The Church does not only say that they are first-fruits to God and to the Lamb,
The Church invokes them and names them
the flowers of the martyrsThus meaning literally that the other Martyrs are the fruits but that these, among the Martyrs, are the flowers themselves.
Salvete FLORES Martyrum,
Hail FLOWERS of the Martyrs.
Stretched on the rack, tied to the rack like fruit tied to espaliers
The other martyrs, twenty centuries of martyrs
Centuries and centuries of martyrs
Are literally fruits in season,
In every season spread on espaliers
And chiefly fruits of autumn
and my Son was even gathered
In his thirty-third season. But they, those simple innocents
They are even before the fruit, they are the promise of fruit.
Salvete flores Martyrum, those children of less than two years old are the flowers of the other martyrs.
That is, the flowers which produce the other martyrs.
[Charles Péguy, "The Mystery of the Holy Innocents", The Mystery of the Holy Innocents, and Other Poems, Pansy Pakenham, tr., Harper & Brothers (New York: 1956) pp.162-163.]
