Well the Month of May once again! I thought it might be nice of those of us who want to to bring little bunches of flowers and lay them on Mary's Altar. Thoughts, prayers, pictures, hymns, poems, stories whatever though the month and place them at her feet. Also of course at this time to beg her for a good Holy Pope in a very special way.
https://hannemanarchive.com/catholic-page/lovely-lady-dressed-in-blue-teach-me-how-to-pray/ Lovely Lady dressed in blue ——- Teach me how to pray! God was just your little boy, Tell me what to say! Did you lift Him up, sometimes, Gently on your knee? Did you sing to Him the way Mother does to me? Did you hold His hand at night? Did you ever try Telling stories of the world? O! And did He cry? Do you really think He cares If I tell Him things ——- Little things that happen? And Do the Angels’ wings Make a noise? And can He hear Me if I speak low? Does He understand me now? Tell me ——-for you know. Fulton Sheen
When Padraig included the clip of the hymn, Bring Flowers of the Rarest, it reminded me of the May Processions we would have growing up when I attended Our Lady of Lourdes Grammar School. We had at that time Grades kindergarden-6th with about 500 students. And of course we had school uniforms. But in the the center of the playground a shrine to Mary would be erected. Msgr. Whatley would lead us all with the Sacred Monstrance around the whole block as we sang Marian hymns and then honored the Lord with Benediction. A sweet memory!
I went to Our Lady of Lourdes Primary school in Belfast and we had A May Altar Although the May Altar I most recall is the one we had at home. Fond memories of going out to pick flowers, especially Bluebells. So many fond memories. From Scripture the Jews used to have their own altar or place of prayer to go to. So when Jesus is asked about how to prayer He was advising to go to their own room/ prayer place to pray. I believe Blessed Catherine Emmerich talks of Our Lady going into her own alcove/ prayer place to pray. So this is a Tradition that goes back thousands of years, very ancient. Tradition is so important it connects us with our hearts so to speak, The Church herself is built on Tradition. So wonderful jewels like May Altars are not to be lost. Not take it or leave it things. Every time May rolls round I think of the Saintly French priest Father Lamy and his vision at the village of Grey. A very,very month of May type vision: http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/misc/Angels_Demons/ANGES_lamy.pdf https://www.mysticsofthechurch.com/2009/11/pere-lamy-father-john-edward-lamy.html Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Grey "This was the 9th September, 1909. I had come [to Grey] nearly every year, and the Parish Priest of Violot was with me. They gave me handsome vestments put out for a prelate who was to come and who didn't arrive. I began my Mass. The Abbe Lemoine was in the interior of the chapel to the right, on the kneeler which is still there. The Blessed Virgin appeared to me suddenly, and at the same time the devil. It caused me violent emotion. I was in great doubt but I did not dare to believe because of my unworthiness, that I was facing the Most Blessed. It was so much beyond me. The Blessed Virgin came down from the ceiling, throned in great glory, so gently, so gently. She was as if in a furnace of light. Her glory went through everything gradually. The candles, the chalice, the altar vestments and myself, like the sun going through water. How far did the glory reach? You need to know what the glory of God is, when you think of what He gives to the dearest of His creatures. It was just like a sun. I never saw the end of it. She came down from the ceiling like that, with Her hands joined. She wore a little smile before letting Her voice be heard. When She uncrossed Her hands, it seemed to make an eddy around Her." "She first exchanged a word or two with the demon. During the descent, She said to Lucifer, who appeared behind Her, 'Is that you?' (Lucifer) ; , I have leave from the Father.' ‘So be it.' replied the Blessed Virgin Then, as if She were questioning him, 'You know how to obey the Father?' He gave no answer but I felt crushed. She extinguished Her glory. The lesser glory never left Her during all the Mass. I still stayed at the Dominus Vobiscum. Had I dared, I would have fled into the vestry, if I had not been at the altar. When I looked at the Parish Priest of Violot, he put his two hands over his face and his face in his book, and leaned his whole weight on the kneeler. I kept saying, ‘I shall be well defended.' She talked. She asked me questions. I did not dare to answer. She stood upright. She was of middle height. With the movement that She made, there was like a little storm of glittering spangles. Her crown only appeared when She stood up. Her feet were just about the height of those chairs. She stayed a little above the ground. With the right hand, She signed to me very maternally, 'Go on,' to give me back my courage. I said within myself, ‘If