My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord!

If I were to ask you “What is a favourite hymn that you associate with Mary, the Mother of God during this month?”  What would you answer, I wonder?   I’m not a betting woman, but I’d come near to it by guessing that you might say “Bring flowers of the rarest.”   Well I’ll hedge my bets and say that this would be true only for many people who live in this part of the world. 

 May has always been associated with the Mother of God.  When we think of May we usually have a picture of green fields, perfumed blossom and bluebells.  Isn’t that true?  The older ones among us remember May processions in school or in our parishes, with youngsters leading the procession through the fields or out in the streets dressed in the shining white of their First Communion dresses, followed by the colourful columns of priests, altar servers and people dressed in their best Summer clothes – lovely pinks and blues and greens and yellows. At the back of the line was a statue of Our Lady decked with flowers which was carried on a huge trestle. We always trembled for its fate, as it usually was carried by the altar boys who were of varying sizes, so it tended to slope to one side, often leaning right over as it was carried, not with the slow, measured tread of the men, but with the lolloping run of the boys who were used to tearing around the roads!

The hymns and prayers were carried on the evening breeze as we sang with great fervour “Bring flowers of the rarest, bring blossoms the fairest, from garden and woodland and hillside and dale. Our full hearts are swelling, our glad voices telling the praise of the loveliest flower of the May!”

Then the voices, young and old, got louder and more joyous as we shouted: “O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today, Queen of the angels, and Queen of the May!  O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today, Queen of the angels and Queen of the May!”   It was wonderful.  If you were chosen to actually crown Our Lady, that was a memory to be savoured right through the rest of your life.  Standing tip toe on rickety steps, lifting up your trembling hands to put the lovely wreath of flowers around Mary’s head, imagining that she smiled at you as you did so – that was entering the field of dreams! 

In medieval times, children ran up to put their own nosegays around Mary, wild flowers that they had gathered from the woods and from the fields, and they tossed them on the cart to show that this was their way of saying “I love you Mary – thank you for being my Mother!”

Today we don’t have so many processions, sadly, but we do have lots of opportunities of showing our devotion to Mary.  She loves it, the candles we light around her image in the church, the flowers we put around the May altars.  We are saying to Mary, whose image is in front of us to remind us of her, “We love you, we want to honour you, we know that you love us and are interested in everything we do!”  That is prayer.  The Rosary is also a wonderful way of praying to Mary, and at the same time, meditating on the life of her son, going over in our minds the scenes that made up his life and hers.  If you haven’t tried that way of praying, do start.  It is a very powerful prayer, and brings great blessings.

Let’s try to be very close to her this month.  She is always close to us, but we are not always aware of it.  That is a lost opportunity. 

Let’s tell her about the things that we keep locked in our hearts, the people we always hold fast in our hearts because we love them;   tell her what things trouble or annoy us, what was good or bad about the day when it is over.  All mothers love to chat with their children and Mary is no exception.   She’ll look forward to your conversations at the beginning or end of each day.

We’ll end with an observation by Edwina Gately who started the Volunteer Missionary Movement for young people.  It’s about the field of dreams we talked about earlier.

There is a dream I have not dreamt,

A vision I have not seen.

There is in me a fire not kindled,

glowing like a lone and passionate sentinel

awaiting the dawn.

                                (Edwina Gately)

Let us pray:

Spirit of life, by whose power the Word was made flesh in the womb of Mary, the woman of attentive silence, make us experience that dream. Walk with us, dream with us, live with us today and always.

Have a lovely month of Mary!