Our Lady, Mystical Rose

In honor of May being Mary’s month in Church tradition, I’ll be writing all my blog posts this month about Our Lady.

(via Catholic-Church.org)

We’ve already discussed one flower in relation to the Blessed Virgin when we looked at her as the Lily Among Thorns. And yet, this is only one aspect of Our Lady’s relation to flowers. While the lily denotes purity and innocence in a world cruel and twisted from sin, the rose symbolizes the fire of love, and it is in this velvety richness of Charity that we observe Our Lady today.

As with the lily, the rose has been associated with Our Lady from the earliest days of the Church. In fact, she appears with roses in many apparitions, most notably in the miracle of Our Lady of Guadalupe, when she appeared to St. Juan Diego amid a splendid field of out-of-season roses. It is in gathering these roses for him and arranging them in his tilma to bring as proof of his vision that her image became imprinted upon the garment. The scent of roses is said to follow her by some who have experienced a mystical encounter with the Mother of God, and thus it is generally accepted that the rose is her favorite flower.

But the association of Our Lady with the rose goes far beyond her partiality towards them. As a symbol, the rose has three main parts, and each of these parts is significant to an understanding of Our Mother.

The first aspect of the rose is the Stem. It is the conduit that brings life to the plant, moving water and nutrients to every part of it. All flowers have stems, but some are fragile and easy broken. If you have ever held a rose, you know the stem to be sinewy and tough, notoriously hard to cut through. So the Stem of Mary’s rose is her relationship with God, the source of all Grace, all Life, all Salvation. These flow through her, infusing her with the light of Grace, nourishing her as she nourishes us. This bond is resilient and cannot be broken, for she is forever connected to God, the Source of all Good. As a rose eventually fades and dies when severed from the earth, so Our Lady would be so wilted when separated from her Source and held in reverence apart from Him. It is the same with us. We cannot be without God, or all that we are and are made to be is lost. Like Our Lady, we must pray for stronger stems so that Satan cannot easily remove us from God’s loving care.

Attached to the Stem is the Thorn. Unlike the fearsome barbs of Sin that assail the Lily, this Thorn is not a trap to catch the unwary. This is a defensive weapon, with which Our Lady protects her children. This is the Heel with which she crushes the serpent’s head. This is the Club with which she conquers the demons of Heresy. This is the Sword, too, which pierced her heart at the death of her Son, as his death pierced the veil between Time and Eternity and un-wrote what was inscribed by sin at the heart of Time itself. Mary is no weakling. She is armed, and she fights for us.

Finally, we come to the Bloom. The blossoms of the Mystical Rose are both red and white. The red symbolizes the fire of God’s Love, and her unfailing commitment to that Love and his Divine Plan brought forth within her. The white symbolizes her purity and humility, her eternal virginity unstained by sin. It is here we find comfort, here we find meekness, gentleness, and feminine sweetness. It is the Bloom which most think of when they reflect on Our Lady.

And yet are not all aspects important? Is not the strength of her bond with God as important as her perfumed innocence? Is not her fierce protection as great a comfort as her warm embrace? Truly, we need her help in all things, not only in gentility, but in courage. Not only in humility, but in unflinching devotion. Not only in charity but in defense of Truth.

Our Lady, Mystical Rose, pray for your children, that we may through your intercession unite still more passionately with our most Loving, most Mighty, most Just God. Amen.

-E. G. Norton