spiritual bouquet
- noun
- Jargon
:
ramo espiritual
- During the service, the priest mentioned the spiritual bouquet prepared by the children, which included their heartfelt prayers for the sick.
Examples
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The church community sent a spiritual bouquet to the family in mourning, promising to pray for their peace.
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In the evening, after an hour of Eucharistic adoration, we had a family gathering where the Savio group presented the spiritual bouquet to Father Rector.
Blog text (24) -
She received a beautiful card with a spiritual bouquet that expressed the sender's intentions to offer daily prayers for her health.
Surface Forms
Morphology
spiritual + bouquet
The phrase combines 'spiritual' (religious) with 'bouquet' (a bunch of flowers) in a metaphorical way to mean a collection of prayers or devotional acts; this relationship is partially inferable from the constituents. However, the specific Catholic practice of sending a card promising prayers is culturally specific and not fully predictable from the words alone, so a B1 learner might guess a symbolic offering but would likely need exposure to the ritual meaning.
Etymology
The noun spiritual bouquet comes from the image of a bunch of flowers: a bouquet, and the word spiritual shows the gifts are 'prayers' or good acts rather than real flowers. That's why a spiritual bouquet today is a card or message saying the sender will offer 'prayers' for the person.
