The current boom in gardening in the United States may reflect the affluence of an aging population, but it also could be a way of recovering an ageless symbol of the search for God. Alongside the nursery and seed catalogues and garden manuals, there are almost as many books (a few are listed at the end of this article) highlighting the spiritual dimension of gardening, and reminding us that gardens and flowers figure prominently in the Scriptures, Christian tradition, and Marian devotion.

Scripture refers to the earth as "the Lord’s Garden" (Gen. 2,8; 13,10; Ez.32, 8-9). The early Christian writer, Origen, spoke of the "garden of the soul," and Hippolyte of Rome saw in the garden an "image of the Church" where the Lord was the gardener. Early ascetics strove to recreate a harmonious way of life which mirrored Paradise (the Septuagint’s word for the Garden of Eden). In her autobiography, St. Teresa of Avila’s speaks of her life as a garden cared for the Lord.: "What an appealing image to think of my soul as a garden and imagine that the Lord was taking a walk in it."

The Old Testament’s Canticle of Canticles, the biblical book which received the most commentaries in the early middle ages and the source of many texts applicable to Mary, refers to gardens and flowers. The "closed garden" (chapter 4,12) was an image for describing the Lord’s special and unique relation to the Church, the Virgin Mary, and the Christian soul. The Marian writings of St. John Eudes and St.Louis Grignion de Montfort, filled with references to gardens and flowers, reflect a tradition which sees the Virgin Mary as the restoration of fallen humanity: "Mary is God’s Garden of Paradise,"(The Secret of Mary, #1). Christian art has many representations of the Virgin Mary seated in a garden with her child.

Collections of prayers derived their names from gardens. The word rosary (rosarium) was originally a garden or collection of roses. First appearing in the 1500s, books known as the "Garden of the Soul" (Hortulus or Ortulus Animae) contained the Little Office of Our Lady, other psalms, and prayers (similar to the Latin Horae or English Prymers). Bishop Richard Challoner’s The Garden of the Soul: A Manual of Spiritual Exercises and Instructions for Those Christians Who Living in the World Aspire to Devotion, first published in 1740, was in use by English Catholics well into the twentieth century. (In 1901, Herbert Thurston, S.J., wrote "The Garden of the Soul is now the title of a prayer book so well known and so long in use among us Papists that one has heard the phrase ‘a Garden-of the Soul-Christian,’ used as a nickname for a particular type of old-fashioned Catholic who . . .was not favorable to new-fangled devotions.")

The flowers in the Canticle of Canticle were early associated with Marian devotion: "I am the flower of Sharon, a lily of the valley. As a lily among thorns, so is my beloved among women" (ch. 2). Beginning in the 13^th century, painters in Northern Europe began a tradition of representing the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation with a lily in his hand or with a vase of lilies in the room. Early portrayals of Mary’s Assumption show lilies and roses coming from the empty tomb. By the fifteenth century, lilies, roses (red and white), and violets became symbols associated with Mary: the white roses of purity, red roses of love, violets of humility. Baroque painters delighted in portraying the Virgin Mary surrounded with garlands of flowers.

In the medieval garden, flowers and herbs were permeated with religious and liturgical significance. A few names still survive: Pentecost rose (peony), Alleluia (wood sorrel blooming in Paschal time), St. John wort (blooming near the feast of John the Baptist), Our Lady’s Slipper (columbine), Assumption lily (hosta). Fr. Ludwig Gemminger’s The Flowers of Mary, first published in Germany in the 1850s, is a series of meditations on thirty-one flowers (one for each day of the month). Sturdy and salutary advice on Christian living was drawn from observing common garden flowers – from May-Bells, the sunflower, to the " forget-me-not." For example, the meditation on the tulip with its head directed upward prompted the reflection: "God is to the soul, what the sun is to nature, its light, its warmth, and its life."

