Beautiful Mary: Our Lady of the Flowers

There are many ways in honoring Our Blessed Mother; one way to honor Mary this month is by recalling flowers and herbs named after her. The attributes of Mary called out by flowers can serve as starting points for prayer and meditation about Mary and her life.

May, really is a fanfare of nature coming to life as I mentioned here a few days ago. Celebrations honoring new life became associated with Mary since the Middle Ages.

Here's another poem in honor to Our Lady of the Flowers:

The faithful saw Mary's attributes in the herbs and flowers growing around them and named many plants after her. Legends about the flowers developed as people sought to connect them with events from Mary's life.

Mary was associated with this passage from the Song of Songs:
"I am the Rose of Sharon, the lily of the valleys."

The rose is regarded as the "queen of flowers", and often symbolizes Mary, the Queen of Heaven. Rose is also an almost universal symbol of perfect love, its color, perfection of form, and fragrance, as well as its thorns which signifies Mary's role in salvation history as the Mother of Jesus Christ Our Savior who was crowned with thorns and shed His blood on the Cross for love of mankind. The rose, arising from a thorny bush, also signifies Mary, the Mystical Rose, "our fallen Nature's solitary boast", who alone of the human race was conceived without sin. It also may contain a parallel with the fiery thorn bush from which God spoke to Moses: Mary, immaculately conceived, was the means through which God became Man, The Word made flesh.

Rose legends proliferated, reaching their peak in the twelfth century. The Rosa Alba turned pink when Mary blushed at the angel's Annunciation, the Christmas Rose sprang up to provide flowers for the poor shepherd girl who had no gift for the Infant Jesus, the Rose of Jericho marked the spot where the Holy Family rested during their flight into Egypt, and the Rose Campion saved the life of a lord who prayed "Our Lady's Psalter." 

In the fourteenth century the poet Dante called Mary "the Rose, in which the divine Word became flesh...." Many artists of the fifteenth century painted Mary with roses, often in a rose garden. 

Tradition tells us that the Amazon lily was the Star of Bethlehem guiding the Magi to Jesus. Other lilies were associated with Mary. The red lily was Mary's lily, and the Martagon or turban lily was called Our Lady's Tears. Hosta or plantain lily was the Assumption lily. Easter or Madonna lilies and lilies-of-the-valley-- white color and sweet fragrance symbolize Mary's purity, humility, loving obedience to God's will. Jesus is also called Lily of the Valley.The Iris;old-fashioned names were "flag" or "sword lily": the deep-blue color symbolizes Mary's fidelity, and the blade-shaped foliage denotes the sorrows that "pierce her heart". The iris flower is the "fleur-de-lis" of France. This symbol of the Blessed Virgin is also the symbol of the cities of Florence and of Saint Louis.

Click to read more about Mary's Flowers

Source/Reference: Mary's Flowers and its meaning

Beautiful Story of a Mother

Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them. St. Matthew 18:20

This is a short story about Saint Monica, the mother of Saint Augustine.

Saint Monica was given in marriage to Patricius, a pagan; even though she came from a Christian family and grew up in singular innocence and piety. After marriage, she devoted herself to her husband's conversion, praying for him always and winning his reverence and love by the holiness of her life and her affectionate forbearance. She was rewarded by seeing him baptized a year before his death.

When her son Augustine went astray in faith and habits, her prayers and tears were incessant. She once begged a learned bishop that he would talk to her son, in order to bring him to a better disposition, but he declined, despairing of success with a young man at once so gifted and so headstrong. At the sight of her prayers and tears, he nonetheless bade her be of good courage, for it could not happen that the child of those tears should perish.
Augustine, by going to Italy, was able for a time to free himself from his mother’s importunities, but he could not escape from her prayers, which encompassed him like the providence of God. She followed him to Italy; and there, by his marvelous conversion, her sorrow was turned into joy.

At Ostia, shortly before they were to re-embark for Africa, Augustine and his mother sat at a window conversing on the life of the blessed. She turned to him and said, “My son, there is nothing now I care for in this life. What I shall now do, or why I remain on this earth, I know not. The one reason I had for wishing to linger in this life a little longer was that I might see you a Catholic Christian before I died. This grace God has granted me superabundantly, seeing you reject earthly happiness to become His servant.” A few days afterwards she had an attack of fever and died at the age of fifty-six, in the year 388.

Reflection: It is impossible to set any bounds to what persevering prayer may do. It gives man a share in the Divine Omnipotence. Saint Augustine’s soul lay bound in the chains of heresy and an illegitimate union, both of which had by long habit grown inveterate. They were broken by his mother’s prayers.

Source:  Lives of Saints

Here's the 4th poem dedicated to Our Blessed Mother

On May 13, we commemorate the first apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a little town in Portugal. I am inviting you to join me in offering a nine day Novena to Our Lady of Fatima starting tomorrow, May 5. Two versions of the novena is presented:

First, the same verse or prayer is said once each day for the nine days to come.:

 Day 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9

Second, is the Nine Day Novena to Our Lady of The Rosary of Fatima.

Nine Day Novena to Our Lady of The Rosary of Fatima