Mary's Gardens Christmas
Mary's Gardens
http://www.mgardens.org
December 12, 1995
Our Lady of Guadalupe
ANNOUNCEMENT - For Christmastide
MINIATURE FLOWER PHOTOS
In response to the flood of Internet direct accesses of the
miniature Flowers of Our Lady photos illuminating our articles -
especially the "Spotless Lily" Immaculate Conception symbol
from the listing of "Flower and Plant Symbols of the
Blessed Virgin Mary from the Church Fathers and the Liturgy" - we
are making these photos conveniently available from a
special "Miniature Flower Photos" Web Homepage listing:
Spotless Lily
Mary's Gold
Our Lady's Mantle
Our Lady's Slipper
Mary's Shoes
Our Lady's Pincushion
Mary's Rose
Bush Burning but Unconsumed
To these will be added others for each liturgical season - starting this
month with a striking tropical flower, grown in temperate climates as a
houseplant:
'Mary' (Vresia mariae),
named for Mary in both its common folk name and its botanical name from its
radiant golden rays surrounding a central figure-like marking - suggesting
the miraculous painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe,
and also several Nativity Flowers, likewise named from folk traditions:
Star of Bethlehem
Christmas Rose
Our Lady's Bedstraw
Mary's Milkdrops
Christ in the Cradle
Baby Jesus' Fingers & Toes
as mentioned by Oxford Scholar, Alfred Dowling in his classic work,
"Plants of the Sacred Nativity" (London, 1890).
According to old imaginitive folk legends, "Our Ladys's Bedstraw"
burst into its golden blooms when the Infant Savior was laid on it
in the Manger by Mary - as a symbol of the glory of Our Lord's divinity at
birth.
The companion, "Mary's Milkdrops", was similarly held to have
acquired the white markings on its plant leaves when the nursing
Maiden Mother's milkdrops fell on them - as a symbol of Our Lord's
humanity. "True God and True Man". Believed to be the inpiration
for the Nursing Madonna paintings in religious art.
Purported actual preservations of Our Lady's Bedstraw and Mary's
Milkdrops, brought back from the Holy Land by returning crusaders
and pilgrims, were included in the collection of "Relics of the
Virgin" taken on tour through Europe in 1211 and England in 1212,
accompanied by many miracles - and are believed to have
been the inspiration for the corresponding flower symbols (with
many other parallels, such as "Our Lady's Mantle", "Our Lady's
Slipper", "Our Lady's Tresses", "Our Lady's Tears", etc.).
Medieval church wood carvings of the Madonna and Child, such as
the renowned romanesque Auvergne Virgins, of France, contained
compartments in their bases for such relics of the Virgin and were
thus known as "Reliquary Madonnas".
The legend of Mary's Milkdrops was so widespread that botanists,
when naming and classifying plant species, gave one of the Mary's
Milkdrops plants, the Milk Thistle, the latin scientific name,
Silybum Marianum.
The common name, "Ladyslipper", has been extended to several
tropical genuses of orchids from the european wild orchids
originally given this name. (The Oxford English Dictionary states that
"Lady" in plant names almost invariable referred in its origins to Our Lady.
Its original naming is yet to be documented by us, but we
make the conjecture that the "Slipper Chapel" at the Walsingham
Shrine of Our Lady in England, destroyed by Cromwell, was so named
from a relic of Our Lady's Slipper reserved there - from
which arose the practice, restored today, for pilgrims to remove
their shoes when they reach the Chapel at the shrine entrance, and
then to proceed the rest of the way to the main Shrine church barefooted.
Finally, we include a photo of a pole-mounted Mary Garden wayside shrine
sheltering a white hummel Virgin and Child, around which the birds wove a
nest of "manger straw", as a five-year-old explained it the day after it
was mounted - with accompanying 1955 article describing this and other
charming events of this home Mary Garden.
Merry Christmas
John Stokes
Mary's Gardens