King of Flowers for Corpus Christi.

My friend Gill wanted to give you a flower for Corpus Christi.

This is the day many Christians give thanks for the gift of the Blessed Sacrament which Jesus gave to His followers at the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday. In the Bread and Wine, prayed over and blessed, Jesus found an eternal way of being with us and feeding us on our spiritual journey to the heart of God’s Kingdom.

This gift is linked to Jesus’s Crucifixion and Resurrection when God showed us how much he loves us.

The colour of the Tree Peony can be seen as a symbol of both the Body of Jesus broken for us and the Blood shed for us. The White is tinged with Red. (And therefore, the white and red symbolize the bread and wine of the Eucharist.)

Not everyone may share that but you can, of course just simply enjoy the flower, which is very beautiful and enjoy it as a visual gift. After all, we need lots of colour and joy in our world right now. We can all share the delights of Creation.

Here’s what Gill has to say about the Peony.

Opening just in time for Corpus Christi, this tree peony (paeonia x suffruticosa) is, to me, astonishingly beautiful.

The white petals are like fine tissue paper, the markings stunning and the crown of stamens around the central pistils glorious. It reminds me of the Passion flower although there are six, not seven pistils and I think the number may vary. Bred over millennia in China, they are highly regarded as the ‘king of flowers’ and were their national flower till 1929.

Each 4-5” flower lasts for about a week and closes up at night, sheltering the centre. This year, the tree peony survived weeks of hard frosts and is in full glory in the hot sun of the last few days. 

The king of flowers for Corpus Christi.

[Mr G]

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