Home 9 Our Mary Garden

Audio Guide to the Garden

Listen to the sermon preached by the flowers, the trees, the plants, the sky and the whole world. They preach a sermon full of love, of praise of God, and they invite you to glorify the sublime Artist who has given them being. Just simply, listen!

St. Paul of the Cross, 1775

A place of solace in a busy world

Our Mary Garden says God loves the world. It is good. The garden was our first home, the Genesis story reminds us. It’s a marvelous symbol of the interconnectedness of creation. In a garden, we share life in common with trees and plants, with the birds of the sky and the animals of the fields. All of us are sustained by water from the earth and air from the heavens. In the garden, Mary presents Jesus Christ to us, who came that we might live. He’s with us “all days”, even days when the earth is shaken, like today.

Our Mary Garden promotes an approach to climate change and an environmental spirituality through the devotion to Mary. In the 13th century the Mary Garden affirmed the earth as a sacred gift of God, not as a vehicle of death. Today, the Mary Garden, offering an interpretation of the Book of Genesis in the light of Deep Time and the medieval appreciation of flowers, plants, and trees, can deepen our understanding of the place of creation in God’s plan.

Our Mary Garden offers prayers and reflections based on the Mary Garden.

One possible development of this site: the sale of seeds and plants for Mary Gardens, small and large.

Father Victor Hoagland, C.P.