May – The Month of The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Blessed Virgin Mary is the Mother of the Church and an example, guide, and inspiration for all who seek to be the servant of God and an obedient agent of the promptings of the Holy Spirit. The month of May is especially dedicated to Our Blessed Lady by the faithful. During this month, Catholics both in church and in the home, offer up to Mary from their hearts an especially fervent and loving homage of prayer and veneration.
May is the Month of Mary!
As the Mother of God, the Virgin Mary has a unique position among the saints, indeed, among all creatures. She is exalted, yet still one of us.
Redeemed by reason of the merits of her Son and united to Him by a close and indissoluble tie, she is endowed with the high office and dignity of being the Mother of the Son of God, by which account she is also the beloved daughter of the Father and the temple of the Holy Spirit. Because of this gift of sublime grace she far surpasses all creatures, both in heaven and on earth. At the same time, however, because she belongs to the offspring of Adam she is one with all those who are to be saved. (Lumen Gentium, no. 53)
Mary embraces God’s will and freely chooses to cooperate with God’s grace, thereby fulfilling a crucial role in God’s plan of salvation. Throughout the centuries, the Church has turned to the Blessed Virgin in order to come closer to Christ. Many forms of piety toward the Mother of God developed that help bring us closer to her Son. In these devotions to Mary, “while the Mother is honored, the Son, through whom all things have their being and in whom it has pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell, is rightly known, loved and glorified and . . . all His commands are observed.” The Church honors her as the Mother of God, looks to her as a model of perfect discipleship, and asks for her prayers to God on our behalf.
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The Feast of the Visitation of Mary
Friday, May 31st
This feast commemorates the three-month visit of Mary with her elderly cousin Elizabeth during Mary’s pregnancy with Jesus and Elizabeth’s with John the Baptist. The story appears in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel. It recounts Elizabeth’s Spirit-filled greeting, acknowledging Mary as “the mother of my Lord,” and Mary’s beautiful response, the Magnificat, which begins, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.” Introduced by the Franciscans in 1263, the feast became universal in the 16th century.
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