A Rose for Body and Soul - Cultivating Rose Petals - Saint Kateri Conservation Center

Touching Heaven and Earth: From Rose to Rosary

Final Article: Cultivating Rose Petals for Rosaries

Join us in reading a guest blog series by Sr. Orianne Dyck, a Novice with the Daughters of St. Paul, as she reflects upon the process of creating Rosary beads from rose petals.

Have you ever noticed which parts of Scripture take place in a garden?

God creates Adam and Eve. (Gen 1)

God walks with them. (Gen 3)

Adam fails to fight for his bride when they are tempted – they both fall, and all of humanity with them. (Gen 3)

God seeks out his people. (SoS 5)

Jesus fights through his fear for his bride… and wins. (Luke 22)

Jesus is buried the day of his crucifixion, conquering sin. (John 19)

Jesus resurrects, conquering death. (John 20)

When God made the earth, he made the garden a place of life. Of physical life, a place where creation is sheltered and nourished for growth, and of spiritual life, where he himself would meet man. But when Adam and Eve sinned of their own free will, they cut that cord of spiritual life that was linked so intimately with their Garden of Eden.

Yet when Jesus became man, he came to redeem all that our sin effected – each soul, and all of creation. When he fought for us in the Garden of Gethsemane, when his broke and bleeding body was laid to rest in a garden, and when he resurrected in a garden, he revived the meaning of the garden in our lives: a place that nourishes both physical and spiritual life. A place where we touch both earth and heaven.

Now of course, we have free will. We can choose not to look for God or to ignore him in a garden. But gardens are spaces where God can come to meet us powerfully, as he did with Adam, with Eve, and with Mary Magdalene. We just need to be open to reserving that space for him.

If you wish to take up rosary-making with rose-petals, or if you want a place to cultivate the things that the Rosary brings (healing, beauty, nourishment), take a step back and consider: are you being invited to start a nook of rose garden reserved in a special way for God?

A garden like this can be planted outside in a yard, on a porch or deck, on window ledges, or inside in natural or artificial light. So whether you live in a house with 10 acres or in a windowless apartment in the city, you can have a special garden place of encounter and nourishment for both body and soul.

Outdoor gardens are a particularly full expression of that place of life for the physical and spiritual. Outdoor gardens allow us to live out an innate part of the human vocation that we so often forget: to be stewards of the earth. In planting a little nook of roses outdoors, we can:

support the growth of native rose species *
nourish struggling pollinators (and in turn our brothers and sisters) **
provide habitat for local species, especially as rose-hips provide an essential winter food source for birds (so leave those rose hips on the branches until Spring!) ***
provide a nutritious and delicious ingredient for our home pantry and medicine cupboard ***
provide a quiet place of contemplative work, observation, and prayer

Indoor gardens are also a vital way of bringing this expression into environments calling for a tangible connection between heaven and earth. In planting indoor rose-gardens we can:

cultivate rose species bred for the available lighting in our spaces ****
purify the air in our space
celebrate life and beauty
provide a contemplative nook for work, hobby, observation, and prayer

Whether indoors or outdoors, allow your little rose-garden nook to truly be a place that you seek, encounter, and walk with God.

When we walk with God, he allows us to do two incredible things. First, he allows us, in our own way, to touch and shape the earth. Even though the earth is his, he allows us to be stewards of it, to bring forth beauty from it, to nurture its health and its growth. And second, he also allows us, in a little way, to touch and shape heaven, as we store our treasure there, form relationships with those who dwell there, and bring others there along with us.

These two miracles that God lets us in on are both quietly brought together when we pray with a rosary made from the stuff of the earth. We connect with the earth, grounded in creation as we use it to help us pray, and we connect with heaven, as we invite God into our lives and intercede for others. This was the reality of Mary, who lived her human vocation fully: she was fully a part of creation, and fully belonging to heaven. And when we open ourselves to this human vocation, we join with her in becoming fully human.

I hope that this journey through the making of a rose-petal rosary, and of the cultivating of a rose-garden, will help you discover the depth and beauty of your human vocation in a whole new way.

Walk with God, my friends. And may he bless you abundantly.

*Native rose species:

https://fafard.com/native-american-roses-for-wildscaping/

https://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/710

**Roses that support pollinators:

https://www.buzzaboutbees.net/Which-Roses-Do-Bees-Like.html

***Rose-Hip Eaters

https://www.gardenista.com/posts/a-winter-berry-garden-to-feed-birds/

http://wildfoodsandmedicines.com/rosehips/

https://montanahomesteader.com/rose-hips-foraging-recipes/

http://gardeningandgardens.blogspot.com/2015/02/rose-hips-as-winter-food-for-squirrels.html

****Indoor Rose Varieties