Plants to look a during Lent

Since we are in the midst of Lent: a time for prayer, almsgiving, meditation, self-examination and fasting, I thought I would share this interesting piece from Bread on the Waters.

Plants for Lent-
Tradition holds that St. Patrick used shamrocks to explain the mysteries of the Christian faith to the people of Ireland. In the New World, Spanish missionaries used the passion flower, which is indigenous to the tropical Americas, in much the same way.
The priests christened the flower they encountered in the Caribbean “la flor de las cinco llagas” — the flower of the five wounds — for its various parts were seen as symbolic of various aspects of Christ’s crucifixion.



The spiraled tendons of the plant, he notes, were taken as symbols of the lashes Christ endured, and the central flower column as the pillar of the scourging. The 72 radial filaments of the flower were seen as the crown of thorns; the three stigmas as symbols of the nails used in the crucifixion, as well as the holy Trinity; the five anthers, as the five wounds of Christ; and the style as the sponge doused in vinegar used to moisten Christ’s lips.

Taken together, the five petals and five sepals were used to refer to the ten apostles who did not either betray or deny Christ. The fragrance of the flower, continued Pons-Worley, helped recall the spices used to embalm the body of Christ. Finally, its globular egg-size fruit was taken as a symbol of the world that Christ saved through his suffering.