The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-02-05
The decorative

Resurrection. The decorative
instinct of the Middle Ages rejOiced
in beautiful and gracious forms, In
flowers and gems and chased armor,
rich embroidery and birds and painted
missals. All sorts OF secular beauties
were borrowed to describe the heaven
" joy Of the blessed Paradise is full
Of JOY and merry songs, of gay herbs
and trees, and Of fowls song great
plenty"
The Madonna was praised in roun-
del and ballad; and, as was natural in
an age so accustomed to the sight Of
soldiers, the splendid harness of
earthly chivalry served to illustrate
the Christian armor of a deadlier war
fare. 1t is said that the French
knights used to rise during the read
ing OF the epistle when IL was taken
from st. Paul, becauae st. Paul is rep
resented with the sword Of his mar
tyrdom, and so is one. of the patrons
of warriors. The symbolism of that
age was living thing all the thought
of the world was translated into it.
And since flowers were the most beau
tiful thing in beautiful world, their
symbolic value was Of q rarely sug-
gestive character.
For instance, there was "the beau
tiful, old-fashioned, Madonna lily"
than which there are many statelier
and more gorgeous blossoms of the
lily kind, but none sweeter; that
May lily" as it is called in the North
of England, with its added charm
of association, for what picture of the
Annunciation seems now complete,
unless a branch of these pure white
blossoms is seen near Mary and The
angel? The mysticism of early religi-
Gus art has invested the Madonna
lilies of our gardens with an indefin-
able reminiscent charm; and when
the tall white blossoms rise up into
the cloudless summer blue, their still
ness has an air of mystery, as if the
breathless stir of the angelic presence
had hardly passed by. The garden
where the painted lilies grow in a
garden emblematic of poverty; the
lilies stand before the ideal figure of
Catholic worship, who was humble
among women like as poor woman"
But when Fra Angelica saw the
courts of Paradise, they were as full
of flowers as a queens garden and
angels as bright as anemone beds.
And the poor were not shut out of
those gardens, because every man
may buy heaven, the poor man with
his penny and the rich man with his
pound" The body Of saints is de-
mocracy: Popes, kings, shoemakers,
all blessed, move perpetually in an
amending slow measure with the in
effable calm of beatitude, among the
lilies of eternal spring. The Little
Poor Man of Assist remembered that
flowers truly belong to the blessed es-
tate of poverty, and bade the Garden
brother spare corner from his pot
herbs for beautiful and fragrant flow
ers, in honor of the verse which says.
Ego flos campium ct iiIium convaIIium
Ct am the flower Of the field and the
lily VI JtlC bct1lCy Js- hG pun 1ONC
flowers, though they do not talk much
about it, and Madonna lilies never
grow better than in the cottage gar
dens,, where they are left a great deal
alone. There is much to learn, and
more to remember, when we consider
the lilies.
A writer maintains that "it is only
since the thirteenth century that
painters established the lily as the
conventional symbol of the Madonna,
for the early artists used to surround
her with flowers of every sort and
color 1t was not until comparatively
late" he says, that the symbolizing
instinct of religious minds in simple
age felt that the ideal purity of the
Lords Mother was we'll expressed in
the exquisite purity of white lilies,
and so they were dedicated to her
service the Fathers said it was
symbolic, for Nazareth signifeth
flower, whence saith Bernard, that
the Flower would be born of a
Flower, in flower, and in the time of
flowers. :"
-nram