Festal Roses: The Marital State and Sanctity

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Yesterday we celebrated Gaudete Sunday. Today we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Empress of the Americas. Both these days are accented by the use of flowers, which are absent from the altars during Advent aside from a few feasts. In many parishes, there will be the traditional blessing of roses in commemoration of the miraculous roses that Saint Juan Diego gathered and showed to his bishop.

In ancient Greece, roses were associated with Aphrodite, who was synchronized by the Romans with Venus. Both these deities were associated with sex, love, passion, and their feasts were celebrated with obscene fertility cults. Thus, the rose had more to do with eros (passion) than with agape (self-giving love). But just as the Church converted pagan temples and consecrated them as churches, so too she has converted the symbolism of the rose. So from a symbol of promiscuity, the rose has become a symbol of purity, chastity, of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our Rosaries are a sort of crown of roses that we present to Mary by our prayers.

As Catholics, every moment of our day, every part of our lives should be imbued with our Faith. There is never an inappropriate time to think of pious and holy things. Every room in our homes should have a crucifix and pious images. We should live ever in the presence of God and His Blessed Mother. Nor is there ever an inappropriate time to pray. The greatest saints live in a sort of constant state of prayer, known as the unitive way. 

Now we know that the highest state of life in the Church is the contemplative life, dedicated to worship of God and growth in holiness. This sort of life is so perfect because it is naturally the best way of life for reaching the heights of the spiritual life. However, as Saint Francis de Sales points out in part I, chapter 3 of the Introduction to the Devout Life there is no legitimate vocation or state in life that is incompatible with devotion. Thus, even the married are capable of attaining the highest levels of the spiritual life, including the grace of constant prayer.

But as Saint Francis de Sales also points out in the same chapter, devotion does not conflict with the duties of our state in life. Now when we remember that the marital act is part of the duties of the marital state, then we must conclude that it is possible to arrive at such a degree of perfection that one can practice the presence of God and be in a state of prayer even during sex. Now there are those that would protest that the marital act and active mental prayer are incompatible. These people, whether they know it or not, are manicheans.

So if you lay flowers on your bed in preparation for the sacred marital embrace, think of Our Lady, asking her, the Mediatrix of All Graces, to grant you and your spouse the grace to grow in the spiritual life, to practice perfectly living in the presence of God, and of constant prayer. If your marriage and your intimacy are sound, it will not detract from your romance and passion, but rather sanctify them, elevate them.   

Empress of the Americas, pray for us!

Mediatrix of All Grace, pray for us!

Queen of Families, pray for us!