you are the Blessed Virgin, show me.' She said: 'I am the Mother of God.' When She said, • I am the Mother of God,' very gently, I seemed to melt away within. I did not doubt the word of the Mother of God. I believed Her, but She came in poor company (the fiend)." "When I commemorated the martyrdom of St. Gorgonius She smiled gently. It was the prayer of Her Nativity. At the ut quibus beatae Virginis, I bowed to Her. She bowed to me, very graciously. What humility, even in Heaven 1 And for me, a mountebank of the umpteenth class 1 I saw Her reflection in the glass before me in the altar-card. The interview went on, and so as not to cause too long a break, She signed to me to read the Epistle." “The little altar server said: 'Is it the Blessed Virgin, Father? ' as he took the book from the Epistle side to the Gospel side. I said to him, low, e Don't talk, you will make Her go away,' She looked on him with motherly tenderness. She stayed aside to let him pass and took Her place again at the middle of the altar. When I said the Munda cor meum, She left the middle of the altar and went to the Gospel side." " After the Gospel, the priest comes back to say the Credo. She took her place again at the side of the priest, almost in front of the book. She let him begin the Credo; at the Incarnatus est, She bowed as if to say, 'That is so.' At the Sub Pontio Pilato, She put forward Her closed hands upon the altar, clencing Her fists in a gesture of mighty sorrow. Her arms were just beside me (and he showed a distance of five inches). I was so upset that I made a mistake. I muddled things. When She saw that I wasn't getting over it, She went on with the Credo as if She were saying the Mass. My mistake had given me such a shock. She put me back where I stopped, very gently. (And, smiling, he said): She knows Her prayers well." "At the Memento, She recommended the priest to ask more. There is great store, and still greater to be given." "The Blessed Virgin foretold the War. She spoke to me very maternally, about my childhood, founded the pilgrimage of Our Lady of the Woodland; told me She wanted a new congregation. With great energy She condemned modernism, treated of several different matters, defending me from Lucifer." "She was dressed in a deep blue gown, with Her white veil, the sleeves gathered in at the wrists, and bare feet. The neckline of Her dress is just below the chin. The gown is ample and quite simple. But anything She wore would be equally becoming. Her proportions are perfect. Everything in Her is perfect. Her eyes are very changeable; they can take all the colours, but there is one settled colour all the same. When She lived on earth they were neither brown nor altogether blue. Rather periwinkle. Her ears are visible. So is the start of the hair on the forehead. In the same way you can see the plaits of hair at the side. The only statue resembling her in the least is the one (Rue du Bac, above the entrance door of the Ladies of Charity), where She is giving an audience to Catherine Laboure, That has the face, just as long, but She has not that forehead. She looks too young in that statue, and yet you cannot make Her old. I have never been able to tell Her age. The Virgin is very dark. (' I am black, but comely.') Her demeanour is very simple. She seldom inclines Her head but looks you straight in the face, just like Her Divine Son, but you feel that beyond, how Their gaze pierces into the entire world." "When the Blessed Virgin speaks as a mother, She wears a crown made from a spray of roses, of lilies, and of daisies, with a silver band, quite narrow, at a third of the height. These flowery sprays are arranged like the fingers; a white rose, almost open, a single lily, almost open, and a daisy. Naturally, these flowers often repeated, form a circle. As for the green branches at the base of the crown, they are very sober in colour. It is a bell-shaped crown. You could pass your hand between Her crown and the veil on Her head. But when She condemned modernism, She wore a crown of matchless beauty. If the crown of flowers can be copied, the other one, the great one, cannot be even dreamed. It is made up of clusters of jewels and light. The jewels are very fine, small for the most part and a few large. They are harmoniously arranged like the grains in a ear of corn, with sparkling lights inset between the stones and throwing them into relief. There are blue stones, some red, some violet but less numerous than the blue. Amongst the most beautiful are the pale blue stones. I am almost sorry I didn't ask Her for one. Of those stones, some hang and others cluster. There is quite a play of lights, some outside and some inside the crown. It is like a diadem, rising in the middle. All that I have seen in the museum look like cobble work beside a finely finished shoe. There is no crown on earth like that. She wears it when She speaks as a sovereign Lady. She is majestic. She wore it without the glory, or else She would be frightening and She does not come to frighten."
