2-sided Youth Jesus Reaping Lilies with a Sickle Garden Flag

Also available as a less costly, one-sided variant + Welcome guests to your Prayer Garden to sit, pray, meditate, and rest with a garden flag from Saints_Aplenty on Zazzle! This flag features Jesus reaping lilies. + If Jesus is the Good Shepherd, He is also the Heavenly Gardener. Much less often portrayed in the Fine Arts than in the minor ones, the boy or the youth Jesus tending a garden was a motif popularized on late 19th-early 20th century devotional prints or, in common parlance, holy cards. While some series that included such images were clearly aimed at children, other images were printed with adults in mind. + Jesus’s upbringing in Nazareth must have included growing things. His parables are replete with references to agricultural practices—from plowing to sowing grain, from watering and weeding to reaping and harvesting, and from pruning vines to crushing grapes. Though an artisan by trade, Jesus knew at least the basics of agrarian life, gleaned, perhaps, from watching neighboring farmers at work as a boy. At any rate, once He embarked on His ministry, He knew his audience well enough to know that agricultural analogies would resonate with His listeners. + Here, Jesus, identified by His cruciform halo, is portrayed as a beardless young teen. Barefoot, He is dressed in a long, belted white tunic. The garment is embroidered with gold thread at the neckline, at the ends of the sleeves, and at the hem. The border at the hemline consists of stylized lilies. With a sickle, Jesus is reaping lilies. In the religious language of flowers, lilies stand for purity, for innocence. Later in life, at the Sermon of the Mount, Jesus would ask his listeners to “Consider the lilies of the field… (Matthew 6:28) as a metaphor for keeping material concerns in perspective. A Prayer Garden is an ideal modern retreat for finding the peace and quiet necessary for such prayerful introspection. + Image Credit (MH 007): Antique image in chromolithography captioned on the front in German with either a complete four-line poem or the first four lines of a poem that continues on the back and begins “Wenn ich meine Lilien schneide, …” [“When I cut my lilies, …”] from a late 19th-early 20th century devotional print (Series No. 2151), originally published by Max Hirmer, Munich, Germany, from the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera. This devotional print was available both as a more-or-less standard-sized holy card measuring about 2.65 in. x 5 in. (or 6.75 cm. x 12.5 cm.) and as a small format holy card measuring about 1.65 in. x 3 in. (or 4.5 cm. x 7.75 cm.). Our larger version bears a handwritten date of 1905.