I had closed my eyes and suddenly been transported to a garden. It did not matter that the seats around me were packed by fellow Mass attendees in the hall serving as a temporary campus chapel: It was just me and the Lord in a moment of mental prayer. Although the bit of land that flashed before my imagination slightly resembled other landscapes known to me, I had really never seen this particular place before. Still, I somehow knew that this little partly cultivated garden represented my soul. It was July 16: The priest celebrating Mass had just announced Our Lady of Mount Carmel as the day’s feast.
A Refuge in the Desert
“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom . . . the glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.” // Isaiah 35:1-2
The Lord gave me the image of a garden in prayer that day after I realized that “Carmel” means “garden,” “vineyard,” or “orchard.” The lush green promontory of Mount Carmel stands amid a very arid Palestinian region: On this mountain, the Old Testament prophet Elijah defeated the prophets of Baal by the Lord’s aid (see 1 Kings 18). The Carmelite order is named for this mountain in the Holy Land because it follows in Elijah’s spiritual tradition—many early members lived as hermits in the area. The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to the Carmelite priest Saint Simon Stock in the thirteenth century as Our Lady of Mount Carmel, giving him the Brown Scapular and extending her protection over Carmelites and all her children.
The Carmelite rule of asceticism and contemplation cultivates serene and fruitful places amid the desert of the secular world. The Church has received a bountiful harvest of holiness from many of its convents, or individual “Carmels,” throughout the world. Saints Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Thérèse of Lisieux, Teresa of the Andes, Edith Stein, Elizabeth of the Trinity, and Blessed Titus Brandsma are among the greatest souls who blossomed from the Marian root of this religious tradition. Our Lady of Mount Carmel reveals herself as a heavenly Mother who offers refuge and refreshment while leading us deeper into the garden of spiritual growth.
Mom’s Garden
A garden has a deeply maternal, womblike atmosphere. It’s a place of simultaneous tranquility and bustle, where gentle things are given room to run wild. It puts us in touch with something foundational, bringing us closer to God through His beautiful created world. Tending a family garden is often a mother's joy and responsibility—and just so, we find our truest Mother, Mary, in the garden. Her greeting to Elizabeth may have resounded through the verdure that surrounded Zechariah’s home in Judea, and she prepared her Son’s body for burial in a garden. Throughout the centuries, she has been honored by people planting delicate, lovely flowers around her statues. Many of the blossoms in flower beds hold Marian significance, and these are often planted around her statues too.
Scripture overall is replete with gardens, and this is the root of the primordial resonance that gardens have for the human heart. Salvation history begins in a garden, ends with the heavenly Eden in the book of Revelation, and reaches its fullness in the grove where Christ sweated drops of blood and the garden where He was buried and resurrected from the dead. Nestled between these biblical bookends, the Song of Solomon is filled with romantic garden imagery to depict the intimacy of our heart’s search for God in terms of the fairest of loves.
Somewhere Only We Know
Judging from many stories familiar to us, gardens have long captivated the human heart and imagination. They appear in charming children’s works like Alice in Wonderland and Beatrix Potter’s tales, and in the novels of Jane Austen and J.R.R. Tolkien. They figure prominently in fairytales of old and even their newer adaptations—I recall Disney’s live action Cinderella (2015), where the prince leaves the royal ball to bring his mysterious princess to the enchanting secret garden he never shows anyone.
The protecting green shade, the light moisture, the gentle fragrance of a garden create a majestic sanctuary, a treasured place of solitude. But let’s not forget, too, that Carmel is where the garden and desert meet. After all, in the Carmel of Lisieux, Saint Thérèse found the desert where she longed to be alone with Christ when she was a young girl. In a paradox of aridity and fruitful abundance, the garden of Carmel should also make us think of the desert. Dry earth forms a firm path to the richer heights of the spiritual life.
One of our Lady’s most beautiful litany titles is “Refuge of Sinners”: she shields us from the dangers of the sinful world and is the safe place where we find Christ. As Our Lady of Mount Carmel, she offers us one such refuge in the brown scapular, a long apron-like garment worn over the neck and shoulders by Carmelites and which all Catholics can wear in miniature form. This sacramental is a tangible sign of our Mother’s spiritual and temporal protection over us. It’s a shield for our souls as we inhabit the world. Furthermore, just as for the Carmelites, it is also meant to be our gardening apron.
When we are enrolled and wear her brown scapular and pray to her regularly, our Lady can nurture us in her virtues amid the shelter of her garden. With her, we can take up the tools of the spiritual life and till the land of our souls into a little captivating place known only to us and the Lord.
Captivated in the Garden
Gardens are familiar to the Lord. Will you allow Him to know the garden of your soul and win your heart there?
Ask Him to show you the garden of your heart: what it looks like now and what it is meant to be. Do flowers grow there—if so, what type? Do flourishing plants provide shade? Is the terrain fertile, grassy, or unkempt? Is it time to prune or pull weeds? Maybe more bare land than you anticipated calls for tending. Perhaps a gentle fountain already adorns it, or maybe your first task is to help carve a stream so that Christ’s living water may flow from you toward other souls.
May our Lady the Flos Carmeli—the “flower of Carmel” as she is called in a Carmelite hymn—assist our souls to blossom into restful havens where we may rendezvous with Christ. Most of all, may our devotion to her always be the most magnificent flower in our interior garden’s array.
Leila Joy Castillo calls Florida home but left her heart in hill country long ago. An alumna of Ave Maria University, she freelances in Catholic communications and is a published writer, primarily on Blessed is She and Ascension. When not dabbling in the multitudinous Google docs of her articles, Leila delights in music, personalist philosophy, quality time with her younger siblings, and her literary trifecta: Austen, Lewis, and Dante. You can find her on Instagram @leila_joyinthejourney or follow her personal site here.
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