Living and Dying: A Lenten Reflection Using Plants and Flowers

Artist, Jesuit priest, and Ateneo Fine Arts faculty Fr. Jason Dy shows how we have a lot to learn from plants and flowers.

Even as a child living in the coastal town of Medina, Misamis Oriental, Fr. Jason Dy, SJ was already fascinated by the beauty and power of nature. He reveals, “I would wonder, ‘What if I took a boat toward the horizon, what [would be] beyond it? Will I fall off the edge of the sea? Or if I swim deeper into the sea, what would I find there?’ These childhood wonderings introduced me to the beauty and terror of nature.”

As a young man based in Cagayan de Oro, Fr. Dy developed an attitude toward art and nature that became integral to his vocation as a priest. “Care as an act as well as an attitude has a deeper connection with my life as a Jesuit priest and an artist. Learning from the concern needed by nature and the providence we receive from nature, pastoral work is about nurturing the faith community with sacraments and service to the marginalized sectors in our society,” the Jesuit priest shares.

Fr. Dy has used his art to speak for him in his ministry. During this pandemic, the faithful have been treated to a daily arrangement of flowers, plants, and other objects installed on the altar for the online mass of Radyo Katipunan and Jesuit Communications. Fr. Dy maintains that these arrangements go beyond being mere decorations. He reveals, “The intention of this project, entitled Arrange/Enliven, is to enliven the online liturgy during this bleak time of the pandemic. Due to this dark, difficult, and desolate situation, the cycle of plants from growing, blooming, wilting, to sprouting provides a sense of hope.” Fr. Dy uses the liturgical season, the feast days, and the scriptural readings as the basis for his arrangements. 

Fr. Dy cites ikebana, the Japanese tradition of floral arrangement, and the Japanese aesthetic philosophy of wabi-sabi as his sources of inspiration for his work. However, his main source of inspiration is nature itself. He talks about the flowers and plants growing on campus, saying: “It’s interesting to observe how human intervention could positively impact and transform a tract of land filled with cogon grasses during the post-war times into a green campus with mini-forests, varied flowering trees, vegetable plots, diverse flora, and several bird inhabitants subsisting as an ecosystem. Now, I’m harvesting the fruits of the interaction between human settlement and nature, and offering them back to the divine maker through humble ikebana-inspired floral arrangements.”

Fr. Dy emphasizes the need for people to explore their connection to nature. One of his projects, which is dubbed #IamTREE, features Fr. Dy covering his face with leaves and branches. He calls it atonement, a play on the syllables: at-one-ment, and a representation of man becoming one with nature.

During this Holy Week, he invites the community to be one with nature and see our lives as reflected in the Paschal Mystery—the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Fr. Dy says, “We can derive wisdom from the plants and flowers—from their life growth, decay, and re-growth. Just as the Bible says, we are reminded that ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.’” Aside from witnessing the cycle of life, a sense of trust and surrender is what Fr. Dy hopes we learn from nature. “We need to listen to the hums in nature because it is where the Divine speaks to us.”