Olea

To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil into it

Mother Theresa

Olea is an interesting botanical name that refers to both the olive and the olive oil. This is a wonderful image for our new expression of Mother Culture. Just as the fruit of the olive tree is pressed to release the valuable oil which fuels the lamp, adds flavor to a dish, retains healing properties, and rejuvenates dry scorched materials, so the experiences and stories of our lives will be pressed out; fueling lamps to burn the brighter, flavoring each other’s lives with shared stories, helping heal through God’s grace, and rejuvenating each other’s lives when we may feel dried up and scorched.

Our commitment within the Sursum Corda Community is to learn and grow as sisters in Christ and as mothers on our home education journey. Together may we experience awe in God’s creation, an awakened sense of beauty through the arts and growth in our spiritual and intellectual pursuits as a way to glorify God and know Him deeper still.

“The production of olive oil is a mystery. Unlike vines where teams of pickers or large machines bring in the vintage, the picking of olives is an inconspicuous operation. Pruning is the same. Vines are transformed from a tangled mass of twigs to neat pared rows of almost identical vines. One rarely sees the olive pruner at work. Perhaps there is a ladder propped against a tree and one sees some prunings on the ground before they are burnt or mulched. It would be a mistake to be fooled into believing that this is a night time operation carried out by elves. In fact the classic olive grove is the result of care and attention over many years. The olive trees in Umbria and Tuscany are not by any stretch of the imagination a natural landscape. The untended olive is an untidy bush and it is only through pruning that it has form.” –

Mediterranean Garden Society