Eve and the Snowdrops

 

Every three years, on the Saturday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time (sadly, not this year, but next year), we hear the story of Adam and Eve’s banishment from the garden of Eden.   But have you heard about Eve and the SNOWDROPS?    

After Adam and Eve had disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit they were cast out from paradise by the angel.  They sat outside the Garden of Eden in the lonely wilderness where no flowers blossomed and no birds sang.  The earth was barren.  The trees were without fruits and the grasses were brown and dry.  Snow began the fall.  Adam and Eve sat and remembered the beautiful greenery and colorful flowers of the garden which had once been their home.  Eve shivered in the bitter cold and sobbed.  God in heaven looked down and saw Eve weeping.  The Most High took pity on her and sent an angel to watch over them.  To console Eve, the angel caught a handful of snowflakes, blew on them and ordered them to become flowers once they touched the earth.  As the snowflakes came in contact with the earth they sprung up into beautiful white flowers.  Eve smiled with joy to see the flurry of snowdrops spring up in the snow.  The angel told Eve, "Take heart, dear Eve, be hopeful and despair not. You will be the mother of all the living.  Let these little snowdrops be a sign to you that spring and sunshine and life will come again."   

That is how snowdrops came to be a symbol of consolation, hope, courage and the promise of the end of Winter and the coming of Spring, and of our Salvation.  As Eve became the mother of the living,  her descendant, the Blessed Virgin Mary would be the Mother of Life, through Jesus, her Son.   

We are always happy to find a flurry of snowdrops in a sheltered corner of the monastery peeking up through the snow in late Winter.  This sign, indeed, is our reason to hope and our salvation.