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Last Sunday altars were ablaze for Pentecost with fiery red “tongues” of gladioli, smoldering tritomas, and sizzling gerberas, but Trinity Sunday will bring a very different approach to the altar flowers. I am a fan of all-white arrangements. Did you know that the family request for all funeral flowers for Frank Sinatra was for all -white arrangements? (bit of useless trivia). There is just something elegant about all-white flowers- and as one of my nun teachers at college once said, “Simplicity is the soul of elegance”.
I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same
The Three in One and One in Three.
Right now lily of the valley is out in abundance. Perhaps a fragrant low bowl of these at the end of the aisle or in the narthex or entry would be an idea for Sunday. Bridal wreath, a type of fluffy white spirea is now in full bloom in its cascading tendrils like a fountain. Alas, white lilac has come and gone as Trinity is too late for it this year and the New England warm Spring has made everything bloom ahead of schedule.
Bridal Wreath Spirea
Don’t forget flowering trees! The Kousa (Cornus kousa) dogwood has just burst open here in Rhode Island and the sleek green leaves and creamy white stars look divine in brass vases. Nothing else is needed. White is serene, cooling in humid summery weather, and quietly elegant at all times of year . Do send us your images of white altar flower arrangements. You will enjoy this version of St. Patrick’s Breastplate.
If you ever find yourself in Boston, on Brimmer Street, do pay a call to the Church of the Advent. I once visited on Ascension Sunday and wished I had thought to bring a camera. We can learn a lot about church flowers and vestments by visiting other churches, observing and asking questions. For many years Ken Stephens was in charge of the altar flowers and they were the best I have ever seen, including the National Cathedral’s! You can have a look at their high reredos with its many gradines at this link http://www.theadvent.org/parilife/scenes.htm
On Ascension Thursday Ken would cover the High Altar and all the gradines with fluffy mountains of gypsophilia in vases, or more commonly known as Baby’s Breath. The effect was heavenly and very cloudlike. No other flower was used. Often using all of one type of flower makes an elegant statement. You will want to fluff out the stems of the Baby’s Breath by carefully separating each stem to get the maximum “air” between the stems, creating the cloud effect. It dries beautifully and will last for days fresh. It is economical and widely available. Baby’s Breath clouds for Ascension- a good thing.
Of all the symbols of Easter, perhaps none is so familiar as the Agnus Dei. We see it in woven damask for frontals and vestments, on banners and even on special small linen sets for the altar. It must be crowned with a three-rayed nimbus or halo, signifying that it is a symbol of divinity and is featured with the white ground, red cross Banner of Victory.
The LAMB is the symbol associated with Jesus. He is often referred to in the Bible as the “Lamb of God” (Revelation 5:6-14). John the Baptist described Jesus as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The Passover lamb (Exodus 12:1-11) has been interpreted by Christians as foreshadowing Jesus’ sacrificial death (1 Corinthians 5:7).
Although the white lily is most often connected to the Mother of God, and is a symbol for purity and innocence, the EASTER LILY, which blooms in the spring close to Easter time has become a popular symbol. Because they are shaped like trumpets, lilies are symbols of immortality (1 Corinthians 15:52). Lilies are seen as pot decoration and cut for altar vases for Easter as well as motifs on church altar rail kneelers, stained glass windows, Easter bulletin decoration and Easter banners.
More rarely seen in decoration or textiles is the BUTTERFLY. It symbolizes the life cycle of Jesus and the Christian in the following order: the caterpillar stage represents natural earthly life; the cocoon represents death of the body; the butterfly emerging from the cocoon represents the resurrection. Another animal connected to the resurrection is the PHOENIX. Believed to have retained its immortality since, unlike the rest of the birds, it refused to eat from the forbidden tree in the garden of Eden.The phoenix lived for 500 years between rejuvenations. Every 500 years, it created a combination funeral pyre/nest for itself of spices and herbs, sat on it and set itself on fire. When the fire died down, an egg would be found among the ashes from which the phoenix which laid it would hatch. It has become a symbol of the resurrection.
Rarely seen in America as a symbol of the resurrection is the SWALLOW which flew around the cross chirping “Svale! Svale!” which is Scandinavian for “Cheer up! Cheer up!” Since this bird hibernates in the mud during the winter, his awakening in the spring is a symbol of the resurrection.
Another rare symbol is the WHALE for as Jesus said “For as Jonas was 3 days and 3 nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth” (Mt 12:40).
