At Easter-tide I’m dipping once again into my Grandma Fannie Martin Longenecker’sΒ stash of vintage post cards. Here is one datedΒ April 1908 from “your RBC,” it says, with the postmark wrapped around the face of the card.

EasterPostcard1908?Front

EasterPostcard1908?Back

 

Another, from 1910, displays the marvelous passion flower adorning the cross.

EasterPostcard1910FRONT

 

EasterPostcard1910Front

The message from Grandma’sΒ cousin Elizabeth begins with “Dear Coz” and in black flowing fountain-pen ink cursiveΒ begs her for a visit: “Try and come down to E-Town on Sat. Eve and come to Demmys. I will be there now don’t forget it.”


 

The passion flower which blooms in the spring has come to symbolize the suffering and death of Christ, hence the nickname “passion.” Mary Delany, herself a late-blooming artist, constructed a lovely flowerΒ with 230 petals with her scissors art.

passionFlower

The bloom (Passiflora) grown in my garden illustrates theΒ religious symbolism explained below.

PassionFlower2012vase

One writer, a Franciscan sister,Β has expressed the meaning of the flower parts in this way.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish Christian missionaries adopted the unique physical structures of this plant, particularly the numbers of its various flower parts, as symbols of the last days of Jesus and especially his crucifixion:

* The pointed tips of the leaves were taken to represent the Holy Lance.
* The tendrils represent the whips used in the flagellation of Christ.
* The ten petals and sepals represent the ten faithful apostles (less St. Peter the denier and Judas Iscariot the betrayer).
* The flower’s radial filaments, which can number more than a hundred and vary from flower to flower, represent the crown of thorns.
* The chalice-shaped ovary with its receptacle represents a hammer or the Holy Grail
* The 3 stigmata represent the 3 nails and the 5 anthers below them the 5 wounds (four by the nails and one by the lance).
* The blue [purple] and white colours of many species’ flowers represent Heaven and Purity.

 

This is the season of spring, Easter, and Passover. Happy Holy-day to you!

 

Coming next: Climbing the Swiss Alps: 7 Steps Toward a Narrative Arc