The Month of May

The Month of May has traditionally been dedicated to Our Blessed Lady, St. Mary. (June, by the way, is traditionally dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.) During the month, the Faithful are encouraged to add special devotions to Mary, who was given to us by Jesus himself on the cross to be our mother. (John 19:26-27) What special grace would you like to ask of Mary this month? Perhaps you might make a brief pilgrimage to visit a statue of her in a nearby church, or a church dedicated to her? The Lady Chapel in the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis is particular lovely. There is a shrine to Our Lady of Sorrows at Starkenburg, Mo., just north of Herrmann. There is the famous shrine of Our Lady of the Snows at Belleville. A great many parish churches have a Lourdes grotto or a Fatima group of statues outdoors. A pilgrimage does not need to be to a place far away and arduous to reach. It can be a prayerful journey to a nearby place. Pick a quiet day or afternoon a make a prayerful journey away from all the noise that clutters our lives and our brains.

   There are also particular things you might choose for spiritual reading during May. There are books of meditations for each day of May. Another possibility is to read what one of the Popes have written about Mary.

The website https://www.papalencyclicals.net/ has, as you might imagine, encyclicals and other lesser documents from the Popes. Pope Leo XIII wrote a series of short encyclicals on the Rosary. Pope St. John Paul II wrote a famous but long apostolic letter on the Rosary in 2002. Other notable examples exist among the writings of St. Paul VI, St. Pius X, and Pius XII, of blessed memory.

   You might instead decide to pick up a book by St. Louis de Montfort, the great Apostle of Mary. His most famous work is True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. His writings were written to be understood by many people, i.e., not as learned treatises for theologians. Nevertheless, there is much learning and research that went into his works.  The Glories of Mary by St. Alphonsus Liguori is another fine work of Marian devotion. It is long, but it is broken up into small chapters for easy digestion. These two books are classics and worth their weight in gold.

   I'll stop here. These ideas will supply you with material for prayer for several Mays. Plan to have something to take with you from this May: find a Marian prayer that you do not yet know, and memorize it.

   P.S. Has your Rosary been blessed? Any priest can take care of that for you...

Fr. Stone, April 30, 2024