Medieval England, "Our Lady’s Dowry," abounded in flowers with names and legends related to the life of Jesus and Mary. Modern interest in recovering the old English names and legends of flowers stems from Judith Smith’s, The Mary Calendar (1930). Ms. Smith spoke about the "intuitive devotion" of the ancestors in the faith who spontaneously "saw everywhere signs and symbols of the presence of God-made man and of his holy Mother." She observed, "Every field path and hedgerow became an illuminated Book of Hours." Her book, with striking woodcuts, dealt with the "wildflowers of summer, many of which were thought of as being among the manger hay." In 1932, in the revival of the medieval "Mary Garden," Mrs. Frances Crane Lillie started a garden of these plants with a medieval Marian name at St. Joseph’s Church, Woods Hole, Massachusetts. In 1951, two young businessmen, Edward A. G. McTauge and John J. Stokes, formed a non-profit group to revive and promote the medieval practice of giving flowers a religious significance by associating them with the life and virtues of the Virgin Mary. Today, they continue the promotion of the Mary Garden through their Internet site.

Mary Gardens today can take many different forms–a simple image of Mary in an indoor dish garden, or an outdoor garden of wildflowers, perennials, or annuals, with some symbol of the Christian life. Noted Mary Gardens are at St. Catherine’s Parish, Kalamazoo, Michigan; St. Mary’s Parish, Indianapolis, Maryland; and the National Shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows, Portland, Oregon. On June 10, 2000, a "Mary’s Garden of Prayer" was dedicated on the grounds of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C. Sponsored by the National Council of Catholic Women, the three-quarters acre site has at its center a sculpture of "Mary, Protector of the Faith," by Washington artist, Jon-Joseph Russo.

Ann Ball. Catholic Traditions in the Garden. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, 1998.

Brigid Boardman and Philip Jebb. In a Quiet Garden: Meditations and Prayerful Reflections. Bath, England: Downside Abbey Books, 2000

Vincenzina Krymow (with illustrations by A. Joseph Barrish, S.M., and meditations by M. Jean Frisk). Mary’s Flowers: Gardens, Legends and Meditations. Cincinnati, OH: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1999.

Wayne Simic. Garden Prayers: Planting the Seeds of Your Inner Life. Winona, MN: St. Mary’s Press, 1995.

November 1, 2000, was the fiftieth anniversary of Pius XII’s definition of the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. In Pius XII’s document on the Assumption, the word privilege appears several times. Writing in Marianum-Notizie, Fr. Ignacio Calabuig, O.S.M., suggests it would be better to use the word sign to indicate all the meaning contained in that "moment of grace."

-- The Assumption is a sign of a glorious destiny: both Christ’s Resurrection and Mary’s Assumption proclaim that life has meaning, that, even though humanity may subvert God’s plan, the body is destined for glory and immortality.

--The Assumption is a sign of God’s style or manner of acting, which is unpredictable. Theologians study God’s activity; for example, how he lifts up the lowly. The Assumption is the final consequence of the gift God bestowed on his lowly handmaid. "He who humbles himself shall be exalted" (Luke 14,11; 14,18). True to his style, God exalted the lowly (Mt. 23,12).

--First Fruits and Image of the Church: Mary and the Church image one another as virgin, bride, mother. Mary is "the wholly unique member of the Church," and the Church sees in Mary that which she herself desires to be" (SC 103).

--A sign of Presence: The liturgy of the Assumption contains three texts on the Ark of the Covenant that can be read from a Marian perspective: Chronicles 15 (reading at the Vigil Mass), Psalm 131, and Apocalypse 11,19; 12,1-6. The Ark, containing "a golden urn filled with manna, Aaron’s flower rod, and the tablets of the law" (Hebrews 9,4), was first in the fields, then carried to Jerusalem and placed in the tent David built for it. Finally, it was carried into the temple built by Solomon. Mary, symbol of the Ark of the Covenant containing bread, is carried into the sanctuary of heaven. "Then God’s temple in heaven was laid open, and within the temple was seen the ark of his covenant" (Apoc.11,19). (Other notices on anniversary of definition of the Assumption are in "Books and Articles" of this newsletter.)

On February 22, 2001, two hundred people gathered in the University of Dayton’s Roesch Library Gallery to open the exhibit, "From Barlach to Baselitz: Religious Print Art of the 20^th Century." The exhibit included seventy works–mostly by German Expressionists–from the Sheufelen Collection. Present for the opening of the exhibit were the owners of the exhibit, Dr.& Mrs. Ulrich Scheufelen, from Oberlenningen, Germany. At the opening, Dr. Scheufelen remarked, "It is a joy to present you with this modest exhibit. Our goal is to make Christianity better known, and to promote a better understanding of the religious print art of German Expressionism, including that of Chagall."