The HARE, or wild rabbit is a symbol of the moon. It became associated with Easter because the moon is used to determine the date of Easter. According to the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after March 21st. Have you ever seen this in church? It just might explain the “Easter Bunny” popularity in modern culture at Eastertide.
The PEACOCK Symbolizes immortality and the resurrection since its flesh was once believed to be incorruptible or immune to decay. The peacock damask below was found in a Rhode Island chasuble
The LION and EGG are other resurrection symbols. In the Bible, Jesus is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah. The genealogies of the New Testament point out that Jesus was a descendant of Judah from whom the eternal ruler was to come. The EGG shell can be seen as a nurturing, life giving tomb. The hatching chick represents Christ emerging from the tomb. The resurrection symbolism of the egg is enhanced by the legend of the phoenix.
Do you know of other symbols for the resurrection?
Remember the days when orchid corsages could be bought in local grocery stores for Grandmother or Mom to wear on Easter Sunday? Sometimes Stop and Shop has them in individual paper boxes for about six dollars with the pearl-tipped corsage pin and a ribbon.
Orchids make wonderful and extremely long-lasting flowers for Easter decoration, whether cut or potted in soil. Home Depot has a large selection now featuring cymbidiums and dendrobia orchids, all with many blooms in the 15-19 dollar range. Potted orchids can often be inserted in their pots in a silver or brass vase or low compote-style container and topped with a bit of moss to produce a beautiful decoration for a side altar, chapel, or other small spot, or pots can be grouped together for a larger display. The colors are lovely for Easter, ranging from creamy whites to lavender, violet, magenta, chartreuse, sunny yellow and combinations of colors on one blossom. You will be amazed at how easy to care for orchids can be and how long they will last long after Eastertide. Orchids- a Good Thing.
When ordering potted bulbs for the Easter garden, don’t forget the versatile pansies, violas and johnny-jump-ups. A favorite with everyone, the little pots look charming surrounding a font as a children’s Easter garden. After Easter Sunday is over, the little plants can go right into the church garden, window boxes, or linger awhile on ledges. The Sunday School children may enjoy planting the little plants in the garden as a project. They also make perfect small plants for hospital-bound shut-ins in the parish or cheery house call companions for the rector. Add a small bow, pop a plant in a little basket- and it is ready to go visiting. Include an Easter Sunday bulletin too.
Pansies and their cousins mix well with traditional bulb plants such as lilies, tulips, grape hyacinths, hyacinths, and crocus in the Maundy Thursday garden, or around the base of a Paschal candle for the Great Vigil and Easter Sunday. If you plan to make a garden around the Paschal candle, be sure to leave a path in back so the new candle can be easily reached for placement in the socket. A good rule of thumb is to check the Easter decorations down the center and return aisles and on the chancel well in advance of the Vigil to make sure nothing impedes the way of the choir and procession. With heating still on in most churches on April 4th, also avoid placing pots and flowers near heat registers, in full sun, or radiators. A charming treatment for deep windowsills along the nave are low baskets filled with colorful pansies or johnny-jump-ups. Who can resist the little “faces” and the variety of deep blues, purples, maroons, bright yellows, orange, pink, violet and creamy white? These flowers love it cool and like to be damp. They are hearty and will take a lot of neglect. Best planted soon after Easter to keep blooming well into summer if dead-headed and “pinched back” faithfully- another great job for the Sunday School!
Have you ordered your Paschal Candle? We’ve been busy in the sacristy these days, cleaning up after the Christmas- Epiphanytide, burning palms for Ash Wednesday, ordering two new fair linens, a case of wine, baking altar bread, confirming our palms order, etc. The kitchen still smells faintly of Shrove Tuesday pancakes. It is a busy time, taking stock, getting in order, replenishing supplies, and preparing for the great feast of Easter, both spiritually and practically.
We had hoped to have our fair linens in by Easter, but it takes time to get things back from Madeira where the embroidery is done. After much comparison, we did select Mary Moore through Almy. Did you know that you can request fabric samples from the company? After comparing Irish and Belgian linens, the Belgian linen had a nicer weave and so we are ordering Belgian this time!
Also some news to tell you- the Diocesan Directory is now online. This lists all of the churches as well as Diocesan offices, addresses, clergy, emails and all sorts of helpful information. You may access the pdf file at this link http://www.episcopalri.org/Portals/0/Uploads/Documents/Directory/Web%20Directory%20Feb%202010.pdf or from the contact link on the Diocesan web site www.episcopalri.org
Any photos to share from your parish?
The Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple celebrates an early episode in the life of Jesus, and falls on or around 2 February. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, it is one of the twelve Great Feasts, and is sometimes called Hypapante (lit., ‘Meeting’ in Greek). Other traditional names include Candlemas, the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, and the Meeting of the Lord. In many Western liturgical churches, Vespers (or Compline) on the Feast of the Presentation marks the end of the Epiphany season. In the Church of England, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple is a Principal Feast celebrated either on 2 February or on the Sunday between 28 January and 3 February. In some churches in our diocese, all the candles used for the Church Year are blessed on this day and the throats of the parishioners are blessed using two crossed candles held beneath the throat.
Tomorrow: February 3rd is the feast in the Latin Rite of St. Blaise the Martyr, a saint often associated with the blessing of throats. For more about St. Blaise visit this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Blaise
If you have a small shrine in a side aisle or chapel, don’t forget to add a few fresh greens and flowers over the niche or at the base of the statue when doing festival flowers. This is a polychromed woodcarving by Davis D”Ambly of Philadelphia of a young St. John. St. John is portrayed in the familiar coral and green vesture, with his symbol of the snake and chalice. The diapered stenciled door panels in red and blue is a treatment often seen in English churches.
The pedestal to the left of the niche has a bit of a surprise for Christmas- anthuriums! Usually thought of for tropical and exotic floral arrangements- anthuriums are actually a good value as they last a long time if properly tended-and the true red works well with poinsettia and traditional Christmas decoration.
While searching out last year’s boxed cards, I found a few photos from 2000 at St. John the Evangelist in Newport. I will post some of these over the next few days leading up to Christmas Eve. This one is probably a good one for this weekend as I imagine all over America the Altar Guild has been busy polishing brass and silver! How I wish I had a digital camera back in those days!
This was our first “”white Christmas”- no red poinsettias. The altar frontal was our oldest dating to about the building of the church in 1893. This was the year of taking out all of our old brass, polishing it like the top of the Chrysler Building(which took weeks of hard work) – and putting up the huge altar cross which had been given from historic Trinity church when St. John’s was a mission on The Point. The altar decoration was copied identically from one of the oldest photos in the church archive. I forget exactly how many candles went up- over 40- but Father said the heat was terrific and he needed oven mitts and an asbestos chasuble!
What did our brass squad use? MAAS metal cleaner-much better than Brasso or Never Dull. And for silver?- Wright’s silver cream!
Outside were white bag luminaries up and down the street and up the front steps of Washington St. White velvet ribbons, white poinsettias and white roses on the altar- truly a Night of Light to remember always.
A few emails have come in this week about decorating for Rose Sunday on the 13th. Rose refers to the color of the hangings and vestments, not the flower- although roses are beautiful, if somewhat expensive this time of year. I like the Advent wreath below, which for Rose Sunday has been embellished slightly with a touch of lavender caspia, purple statice and a few pink blossoms picked into the greens. The inexpensive small shrub roses would be ideal. Since the Rose Sunday decoration will be coming down when Sunday has ended, it is a good idea to have a simple, modest display against the greens some churches use throughout Advent.
A few simple pink roses in a vase of pristine water on the bulletin table at the back of church is a welcoming touch that announces this Sunday of Refreshment. If your church is very large, with a great altar and reredos, you might consider something on a larger scale, in proportion to the worship space which can be seen from the back of church. A custom which I kept at one of my former parishes was to use two very large stone altar urns filled with pink roses in several shades, lavender caspia, and salal greens, which at the end of the services would be dismantled and the roses going to the mothers of the parish or in bud vases to shut-ins or parishioners in the hospital .
Here is a formal altar arrangement of matched silver vases using the purple, blue and pink colors of Advent with pink gerbera daisies as the pink rounds focus, and purple stocks and delphiniums for the spikes. At this time of year, this would be an expensive flower choice. I am a big fan of carnations, which are a bargain just now, and are especially lovely when used as the sole flower in the arrangement, large single heads mixed with multi-headed miniature carnation stems, and silvery eucalyptus for greens and spikes.
Here is an arrangement I did of yellow roses which sets elevated behind a center tabernacle. Several bricks are used which are hidden behind to raise up the arrangement, and a long plastic green window box holds 4 bricks of Oasis foam inside. This arrangement uses 24 long stemmed, large-headed roses and could be very effective done in shades of pink roses for Rose Sunday.
