MAY 13 – Piety

The jasmine [Jasminum]

The jasmine in our garden serves to decorate arches and poll booths. It is a guarantee for the heat of the sun during summer. It cannot stand by itself and so it needs someone’s hand to direct it, for if not, it falls to the ground and gets entangled with the other flowers. Its small flowers have very strong fragrance and its perfumes reaches very far.

Piety

Through this virtue we render our parents love, honor and respect that is due to them. Let us give our parents gratitude, assistance, love and honor: it is a tribute that is due to them in justice. A faithful son is for the parents a beautiful and fresh jasmine that gives them shade in their old age with the bushy branches and leaves; it grows in the field during summer and while they repose there from their long race of hardships and works, the exquisite fragrance that exude from the bouquet of flowers comforts them.

Piety in Mary

With what tenderness, fidelity and precision would Mary render as a child to her parents, Anne and Joachim, to the priest and superiors in the temple; to Joseph when married, love for love, respect for respect, honor for honor, favor for favor, service for service. With what fidelity she would pay them a tribute which she knew she owed them in justice.

The jasmine to Mary

You owe love, gratitude and honor not only to God, but also to your parents, teachers, and all your superiors. Have you paid this tribute? Do you pay it now? Examine it well, for if you have debts you will not enter heaven until you have paid them all. See how jasmine in your heart is: is it blooming? We are in the month of May…Gather its flowers and because it belongs to justice, put them together with the lily and the rose and when you offer to Mary your bouquet say to her:

My Lady, here is the jasmine of my piety, of my love and gratitude to my parents. I oblige myself today to love them, to respect them, to serve them, to assist them in their spiritual and material needs. Receive my beloved gardener these flowers gathered of my jasmine which I place henceforth under your direction and charge.

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