My beautiful Roses, you are sitting in My holy water, being fed from the roots up so you will be beautiful at My coming. In this vase, you gather your strength from one another and you support one another, and that’s what makes this bouquet beautiful. – Jesus
Letters to His Roses
The “Letters to His Roses” share personal encounters with the Bridegroom, lessons learned in His School of Love and teachings on His Divine Love Song, The Song of Songs.
Give Your Heart to the Bridegroom
Dear Roses, On June 24th 2019, I said “Yes” to Jesus the Bridegroom’s proposal to consecrate my heart and soul to Him by making a private betrothal promise. The waterfall of healing, grace, and pure love He has showered on me this past year is amazing! I started Hope’s Garden as a means to sharing the beautiful healing truth of Christ the Bridegroom’s deeply personal and intimate spousal love for each and everyone of us. He is the one, true, eternal Spouse of every soul regardless of your vocation or state in life. He offers His unconditional love and only asks that we reciprocate by opening our wounded hearts to His loving gaze and saying “Yes, let it be done unto me according to Your word.” I urge you to place any fears, doubts, and disbelief into our Mother Mary’s hands and ask her to w...
My Vineyard Heart
Dear Roses, The Grace and Peace of God be with you! I am delighted to be writing to you again and sharing my love of the Bridegroom and His divine love song, The Song of Songs, with you. The Bridegroom’s love song is the root of all that is in bloom this autumn at Hope’s Garden. We will be live streaming the third session of our Eternally Loved Virtual Workshop tonight on our Facebook page. It is not too late to join us! Each session stands alone and offers many seeds for spiritual growth. Tonight’s talk by De Yarrison will focus on tending to the vineyard of our hearts so the focus of today’s letter is the verses from The Song of Songs that inspired this talk. “Take no notice of my swarthiness, it is the sun that has burnt me. My mother’s sons turned their anger on me, they made me look a...
Eternally Loved
Dear Roses, This past weekend was the two year anniversary of Jesus leading me out of the desert of divorce and into His freedom. On the very evening that my divorce was finalized He came to me as the radiant beautiful Bridegroom of The Song of Songs and asked me to be His bride. As my children would say… Jesus didn’t wait a hot second to reveal His desire for me to be all His! In that moment, my response was disbelief… “Me?? You cannot possibly want me. I am such a mess!” And yet He did and He does! Not just despite my wounds and imperfections but actually because of them! And now, I can say with the Bride of The Song of Songs, “I am black but lovely, daughters of Jerusalem.” because my Lord and my Bridegroom loves me right here and now and His love heals, sanctifies, and red...
Return, return, to Jesus!
Dear Roses, “Return, return, O maid of Shulam!” 7:1 Praying this verse from The Song of Songs has been a key to maintaining my inner calm despite the chaos around me and anxious thoughts in my mind. Making it a frequent prayer is a reminder to pause, breathe deeply, and shift my focus, my thoughts, and my heart back to Jesus dwelling within me. As the bride of Christ, I am betrothed to Him Who is Peace; I am the “maid of Peace.” His peace that passes all understanding is mine if I choose to ask, to open, and to receive His peace again and again. And so when I feel myself becoming anxious and overwhelmed by the work and worries of life, by repeating slowly and prayerfully this Scripture, I choose to return interiorly to the One Who is my peace, the One Who is the Only One Necessary Thing. ...
Come Out of Hiding
Dear Roses, Are you hiding from Jesus? Do you often feel like a timid, frightened dove hiding her face, silencing her voice, guarding her heart from everyone including Jesus? Today the Bridegroom of your soul is singing this verse of The Song of Songs to you. “My dove, hiding in the clefts of the rock, in the coverts of the cliff, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet and your face is beautiful.” The Song of Songs 2:14 Saint Francis de Sales’ paraphrase of this verse speaks straight to my heart. “Let us go, arise, says the Bridegroom, get out of yourself, fly toward me my dove, my very beautiful love. . . . Come my very dearly beloved, and to see me more clearly, come to the window through which I am looking for you; come to contemplate...
Little Flower, Living Rose
Dear Roses, Blessed Feast of St. Thérèse, the Little Flower! She is truly a beautiful blooming fragrant Living Rose for the Bridegroom. I pray that she will shower each of you with roses from Heaven and be an inspiration and guide for you as you deepen your loving relationship with Jesus the Bridegroom of your soul. O Dear Saint Thérèse, beautiful Rose of the Beloved, teach me to bloom in Jesus’ love too. May I learn from you to love with purity, trust, and selflessness while I live so that like you I might keep on loving from Heaven. Teach me to love our Beloved Jesus with all my being, to open myself to receive and be transformed by His Merciful Love, and then to pour His Love out upon others in a constant steady shower of kindness, thoughtfulness, works of mercy, and sacrifices. Teac...
