The month of May in the Church is the Month of Mary; a month in which we, the faithful, make a special effort to dedicate ourselves to the Mother of God. This is not just the practice of Catholics in Australia, but around the whole world. During this month, Christians, both in their local church, and in the privacy of their homes, offer up to Mary our Mother especially fervent and loving homage of prayer and veneration.
Good children always show special respect to their earthily mother, and these children’s earthly mother will always refer to them as her “children”, even if they are in their forties, fifties, sixties or beyond. And this is how it is with our heavenly Mother. We who honour Mary as our Mother, will always be her children, no matter how old we become.
God, our Father, pours blessings on those who love and respect their spiritual Mother, Mary, who, like us, is also His child. Pope Paul VI stated in his encyclical on prayers for peace said in this month that, in the month of May “the benefits of God's mercy come down to us from her throne in greater abundance".
Through, and because of God’s great love for us and His desire for us to share in His eternal bliss, God achieved in Mary what we would have otherwise thought impossible: He made Mary not only His Daughter, but also, His Mother.
The custom of dedicating the month of May to the Blessed Virgin arose among Christians at the end of the 13th Century. In this way, the Church was able to Christianize the secular feasts which were taking place at that time. By the 16th Century many books and pamphlets had been produced to foster this devotion to Mary in the month of May.
Today, it is our Christian feasts that are being secularised. At times it seems this movement is irreversible. However, the world is always changing its mind and what it believes so devotedly today, fifty years from now, it will not believe at all.
Do your very best in this month of May to become like Mary at the Wedding Feast in Cana; ask God for His Blessings and have them granted because you love Him.
Father Brendan Lee
Moderator of the Hornsby Cathedral Parish