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– John S. Stokes Jr.
As we come to know the growth and blooming of the Flowers of Our Lady in our Mary Gardens, we acquire a heightened alertness to their presence also in the neighborhoods and waysides through which we travel. Thus discovered, they evoke our reflections and prayers in a spontaneous and ever-changing way as we move about, as distinct from the familiar reflections in our gardens. As Judith Smith observes in The Mary Calendar, Every field path and hedgerow (becomes) an illuminated Book of Hours.
This is a return to the spirituality of medieval times, when symbolical flowers were characteristically encountered in and gathered from the countrysides rather than gardens. In this period, when people traveled mostly afoot, flower prayers were focused, not by garden statues or grottos of Our Lady, but by wayside shines or field crosses encountered as they moved about.