Your Unique Song of Songs
Dear Roses, One of the quotes from St. John Paul the Great from The Cantata of Love that has truly pierced my heart is this one, “Your journey must be like an original new edition of The Song of Songs.” As I have been looking back at my journey with the Bridegroom, I can see that this is exactly what Jesus and I have been doing! My life with the Bridegroom has become our own personal edition of The Song of Songs. As I gradually came to this realization, I was amazed and astounded. If anyone had told me two years ago that this was what God had planned for me I would have laughed and told them they were crazy! In fact, I think I did say this to Father Michael when he Would tell me that God had healing, restoration, and plans for a future full of goodness in store for me. But neither Father M...
Transforming Love
Dear Roses, Jesus doesn’t just desire the transformation of our hearts. He desires our total and complete transformation in His Love… a transfiguration of our souls, hearts, minds, and bodies which necessarily leads to a transformation of our thoughts, words, and deeds. He wants to make us NEW in every way! As the Bridegroom heals our hearts and makes us new in His Love, we enter more fully into a spousal relationship with Him. And so we must take some time in prayer to ask Him, “My Jesus, how are You calling me to live our spousal love not just in my prayer time but throughout my day, in my vocation, work, leisure, and relationships with others? Show me how to live our Love.” At Hope’s Garden, as we journey through The Song of Songs with our guidebook The Cantata of Love, our hope i...
In the School of the Bridegroom
Dear Roses, I am excited to tell you about a new theme, a new focus for our prayer and study of The Cantata of Love here at Hope’s Garden. On Monday we began our fall session of Brides of Christ heart-led Scripture studies of The Song of Songs and also created a new space on the website titled “In the School of the Bridegroom”. Jesus is our Divine Teacher. All that is necessary for us to learn from Him is to sit quietly at His feet with St. Mary and listen. The analogy of being “In the School of the Bridegroom” comes from the book The Cantata of Love. The following is an excerpt from Father Blaise Arminjon’s explanation of verse 8:2. The Bride “I should lead you, I should take you into my mother’s house, and you would teach me! I should give you spiced wine to drink, juice of my pomegrana...
Preparing the Wedding Feast for the Bridegroom
Dear Roses, In today’s Gospel, Jesus responds to the Pharisees question with a question. “The scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, ‘The disciples of John the Baptist fast often and offer prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same; but yours eat and drink.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days.’” Luke 5:33-34 His question, “Can you make the wedding guests fast while the Bridegroom is with them?” has led my heart to reflect on the ways in which the Bridegroom is indeed with me and how can my heart offer Him a wedding feast. The Bride and The Bridegroom in The Song of Songs describe their love for one another in term...
Kisses from Heaven
Dear Roses, The Prologue to The Song of Songs has become my favorite song of praise to the Bridegroom. I have come to know Jesus as my Bridegroom through reflecting on how I encounter Him through my senses, through my relationships, through the Sacraments and sacramentals, through the beauty of art, nature, and music, and through the many little blessings and “proofs of His tenderness” that He showers upon me daily. My spiritual director, Father Michael Stalla, speaks of the daily little blessings and consolations that God showers upon each of us throughout our days as “kisses from Heaven.” Pondering God’s thoughtfulness towards me as “kisses” has deepened my faith and understanding in the truly intimate love of the Bridegroom for me… for my unique heart. My gratitude journal has bec...
Show Me Your Friends
Dear Roses, Today’s letter is written by Karen Baglieri, a member of the Hope’s Garden Sisterhood of Mary Mystical Rose of God. I pray each of you finds our Hope’s Garden community to be a welcoming and safe “home” for your heart. Prayerfully Yours, Laura Welcome to Hope’s Garden – Community “Show me your friends, and I will tell you who you are”. Anna Gallinaro My husband was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY to an Italian family. Anna Gallianaro was his maternal grandmother who lived with the family during my husband’s formative years and helped raise the boys. “Grans”, as she was affectionately referred to, was the typical staut, tough grandmother who, in the early 1900’s, was a barmaid on Coney Island in the establishment that her mother owned. At one point when she was acting a...