Last year I planted wildflowers. The seeds came in one of those convenient little salt shaker type containers, promising an abundance of flowers by midsummer ... a veritable “meadow in a can!" It looked easy, so I bought two cans. (If one can gives you a meadow, then two cans could only mean double happiness!) There I stood in May, shaking and spreading seeds like a baker sprinkles confectioner’s sugar on a Bundt cake. And I waited for my meadow to appear. By June I had sprouts ... thousands of them. By July, a meadow had appeared in Lawrenceville. And by August, when I could no longer see the bird bath, the garden statues, or the lawn furniture, I realized that too much of a good thing can cause big problems. This year I planted nasturtiums. They’re a little better behaved. I learned an important message of “garden prudence” that can be applied to every day life: only sow seeds that can be managed - seeds of kindness and love. Ignore those which can quickly multiply and cause large problems down the road - seeds of gossip and greed, seeds of negativity. And pray to St. Anthony when you lose your fig tree.
The Garden Saints
St. Anthony of Padua (June 13), is usually depicted with the Child Jesus. Scripture this weekend teaches us that true faith yields a harvest of abundance. Most of us pray to St. Anthony to help us locate something we’ve lost, which is the reason why I placed a statue of the saint in my own garden ... he once helped me to locate a fig tree I had buried two winters ago! Since St. Anthony is commonly shown holding a lily, statues of him can also be found among those pure white flowers which bloom in June, the month of his feast day.
