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Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

My congregation has a custom extending back at least 30 years of placing a mesh-covered wooden cross outside the temple on Easter morning.

Parishioners bring cut flowers and flowering twigs from their gardens to transform the ugly wood into a glorious display of light and life.

The cross remains outside through Saturday of Bright Week.

I have heard that this may be an eastern European custom. Anyone else do something similar? And what can you tell me of the origin of this custom?

While I can't answer your questions, Father Thomas, I just wanted to comment that it was lovely. I especially like that the flowers are added to it by the parishioners.

There is also quite a parable in the cross; on Sunday and Bright Monday it looks wonderful. But in a week such as this that has brought 80+ degree days (we set a new record today) by the end of the week it is looking rather shabby.

But that reminds us of Isaiah's prophecy

"Man's days are like those of grass;
like a flower of the fields, so he fades;
the wind passes over them and they are gone,
and the place of them is no more,
but the Word of the Lord endures forever."

One decade ago the local newspaper featured our floral cross as their Easter Monday front page story. That was the year that my mother had entered into Life during the third week of Lent, and the flowers at the very center of the cross were from an arrangement from her Funeral liturgy.

Is this a Latin Parish?

Fabian,

This is a Lutheran parish.

Many years,

Neil

Thanks for the response.

This year's floral cross was quite different from the one pictured--late spring tulips and daffodils and a few hyacinths.

The cross was topped with flowering branches from Cleveland Pears planted last fall in the church picnic grove as memorials to two couples who had devoted many years to caring for that place.

I'm still searching for the origin of this lovely custom.

The cold weather in south-central Pennsylvania this year (we had 5 1/2 inches of snow on Holy Monday) made me seriously wonder if this might be a heaven-sent sign that the western calendar is in error.

In terms of the floral cross, great improvisation was needed. There were very few opened flowers anywhere--only a few early daffodils.

Fortunately, I had been blessed with an abundance of mint plants last season, and around the beginning of the Fast I had finally cut and saved the dried stems--still bearing the residue of fragrant blossoms--with that thought that someone might want to use them for potpourri.

The fragrant mint stems, along with the larger palm leaves from Palm Sunday provided great filler so that the cross was not so barren.

And getting rid of Mosquitos in the summer!

South Central Pennsylvania had a taste of every season in the first weeks of April, and even within Holy Week.

Holy Monday and Tuesday had near record highs which threatened to end the early daffodils and bring the forsythia from blossom to leaf, but our gracious God provided several days of wintry morning chill (including a deep frost) on the latter days, putting the brakes on a spring which had been all to quickly sliding into summer.

The result was a magnificent display of daffodils mixed with hyacinths and abundant forsythia.

And I'm still trying to find the old world origin of this custom!

Christ Is Risen!

Bless, Pastor Thomas,

My dear friend,

Ok, it's taken me 4 years since you first asked - but ...
I rarely give up and never easily.

The custom is actually titled 'Flowering the Cross' - took me a long time to come up with that precise turn of phrase to use in searching. It dates to at least the 6th century insofar as being depicted in religious art and iconography.

The earliest written reference to it is in hymnody by Saint Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus [allmercifulsavior.com]. Saint Venantius' feastday is commemorated on 14 December in the Latin and New Calendar Eastern Orthodox (and some Eastern Catholic) Churches, 27 December in Old Calendar Orthodox Churches. Venantius was a 6th century poet, hymnodist, and bishop of Poitiers and to the Merovingian court and was canonized by acclamation pre-Congregation.

Although he is not well-known by name, at least one of Saint Venantius' works will likely be familiar to many - the Pange Lingua. And, it's the 8th stanza - (sung on Holy Friday as a prelude to the full rendering of the hymn), that includes the text typically cited as a reference to the flowering:

Crux fidelis inter omnes,
arbor una nobilis:
Nulla talem silva, profert,
fronde, flore, germine;
dulce lignum, dulces clavos,
dulce pondus sustinet.

Faithful cross, above all other:
one and only noble tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
none in fruit thy peer may be:
sweetest wood and sweetest iron,
sweetest weight is hung on thee.

The practice is said to trace to the ancient legend that the Cross flowered at the moment of Christ's death. Apparently, at one time, the custom was relatively commonly observed in Britain, Germany, and some parts of western Europe, but fell off early in the last century.

