Our Resurrection Garden, a Place of Quiet and Reflection

Trinity Marshfield has no burial plots or cemetery and differs from many older churches in Town.  But, for over a decade, Trinity has set up a sacred place where the ashes of loved ones may be interred.   It is an outdoor place of meditation and prayer like an open-air cathedral.

Go up to the end of our driveway toward Steeple School and find a gravel path that goes off to the left into the woods.  On either side of this path is a landscaped garden and specimen trees.  The entrance to the roughly circular space (about 35 feet in diameter) is bordered by two small granite markers and two ground-level stones in which is inscribed the names of those whose ashes are buried.  In the middle of the space is an island in which ashes are interred by our Priest.  On the outside edge of the space are granite benches and a large wooden cross inset with a smaller bronze cross.  An angel statue and basin adorn the island along with plantings of bulbs, moss and small bushes.

A canopy of pines and oaks shades this space allowing the kind of light that one finds in a cathedral to enter.  Surrounding the space is a series of rhododendrons and fern clumps amid the trunks of nearby trees.  All of the flowering plants and bushes have white blossoms by design.  Beyond the rhododendrons is a natural pine and oak forest with trees as much as 100 years old.  

Parishioners meet in the Resurrection Garden for All-Saints Day services of remembrance every year.  But most of the visitors at other times come for the quiet and the peace that fosters memories of departed loved ones. When you get a chance, visit Trinity’s Resurrection Garden alone or with a close friend.  

Thanks to the able help of parishioners at clean-up days, the pine-needled surface of the garden walkways are repaired, fallen branches are cleared and leaves are swept away.  Periodically, the granite is cleaned and nearby bushes are pruned so that the cross is not obscured by new growth.  At times new bulbs and other plantings are placed by the walk and in the island under the supervision of the Resurrection Garden Committee.