers: Gardens, Legends and Meditations was published in 1999 and is currently in its third printing).
The Mary’s Gardens website grew and grew under John’s enthusiastic and prayerful guidance. It became a bit unwieldy and confusing: John sometimes placed the same article in several categories, perhaps to encourage easy access. He also imbedded articles within articles! Recently I was charged with revamping the site and was able to streamline it, eliminate duplication and bring the imbedded articles to light. Some of the section titles were changed to better reflect content and facilitate searches. The reorganized website should be on-line within the next few months.
John Stokes died in 2007. In his will he left the website to the Marian Library at the University of Dayton.
There is so much to discover on the website! In future blogs I will highlight some of the jewels found there. I will tell you about some of my favorite sections and articles, and identify those that relate to the seasons, feast days and holy days and our liturgical year.
Meanwhile, I invite you to join me in continuing the prayerful legacy of honoring Mary in the simple everyday of flowers and gardens. There is an old German saying, “Three things are left from paradise: The flowers with their fragrance, the stars with their brilliance, and the eyes of a little child.” We can imagine our Blessed Mother as she looked into the eyes of her little child, walked through the flowers of her homeland, and looked to the distant stars. Sometimes our hearts need the joy of beauty that John Stokes wished to preserve for us.
John and his friend, Edward McTague, visited that Mary Garden, dedicated to Our Lady and filled with flowers named after her, and conceived the idea of promoting “the restoration of old medieval religious names, symbolisms and uses of flowers – especially those associating them with the Blessed Virgin - to present-day religion and gardening.”
They envisioned many gardens with Mary’s flowers and set about to encourage their development. In 1951 they founded Mary’s Gardens in Philadelphia as a means for publicizing and restoring the old Mary flower tradition. They advertised in Catholic publications and through the Mary’s Gardens Catalog offered “seeds, bulbs, plants, shrines and literature.”
This was long before the internet and blogging. John corresponded with those who ordered the seeds and plants, traveled to garden shows and wrote articles for Catholic publications to encourage the creation of Mary’s gardens.
He was elated when the internet emerged and on September 8, 1995, set about establishing a website, Mary’s Gardens, which increased his presence and ability to reach a greater audience.
I met John Stokes in June, 1996, when my husband and I traveled to Woods Hole to visit that first Mary Garden. He had come from Philadelphia to meet us and we spent the day together, talking about his work and his dreams. I had been inspired by him and was considering the possibility of writing a book about Mary Gardens (Mary’s Flowers: Gardens, Legends and Meditations was published in 1999 and is currently in its third printing).
The Mary’s Gardens website grew and grew under John’s enthusiastic and prayerful guidance. It became a bit unwieldy and confusing: John sometimes placed the same article in several categories, perhaps to encourage easy access. He also imbedded articles within articles! Recently I was charged with revamping the site and was able to streamline it, eliminate duplication and bring the imbedded articles to light. Some of the section titles were changed to better reflect content and facilitate searches. The reorganized website should be on-line within the next few months.
John Stokes died in 2007. In his will he left the website to the Marian Library at the University of Dayton.
There is so much to discover on the website! In future blogs I will highlight some of the jewels found there. I will tell you about some of my favorite sections and articles, and identify those that relate to the seasons, feast days and holy days and our liturgical year.
Meanwhile, I invite you to join me in continuing the prayerful legacy of honoring Mary in the simple everyday of flowers and gardens. There is an old German saying, “Three things are left from paradise: The flowers with their fragrance, the stars with their brilliance, and the eyes of a little child.” We can imagine our Blessed Mother as she looked into the eyes of her little child, walked through the flowers of her homeland, and looked to the distant stars. Sometimes our hearts need the joy of beauty that John Stokes wished to preserve for us.
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