Symbol of Love
Flower Communion June 24, 1923
As a symbol and sacrament, the most delicate and accessible, the most beautiful that nature gives us, has been chosen: flowers. Each of us is symbolized in a flower. Every flower is its own, it is divine. It is sovereign, every single one, even the tiniest. Therefore, it also expresses our divine origin and our special mission. All religions have symbols, and the higher the culture, the more delicate the symbol (the external sign of inner presence).
Symbol of Love
Flower Communion June 24, 1923
The connected flowers in the bouquet symbolize brotherhood, our solidarity. The way we brought them symbolizes voluntarism and freedom; free brotherhood. Everything we do in it is entirely voluntary; goodness cannot be forced. Upon departure, each person will again take a flower without choosing, as a sign that they do not choose whom to recognize as a brother; whoever is a human and wants to be a good human, is welcomed.”
Symbol of Love
Flower Communion June 24, 1923
Prayer:
With awareness of our divine origin and our uniqueness, our indestructibility, we elevate our minds above all fleeting things, above sorrows, worries, disappointments, illnesses, and death. With awareness of our kinship with the highest source of Truth, Love, and goodness, we recommit ourselves to exerting all moral effort to achieve in this life the highest degree of perfection possible for us. With awareness of our common origin and our responsibility before the Lord of eternity and the father of those born of the spirit, we will strive even more than before to ensure that our kinship is manifested by sincere and growing brotherhood, so that we may accept one another willingly and lovingly regardless of all external barriers that alienate people.
Meditation on Flowers:
May flowers be blessed by the love of all who brought them. May they be sanctified by the desire of all who press them in spirit to their hearts as a symbol of their spiritual journey and sovereignty; may they be sanctified by our sincere resolve to cultivate brotherly and sisterly love with authenticity and honesty.
For the Sunday School
June 1923
Čapek’s explanation of the flower symbol at the floral festival for children: “A person is like a flower: so much mystery, so much resemblance, and so much diversity, each one is different. But a person has it better, they can change. A flower remains the same. A violet doesn’t become a rose.”
Flower Communion
June 14, 1925
“As far as a flower is from the stars, yet it is connected with the whole universe, it wouldn’t be here without the influence of the stars. The loneliest person is the brother of millions and is sustained by the influences of the entire cosmos. Everything is too interconnected for a person to be completely alone and abandoned.”
Flower Communion
1926
A person is not God, nor even themselves […], a person is on this earth the highest visible manifestation of God we know. […] Every person, even the worst, has within them a part of the Eternal and infinite good, universal love – and if people, before a child is born, in its upbringing, in dealing with others, always loved that divine within a person, […] there would be more good people. A person only has as much inner value as they have developed through their own effort, and brotherhood is also not something given, it also needs to be nurtured. We don’t ask what someone already is, but what they strive for – to increase hope for all.”
Flower Communion
June 19, 1927
Prayer:
Our God, who is our Father, our mother, our brother, and the life of our lives. With humility and gratitude, we realize that everything we hold most precious is your sacrifice, in which you give yourself to us, so that we can create our own personality, different from you, but carrying your divine seal and all the possibilities of infinite growth and development. […] We promise to strive to live in a way that is worthy of your presence in us and around us and of your willingness to let us draw strength from your fullness of great life. […] And you, flowers, you witnesses of our ideals of brotherhood and human dignity, be sanctified by the divine breath of love, and each of you bear witness to brotherly love and spread the good news of true dignity, sovereignty, and sanctity of each person who awakens to creative life and becomes a worker of the Highest.
Flower Communion
June 1, 1930
Meditation on Flowers:
What have we received from God – and what do we want to give? What from the land, from our country – and what do we want to give it? What have we received from brotherhood – and what do we want to give it? The symbol of all flowers – and what do we want to remember by it? Uniqueness, responsibility, brotherhood, the art of embracing diversity, forgiveness.
Benediction:
This moment is sacred. We have made a stop on the way to Eternity. May all the good impulses we have experienced in this gathering accompany us. We will go with God in our hearts and with a smile on our faces. May every flower our eyes behold herald to us the value of our own life and brotherly love.
Flower Communion
June 16, 1935
Religious people have always had their symbols, and according to what they emphasized most in their religion, what God and what relationship to God they considered right, such were their symbols: […] With all the respect we have for the symbols of other religions, we have chosen the symbol of the sun and the sunflower, namely a flower that expresses the sun the most, and then flowers in general. – And our special, festive expression of the significance of this symbol is the floral festival.
Flower Communion
June 16, 1940
The flower needs the sun: to bloom and smell, the sun as a symbol of love. And so it is with the human soul, it needs water, dew from above – a symbol of recognizing and accepting spiritual truths. It needs fertile soil to sink its roots into, inner life. (For us, this means taking care of our hidden spiritual life). The flower is a symbol of joy, tenderness, and higher culture (aesthetics). And most importantly, flowers are also a symbol of faith and hope. Faith in the life force of nature and hope, like those field flowers that seemed completely destroyed in winter, bloom again in spring, fresh and beautiful. And so it is with us. We are not afraid of death, we are not afraid of dying, for we know that there is something much stronger and more vital here, that there is a foundation from which, through many deaths and many winters, the manifestation of life can bloom again, much more beautiful than ever before.