Have you ever noticed how popular religious statues are in gardens you pass going to and from work or perhaps when taking a drive through the country on a sunny afternoon? If you take the time to look around while out and about, you will see that religious statues are more popular than you may ever have imagined. If this is something you have been considering, you will know you are not alone. In fact, here are 3 reasons why so many families use religious statues on their lawns, porches, and in their gardens.
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1. A Focal Point for a Garden Prayer Corner
One of the main reasons why so many of the faithful place religious statues in the garden is because they have designed a space to be used solely as a prayer corner. Here they will often place a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary, guardian angels, or even saints like St. Anthony or St. Joseph. Statues not only add to the aesthetics of your prayer garden, but they also help you to center in and focus during your time in prayer. Contrary to what many people believe, we don’t pray to the statue but rather keep it as a focal point for our communion with the Lord.
2. Contemporary Trends
You may have noticed that for the past several decades, angels have been trending. This is one of the reasons, sometimes outside of faith, why homeowners choose to decorate their garden with statues of angels. Sometimes it’s the two angels of Raphael, depicting the original angels painted by artist Raffaello Santi who lived from 1483 to 1520. For one who lived only to be 37 years of age, his art has inspired a belief in angels for centuries. Although Raphael’s angels may represent a belief that angels exist, they are often used in gardens simply for trending aesthetics.
3. A Statement of Faith
Perhaps statues in the garden can be seen as something akin to the marking of doorways with lamb’s blood at Passover. As the Bible tells us, the Lord ordered Moses to tell the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb and then mark the doorway with the blood. He was to send the angel of death to kill the firstborn male of the Egyptians. If the doorway was marked with the blood of the lamb, the angel of death would pass over that home – thus the tradition and meaning of Passover. Statues in the garden are also a statement of faith, and although they aren’t there to hold off the angel of death, they are there to mark the family so that anyone observing the statue knows that this is a Catholic Christian home.
Take the time to really look around for how statues are being used in the gardens you pass from time to time. Each will tell a story about what the statue represents and where it has been placed. It’s interesting and may just inspire you to place a statue or two in your own garden at home.
