‘We Crown Thee With Blossoms’: The Mary Garden and Gift of Sacrificial Beauty, by Emily Malloy

The land is an inheritance. Since mankind first drew breath in Eden, the garden was placed into his care to cultivate and hand on to the next generation. A life on the land unsurprisingly reflects the spiritual life, as we were made for the garden. As I have written in Theology of Home IV: Arranging the Seasons, the beauty of God’s created order within the seasons informs the spiritual life. As each season comes to a close, giving way to the next, my understanding of this reality deepens.

When matters of life are rightly ordered, the beauty and importance of God’s created order are apparent, and, in turn, we comprehend the necessity of our participation. Nature is a unique means through which God’s fingerprint is recognized and his creatures encounter him. Since the dawn of time, the garden has been a common backdrop of man’s relationship with God. As the recent readings of the Easter Octave remind the faithful, this is the setting where St. Mary Magdalene meets the Risen Lord, mistaking him for a gardener. …