A quote from Catherine McAuley;
We should cultivate the most tender devotion to the Mother of Our Redeemer; for if we had in our possession only a garment He had worn how greatly we should prize it!When I was a child I had a May alter every year in my room. I would put dandelions or violets in a vase or glass each day. Our family would say the rosary each night and there would be songs of Mary at Mass.
Later when I was teaching we still had the May altars, and special may ceremonies, sometimes a May crowning done by a girl chosen out of the 8th grade (or 6th grade if that was the highest grade) sometime in May. We would learn Mary songs and create our own atmosphere of devotion to Mary in the classroom. I even had a book of little stories of how praying to Mary would help in all sorts of trouble and I would read one each day!
One of the things we would do in the month of May was to be sure each child knew how to say the rosary and when teaching Spanish class I even had a living rosary in Spanish as a culminating project for all the students.
What has happened since then? I think when we are not connected closely to the liturgical year we get distracted and somewhat distanced from devotional practices. Now I am not saying that we need to have lots of devotional practices, but they do take us to a time of innocence. Sometimes I wonder if we might not need some innocence in our life.
if we have a devotion to Mary, we would not look at everything through rose colored glasses. After all we are talking about a woman who was a teenage mother, a refugee in a foreign land, a mother who saw the death of her husband and the cruel execution of her only child! We see a woman who had to work hard to put food on the table. Hers was not an easy lot. She did not live in a upper middle class home. she had to work hard each day. Unusual in her time, she outlived her child who was an adult. The life expectancy of women(and men) was not all that high in those days.
Was hers a simple life despite the hardness of living it? I don't think so. According to tradition, she was an educated woman. She had a part to play in a bigger role of God's plan for all of us. She probably didn't understand it fully, but she most likely could read and know the history of her people. She also had to contend with the political events of her day. Her son was caught up in some of it, just from the way he lived his life. She had to deal with the Roman occupation, not pleasant for anyone of that day and age.
So to have a devotion to the blessed Mother would be a devotion to a woman of strength, not a saccharine saint. To have a devotion to May would be to see her in all of her roles as wife, mother, refugee, oppressed, grief-stricken and woman of God. She is a lot more complex than the devotions of May altars and May crowning might lead us to believe.
Today, think of your own love of this woman who gave birth to the Savior. What could we learn from her about strength in the midst of stress and hard work just to make ends meet. Happy May!
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