From what I can find, these days, the practice seems to be most commonly continued in Episcopal parishes, together with a few Lutheran and Methodist churches, and is pretty much limited to North America.

Many years,

Neil

An eagle-eyed compatriot messaged me to say ...


Well that question stopped me in my tracks - and, the more I thought about it, the more I remember once knowing that St Thomas wrote it. (I had never heard of St Venantius until I started researching Pastor Thomas' query.) So, back to the sources and ...

While it's a bit off-topic for the subject, I thought it best to respond on the thread. Given the scope and breadth of knowledge among our members, someone will eventually raise the matter here and it will ultimately need to be addressed.

Had to go digging to find a Latin hymnal that I don't think had seen the light of day since St Thomas first donned the white habit. And, lo and behold, I found two hymns - Pange Lingua Gloriosi Proelium Certaminis by St Venantius and Pange Lingua Gloriosi Corporis Mysterium by St Thomas.

So, after a bit more research, here's the story ...

St Venantius wrote the former, celebrating the Passion. In the Latin Church, the first five stanzas are sung in conjunction with the service of Matins during the Divine Office for the final two weeks of Lent. The remaining stanzas are sung at Lauds during the same period. The hymn, in its entirety, is sung during Adoration of the Cross on Holy Friday.

St Thomas initially wrote the latter for the Feast of Corpus Christi. It is also the hymn sung on Holy Thursday during the procession of the Holy Gifts to the altar of reservation. And, of course, the final two stanzas are separately known as the Tantum Ergo, sung during Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. St Thomas' composition is acknowledged to have been inspired by or based on that of St Venantius.

Reading the Latin texts of the two, I can verify that both were sung back in the day, long decades ago (until the choir mistress, Sister Clara Marie of blessed memory, gently asked 'who is making that sound?' and suggested that my facility with Latin would be better employed in cassock and surplice ). Whether both are still sung or not, I have no idea, having no current Latin texts for reference on the matter; however, some online sites suggest that such is still the case.

Sincere thanks to my dear friend and brother, Bob/Theophan, for bringing the seeming contradiction to my attention because I relish researching the seemingly obscure queries that members post and truly dislike knowing less than the full story.

Many years,

Neil

Neil,

Christ is Risen!

Thank you (and Bob/Theophan) for your diligent research.

Curiously, both Latin hymns are found in the 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW) in the Holy Week section. The Aquinas hymn is set to the traditional plainsong melody Pange Lingua and the Fortuanatas hymn to Sarum plainsong meloday titled Vexilla Regis (footnote, organ composer Richard Purvis wrote a lively setting of that tune which includes a wildly syncopated movement in 5/4, long before Dave Brubeck's Take Five)

The translates the "flower verses" in this manner, which is why they probably escaped my notice all these years:

O tree of beauty, tree most fair
Ordained those holy limbs to bear:
Gone is your shame, each crimsoned bough
Proclaims the King of glory now.

Blest tree, whose chosen branches bore
The wealth that did the world restore,
The price of humankind to pay
And spoil the spoiler of his prey.

There is a newer hymn which alludes to the flowering of the cross in the With One Voice hymnal supplement published in the late '90's title There in God's garden.

There in God's garden



There in God's garden stands the Tree of wisdom,
whose leaves hold forth the healing of the nations.
Tree of all knowledge, Tree of all compassion,
Tree of all beauty.

Its name is Jesus, name that says, 'Our Saviour!'
There on its branches see the scars of suffering;
see where the tendrils of our human selfhood
feed on its life-blood.

Thorns not its own are tangled in its foliage;
our greed has starved it; our despite has choked it.
Yet look, it lives! Its grief has not destroyed it,
nor fire consumed it.

See how its branches reach to us in welcome;
hear what the voice says, 'Come to me, ye weary!
Give me your sickness, give me all your sorrow.
I will give blessing.'

This is my ending; this my resurrection;
into your hands, Lord, I commit my spirit.
This have I searched for; now I can possess it.
This ground is holy!

All heaven is singing, 'Thanks to Christ, whose Passion
offers in mercy healing, strength and pardon.
All men and nations, take it, take it freely!'
Amen! My Master!