I have always had a fondness for Our Lady of Grace as that is the school and Church I attended from K to gr. 5. Nuns were teaching there and one was the Principal. The Church was right next door and the same priest was there for the duration. And I went on from there to St. Joseph's for grades 6 - 8. A perfect progression re the Holy Family!
So lovely. I share these same May Procession memories. At the time, I don't think any of us realized how truly blessed we were. May was always such a joyful month as we honored our Holy Mother, as well as our own mothers. The sisters would always give us pretty embroidered handkerchiefs to place in our homemade Mother's Day cards.
I read something about Our Lady which surprised and pleased me a few months ago. It said that Mary was, like ourselves a member of the Church and not placed over it. Of course since Our Holy Mother the Church is the Bride of Christ this must be so. It just surprised me to read it. But balancing this Scott Hahn reminded us that in Jewish tradition the Queen Mother had a very, very special and respected place for them. This being so it places MAry as Queen Mother perfectly within the Church. https://angelusnews.com/voices/queen-mother-scripture/ Israel’s monarchy arose in specific circumstances. In the ancient Near East, most nations were monarchies ruled by a king. Most cultures practiced polygamy, so a king often had several wives. This posed problems. Whom should the people honor as queen? And, more importantly, whose son should receive the right of succession? In most cultures, these problems were resolved by a single custom. The woman honored as queen was not the king’s wife, but his mother. The custom served as a stabilizing factor. As wife of the former king and mother to the present king, the queen-mother embodied dynastic continuity. This played out historically at the beginning of King David’s dynasty. His first successor, Solomon, reigned with his mother, Bathsheba, at his right hand. “Gebirah” (“Great Lady”) was an office with real authority. “So Bathsheba went to King Solomon. … And the king rose to meet her, and bowed down to her … and she sat on his right hand” (1 Kings 2:19). Notice that Solomon rose from his throne when his mother entered. This makes the queen-mother unique among the royal subjects. Anyone else would rise in Solomon’s presence; even the king’s wives were required to bow before him (1 Kings 1:16). What do Solomon’s actions tell us about his mother’s status? First, his power is not threatened by her. He bows, but he remains monarch. She sits at his right hand, and not vice versa. Clearly he was in the habit of honoring her requests — not out of legal obligation, but rather out of filial love. When Adonijah first approaches Bathsheba to beg her intercession, he says, “Pray ask King Solomon — he will not refuse you” (1 Kings 2:17). He relied on her, too, to be his chief counselor. Chapter 31 of the Book of Proverbs provides an illustration of this. Introduced as “[t]he words of Lemuel, king of Massa, which his mother taught him” (v. 1), the chapter goes on to give practical instruction in governance. The queen-mother could be counted on for frankness. She was unique in her relationship to the king. When prophets foretold the restoration of the House of David, they always predicted a new “gebirah” bearing the infant king (see Isaiah 7:14 and Micah 5:2). As David established a holy city in Jerusalem, so his ultimate successor would create a heavenly Jerusalem, where his mother would reign at his right hand, clothed with the sun, crowned with 12 stars (signifying the 12 tribes of Israel), and with the moon at her feet. As David’s first successor reigned beside his queen-mother, so would David’s final and everlasting successor. The Davidic monarchy finds its perfect fulfillment in the reign of Jesus. Only with this Davidic key can we unlock the mysteries of this month’s great feasts, the Assumption on August 15 and the Queenship of Mary, a week later on August 22. Celebrate both with an awareness that God planned them from the beginning of King David’s monarchy — and, indeed, from the beginning of time.
I think the main reason I had a Deep Devotion to Our Lady was my mother. I loved her so much and so deeply that it was very,very easy to transfer that love to our Heavenly Mother. To imagine a mother who was even better than my own mother was amazing. One thing strikes me with my own mother was that having ten children she related to each of us in a different way because we were all of us different to each other. Some of us for instance boys and some girls. With our relationship with Mary it not only differs from person to person but it changes and hopefully deepens over time. My own experience with her is that she brought me to the Feet of Jesus and having done this, her job over left me to it. As at the Wedding Feast of Cana she said, 'Do as He tells you'. Yet curiously having vanished so to speak she is much more present than ever. But in a different way. I relate to her much more as an adult son to his mother rather than in a kind of clinging way as before. It's hard to put into words as its a paradox.