Here is a simple loose asymmetrical arrangement using lilies and freesia (costly at this time of year). Local supermarkets do have some very pretty pink lilies just now, but it is more the shape than the flower type of interest here. This could be done just as nicely with small pink roses, a few larger pink roses, and the baby’s breath or some purple statice. This is one of a pair, with the opposite side reversed on the other side of the cross.
Throughout the coming weeks, do have someone from the altar guild designated to take photographs of your church decorations- how often do we wish we had done this when January rolls around? It is a practical record for future altar guilds and a treasure for the church archives. For those altar guilds having Christmas parties over the next two weeks, be sure to take a group photo and put the names and date on the back. An altar guild photo album will provide so many wonderful memories over the years. And please do send in photos of your Advent and Christmas decorations to share here! (Revdma@aol.com)
Martha Stewart’s Crystal Glitter
I was excited to find Martha Stewart’s excellent fine glitter at Walmart’s yesterday. This is the old-fashioned lovely stuff which has a glint like sun on new-fallen snow. Although I run from a “Vegas” Christmas decor for churches in general, a touch of crystal or silvery glitter on natural branches, applied with a light hand, can add a whole new dimension.
A cardboard box lid makes a handy tray for overall ”glittering” of foliage and twigs. Spray adhesive (comes in a can like hairspray) is just the thing, applied lightly. Sprinkle glitter immediately over wet adhesive, wait a few moments, then tap off excess and catch it for reuse in the cardboard lid. For spot glittering, tacky glue, or other liquid adhesives and clear glues are effective. A few glittered twigs or sprigs of greens and foliage in pew ends catch the glow of candlelight in a darkened church on Christmas Eve night. The aim is not to overdo the gilding and glittering! A little will go a long way, and will look like the diamond glint of snow.
One year my decorating scheme was Glad Tidings By the Sea as our parish was right on Narragansett Bay. We used strands of white lights which were encased by scallop shells (still available at the Christmas Tree Shop), pearl roping, and many beautiful sand dollars and seashells just kissed with silver and crystal glitter, small aqua and silver balls, and feather sea gulls- lovely!
Natural silvery birch branches simply arranged in a garden urn (which may be faux-finished to look like wrought iron or stone) add a wintery touch without the glitter. No birch branches handy? Any type of branch can receive a light aerosol spray painting of white or silver-nature’s own sculpture can’t be beat! The aim is to achieve as natural a look as possible when gilding or applying glitter. Red, green, blue, rainbow and other colored glitters will produce an artificial effect you will want to avoid like the flu! Another product is Sno-flock which produces a white snowy coating on branches and greens. This product has been around for many years, and with a controlled finger on the nozzle, can be used to get a wonderful snowy effect. Glitter- it’s a GOOD thing.
This Sunday marks a very important feast in the church year, as well as closing the church Year B. We take down the green hangings which have been up so long in the Season After Pentecost. Now is a good time to get those cleaned and steamed. Next Sunday we will find ourselves in Advent I, the birthday of the church. Christ the King, sometimes called Feast of the Reign of Christ in some parishes, is a feast for extra care in preparation of the altar and decorations. The best white set of vestments and hangings are brought out, touches of gold or silver are appropriate, the brass should gleam, and white flowers are particularly lovely. Next Sunday will mark a great change as the altar once again becomes subdued, flowers are put aside until Christmas Eve. In some parishes boxwood or plain evergreens might be seen sparingly. The Advent wreath becomes a focal point. Some parishes will use a “Christ Candle” of white in the center of the Advent wreath of three purple and one rose candle. This white candle will be lit on Christmas Eve at midnight services.
Some churches in our diocese have a cross bearing the Christus Rex in their sanctuaries. Christ Church in Westerly has a large one in the side chapel. Some church supply catalogues sell the figure alone or on a cross in several sizes and ready to be mounted on the wall.
The time for preparation begins for Altar Guilds all over the world: ordering candles and bobeches, writing and mailing the annual Flower Memorials letter, checking on supplies of wine and bread, placing orders at local nurseries and flower shops, polishing brass and silver, pressing the best linens, ordering incense, polishing the thurible, tidying sacristies for the busy days to come, and the many other little services performed by faithful hands year in and year out as the great Feast of the Nativity approaches. The sweet-smelling quiet of the sacristy is a wonderful place to be at this time of year.
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