Herbarium of Mercy: A Walk with Faustina and Mary Through the Meadow of the Soul
- Beata
- Nov 30, 2025
- 5 min read
🌿 What Is a “Herbarium”?
A herbarium is a traditional notebook or album filled with healing plants — usually dried, organized, and carefully described. In old homes, it served as a family pharmacy, a place of inherited wisdom passed from one generation of women to the next. Each herb had its name, its character, and its purpose — healing, soothing, cleansing, strengthening, or calming.
Herbs are simple plants, growing in wild, forgotten, neglected places: forests, meadows, anywhere close to the earth. They are both delicate and resilient, able to survive harsh conditions as long as they remain rooted. They work quietly, faithfully — like small daily rituals of care.
🌿 What does the word herbarium evoke?
For many, the word herbarium carries the warmth of women who understood life and nature: order, attention, responsibility, the scent of dried plants, the practicality and safety of the home.It is a place one returns to for comfort and help.
This is why a Herbarium of Mercy becomes such a natural metaphor for spirituality. In this spiritual herbarium, instead of chamomile, we find God’s gentleness; instead of mint — renewed thinking; instead of St. John’s wort — the warmth of Divine Mercy; instead of tansy — the truth that purifies.
It is a language the feminine heart understands intuitively: taste, scent, softness, tenderness, and daily healing in small doses. Because Mercy works like herbs — gently, consistently, deeply.
🌿The Herbarium of Mercy — prayer of the heart in the rhythm of virtues and healing herbs
And so I pause from time to time to reflect, to listen, to discover who I am — to hear how St. Faustina learned to trust in God’s Mercy.
I, too, carry a bouquet of many flowers — simple, wild, perhaps forgotten, unnoticed, or not yet understood. These are gifts God has planted not only in my heart but in the heart of every woman, as if He hid a July meadow inside us, waiting for light and tenderness.
You carry this within you as well — even if today you feel differently. Believe me: it is God — the Creator, the Father — Abba — who placed in our hearts “in His image and likeness” exactly what we need to find meaning and fulfill our purpose on earth.
As Psalm 139:13–14 reminds us:
“You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb… I praise You, for I am wonderfully made.”
God saw us from the beginning in our most delicate form, before anyone else ever noticed us.As the prophet Ezekiel writes:
“And as I passed by you and saw you kicking in your blood, I said to you: ‘Live!’” (Ez 16:6)
And finally, His call is personal, tender, and safe:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name — you are Mine.” (Is 43:1)
Because God sees us with such gentle clarity, we can discover within ourselves — let me name only seven:
🌸Gratitude – perhaps dusted over by daily life, but awakened by even the smallest kindness.
🌸Patience – often hidden under exhaustion, yet returning whenever we truly love
🌸Gentleness and closeness – the core of a woman’s heart; sometimes covered by a protective shell, yet always alive.
🌸Trust – tender and fragile; wounded it withdraws, yet deep inside it longs to trust again.
🌸Purity of heart – not perfection, but simplicity: “I want to love and stay close to God.”
🌸Courage of heart – born especially in hardship; women carry burdens that seem beyond human strength.
🌸Peace – sometimes distant as the horizon, yet always possible when the heart returns to God.
Each of these gifts is already within us — some simply need time to bloom. 🌸
St. Faustina might say: “In every woman there is a meadow where God has already planted His herbs. Some need only to be found, others to be watered, and some require the courage to let them bloom again.”(#605)
“…the Lord lowered Himself to my misery as a ray of sunshine to barren, rocky soil; under His rays my soul grew green, flowered, and bore fruit, becoming a garden of delight for His repose.”
Maybe that is the whole journey of self-understanding: not becoming someone new, but discovering what has been growing within us all along.
Because in His light, even the smallest herb becomes a virtue, and a neglected meadow becomes a garden of mercy — we only need to invite Him, as Faustina did.
🌿 A Simple Practice
The Herbarium of Mercy is one way to meet Jesus personally — accompanied by the prayers of Faustina and Mary. They know shortcuts of the heart.
You may want to start a small notebook: a mini-diary in the spirit of Faustina. Add your own verses and prayers.Or, if writing isn’t for you, simply make these little heart-prayers in your own way.
🌿 Image of the Day — a picture for your imagination
Look closely at a bouquet of wildflowers — or notice just one flower that catches your eye during your walk.What is it saying to you? What does it stir within you?Pause. Let it speak to your heart. Feel it, touch it, interpret it — as if it were God’s quiet invitation to you.
🌿 Reflection Questions
Do not answer only with words. Answer with your whole being — a memory, a feeling, a color, a sensation.Let your imagination and your soul pray together.For such a walk is prayer-in-motion: grounding, breathing, landscape therapy…
🌿 A Moment of Prayer
I sat with my bouquet on a bench beneath the oaks and gazed at the delicate flowers I had gathered for drying. Each beautiful in its own way, each carrying its own message — like my emotions, like the language of the soul that longs to be understood.Each has its character, its needs, and God’s grace has arranged them in nature so they can serve one another, animals and humans alike.
As the Book of Genesis 1:29–30 tells us:
“I give you every seed-bearing plant… and every tree with seed-bearing fruit; they shall be your food… and to all living creatures I give every green plant for food.”
Every flower in my bouquet is a work of God’s love — a small miracle created to teach me gratitude, patience, closeness, trust, purity, courage, and peace. Grace weaves our lives with nature, reminding us that everything has its place, its purpose, its calling — and together we can praise the Father, Creator, Artist — Abba.
Now, with the psalmist, both you and I can give thanks:
“Bless the Lord, my soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name… who forgives all your sins, who heals all your diseases…” (Ps 103:1–4)
Diary of St. Faustina, 161 — final stanza:
O Mary, my sweet Mother, I entrust to You my soul, my body, and my poor heart. Be the guardian of my life, especially in my final hour, in my last struggle.
A Marian prayer:
O MARY! Transform my heart into Yours. Surround it with a crown of purity adorned with virtues. Receive my heart, beloved Mother, consecrated as Yours. Present it to God the Father as my offering. Help me, O Mary, to make Your Heart more known each day. Amen.
🌸 The Divine Mercy Chaplet is a potent prayer to obtain God's Mercy.
🌸 Invitation
If this journey touched your heart, consider sharing it with another woman. Share this spiritual herbarium — let every woman know that the Mercy of God is a place where one can truly breathe and rest.
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