Tag Archives: catechisms

Learning from Plants, Trees and Flowers

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I discovered on Google books an old study of plants and trees by Richard Folkard, an English botanist. (Plant Lore, Legends and Lyrics, London 1884)  It’s a treasure of information.

Folkard says that from earliest times people saw religious meaning in plants, flowers and trees. He writes especially about how they were seen in medieval times.

“In the dark ages the Catholic monks , who cultivated with assiduity all sorts of herbs and flowers in their monastic gardens , came in time to associate them with traditions of the Church , and to look upon them as emblems of particular saints . Aware , also , of the innate love of humanity for flowers , they selected the most popular as symbols of the Church festivals , and in time every flower became connected with some saint of the Calendar , either from flowering at the time of the saint’s day , or from being connected with the saint in some old legend…

But it was more especially upon the Virgin Mary that the early Church bestowed their floral symbolism … The poetry no less than the piety of Europe has inscribed to her the whole bloom and colouring of the fields and hedges.  The choicest flowers were wrested from the classic Juno , Venus , and Diana , and from the Scandinavian Bertha and Freyja , and bestowed upon the Madonna , whilst floral offerings of every sort were laid upon her shrines . 

Her husband , Joseph , has allotted to him a white Campanula , which in Bologna is known as the little Staff of St. Joseph . In Tuscany the name of St. Joseph’s staff is given to the Oleander. A  legend recounts that the good Joseph possessed originally only an ordinary staff , but that when the angel announced to him that he was destined to be the husband of the Virgin Mary , he became so radiant with joy , that his very staff flowered in his hand…

A Catholic writer complained that at the Reformation the very names of plants were changed in order to divert men’s minds from the least recollection of ancient Christian piety A  Protestant writer of the last century , bewailing the ruthless action of the Puritans in giving to the ” Queen of Beauty ” flowers named after the ” Queen of Heaven , ” says :’Botany , which in ancient times was full of the Blessed Virgin Mary , is now as full of the heathen Venus .’ ” 

Folkard reminds us that the monks were good catechists. That work of theirs is largely ignored today. If you consult Wikipedia’s listings of trees and plants, there’s  hardly a trace of that Catholic tradition. I wonder if we shouldn’t mine that tradition again as we try to enhance our care of the earth. Clover .spearmint, foxglove, lupine,  campanula, marigolds, cowslip, Lady’s mantel, Lady’s bedstraw are more than a genus and species. They once spoke of the mysteries of God. 

Can we learn from them again?

Catechisms Have Changed

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Some of us may have learned our faith through the questions and answers of the Baltimore Catechism, but catechisms have changed in recent years. One big change is that they’re not just for children, they’re for adults too.

The United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, published by the US Catholic Bishops in 2006, is an adaptation of The Catechism of the Catholic Church published in 1992 in Rome after the Second Vatican Council, as a response from the American bishops to Pope Paul VI’s call to the bishops of the world to adapt the universal catechism to the circumstances and culture of their own people.

The American catechism follows the arrangement of the Roman catechism and teaches about the Creed, the Sacraments, Moral Life and Prayer. One of its features is that it begins each lesson with a story of faith, a short biography of a Catholic, usually someone from the United States, who introduces us to the teaching that’s presented.

Many of the stories also help us appreciate how the Church in our country grew and the particular spirituality that’s been expressed here.

For example, St. Elizabeth Seton introduces us to its first question: our search for God. We search for God through creation, through human relationships and through the various circumstances of our lives.

Mother Seton found God in all those ways. As a young girl, neglected by her father and her stepmother after her mother’s death, she found God in the beauties of nature, in the fields around New Rochelle, NY, where she played as a child.

Then, she married a successful man, William Seton, and had children, a happy married life, lots of friends, and was active in her Episcopal church, Trinity Church, on Wall Street in New York City.

Her life changed when her husband’s business failed. His health also failed and Elizabeth took him to Italy to see if a better climate could revive him. When they arrived in Livorno, Italy, he died in her arms in a quarantine station at the seaport.

Some Italian friends took Elizabeth and her daughter into their home and there she began to think about becoming a Catholic. That step caused her to lose some old friends; as a widow with small children she faced hard times.

Resettling in Baltimore, then Emmitsburg, Maryland, she established a Catholic school and gathered other women to form a religious community. One of the great saints and founders of the American Church, her quest for God was lifelong and many sided. She is an example of how our search for God goes on through creation, through the people around us and in the circumstances we face going through life.

Mother Seton is a teacher of faith and played an important role in the history of the church in our country.  She reminds us how important women have been, especially religious women,  in building our American church. She also reminds us that we’re all called by God to teach others.