Nineteen prominent European artists are represented with scenes from the Bible and the life of Christ. Included are thirteen etchings from Marc Chagall’s "Bible" (1931-57); works of Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Oskar Kokoschka, Christian Rohlfs, George Grosz; Emil Nolde; Max Beckmann; Ernst Barlach, Georg Baselitz, Edouard Manet; Ludwig Meidner; Otto Dix’s "Ecce homo" (1949); eleven color etchings from Georges Roualt’s Passion; eight lithographs from Otto Dix’s Scenes from St. Matthew’s Gospel; twelve woodcuts from Max Pechstein’s The Our Father; and HAP Grieshaber’s Polish Way of the Cross."

Dr. Scheufelen explained that "German Expressionism is the most important contribution of Germany to European art of the twentieth century." The Expressionists wished to portray the inner and contemporary reality of a religious scene, and they adopted the style of the stark peasant wood cuts and prints of earlier German art. To the post-World War I generation, the Expressionists did much to restore the notion of Christian art as they portrayed the hope, suffering, anguish, and pardon which are part of the Christian experience.

Dr. Scheufelen is president of the prestigious and family-owned Scheufelen Paper Company in Oberlenningen, Germany, which produces fine art paper. The exhibit of these works at the Marian Library was made possible through a generous contribution of Burnell and Karen Roberts, who became acquainted with Dr.Scheufelen in 1977 when he was at the Mead Corporation in Dayton preparing for a career with his family-owned business. Over the years, the friendship continued, and a catalog of The Scheufelen Collection sent to Karen Roberts triggered the present event.

For the last decade, the Scheufelen Collection was a traveling exhibit, sent to museums, schools, and churches of Europe. This is the only showing of this collection outside of Europe, and also its last stop before it is permanently located at Wittenburg, Germany. (Copies of the exhibit book [German or English] are available upon request from the Marian Library.)

Fr. Walter Brennan, O.S.M., 65, a past president of the Mariological Society (1995-96), died suddenly in his office at the Marian Center of Our Lady of Sorrows Servite Monastery, Chicago, Illinois, March 8, 2001. He was a Servite for forty-two years, ordained in 1961. He received a master’s in philosophy in 1965 and a Ph.D in 1970 from DePaul University. He had been provincial of the former Eastern Province of Servites, 1988-1991. In 1988, his The Sacred Memory of Mary was published. This book combined his knowledge of the Scriptures and early Christian literature with his interest in hermeneutics, symbolism, and literary theory.

His presidential addresses to the Mariological Society stressed the need for discerning the essential elements of Marian devotion so that they might be inculturated into contemporary society. From the Servite Marian Center, he distributed his "Marian Update," a one-page bulletin highlighting a point "not usually noticed" from a prayer, a text of Scripture, or the image of Mary. In one of his last bulletins (#62), he wrote of Mary, our Model and our Mother. "Christ asks us to accept the challenge to think, forgive, to identify with the less fortunate, to be kind. This is how to be holy. This is not often done in the world. So Christ offers us the example of a tender mother, a good woman, a friend: Mary. She was human and she did it. She is given us as our mother who, through her prayers and closeness to the Spirit of God, helps us to do what Christ asks. She is given us as a model showing us what to do, and how to do it."

Fr. Alban A. Maguire, O.F.M., 86, another past president of the Mariological Society of America (1968-1969), died March 21, 2001, of complications from a fall at the Franciscan friary in Ringwood, New Jersey.. Fr. Maguire was president of Holy Name College in Washington, D.C., 1964 to 1969, and was provincial minister of the Franciscan Province of the Most Holy Name, 1980 to 1987. In his presidential address at the Mariological Society in 1968, he was aware of the quandary many American Catholics experienced after Vatican II, especially in matters related to Marian devotion. He urged studying the changes to see "whether the Council in giving new directions to the Church has not also given us the material for the renovation and enrichment of Marian doctrine."