Queen of the May
It's May, the month of our Mother! Our yard is beginning to be filled with blooming azaleas and the air is fragrant with the scent of all of the flowers.
I love this song that we used to sing during May crowning when I was a child.
When I was younger, however, I didn't like Mary very much. She was so unrelatable to me. She lived a life with no sin and I felt like that made her aloof, a perfect woman with none of the struggles that I had. I think I unconsciously avoided a relationship with her and instead looked to St. Therese, a name saint of mine who I could understand and who inspired me to get to know Jesus more and more.
Not long ago I discovered a copy of a book that I remembered being read to me in childhood called Leading the Little Ones to Mary by Sister Mary Lelia. It has a pretty cover and a sweet title and I picked it up to page through it. As I did I was shocked to see in its pages some of what must have fed the misconceptions that I had formed about Mary from an early age.
Here is a passage about Mary as a girl:
"Some of Mary's little neighbors were not always good. They did not obey their mothers. Some told lies and called names. And some made fun of people. These children copied from naughty boys and girls.
The mothers told their children to see how Mary acted. And do you know, many of these boys and girls really began to copy holy Mary, because she always did the better thing. . . . I wonder if we always do the better thing? It would be sad if we copied bad children. . . .We don't ever want to do that. We want to please Our Lady....
Sometimes boys and girls think they are better than others. They are mean. They won't speak. Is that acting like Mary? I hope no one here acts like that.
Upon reading this I was struck with something bordering on disgust at the moralizing guilt-trip that this book was putting forth, albeit with the intention of teaching little ones about Mary. The author is using Mary and some sappy perfect image of her as a child to manipulate good behavior in small children! I recognized in this passage the portrayal of Mary that contributed to my feelings of apathy toward Mary. I think they were similar to those that Laura Ingalls felt towards her sister Mary when Mary's simpering "goody-two-shoes" behavior gets approval from Ma and so Laura gets guilted into behaving the same way, though she feels naughty inside. Who wants to be with someone like that anyway?
So, when I think back, I believe I avoided a relationship with Mary. Not consciously that I recall, but I didn't understand her and maybe resented her perfection a bit. She was too perfect and too sinless and I couldn't see a way to relate to that. I didn't like saying the rosary and never chose to on my own. I became close to St Therese and through her to Jesus. I prayed to St Joseph. Mary felt like a distant relation.
But I know now that she never gave up on a relationship with me. As the month of May begins this year, I am grateful for the growing friendship that Mary and I have now, all because of her care and patience with me, and have begun to notice the past times in my life when she patiently laid the foundation for more closeness.
I think back 14 years to May 13th in 2004 when D. and I made a reluctant pilgrimage to Lourdes that was not our priority or initial intention, but remains one of the single and most serene and blessed days in my life.
Then when I became a mother, my good and patient Mother Mary was able to touch my heart all the more as I have learned to love, pray, and sacrifice for my children and understand her motherly heart through my own.
I think of my pregnancies, especially the first, when I began to understand what Mary's own with Jesus must have been like. I felt a new closeness to her.
May was the month in 2008 when we moved away from our first home in the country for a reason that made me angry and sad, to a place that it took a long time for me to give in and accept. I still sometimes wonder about that move and what it was meant to teach me, but I know Mary was there for me then too, as I struggled to make a home in a place where I felt so homesick.
Then there was my surprise pregnancy with Sunshine, discovered in the month of May as well, that was emotionally and psychologically the hardest pregnancy I have experienced. But then on January 1, the feast of the Mother of God, I was given my Sunshine, beautiful, perfect, and peaceful, with "Blessed Mother blue" eyes. We named her after our good Mother, who I see now had been the one caring for me and her when I didn't feel like I could be a good mother.
In 2013, May was a month in which I grew closer to her again as I prayed gasping, exhausted prayers constantly to Mary who once nursed her son, as I tried to nurse my own, while he cried and cried and cried for weeks and weeks, and I was convinced that my breast milk was the cause of intestinal discomfort for him. He would cry so hard in the car that all of us could hardly bear it and when we had to go places I would tape a picture of Mary to the seat in front of him while tearfully assuring him that she would be with him while we drove even if I couldn't be.
Then in 2014, D. and I decided to make a Marian consecration, using the booklet, 33 Days to Morning Glory, and coincidentally chose the date of consecration as the 13th of May, only realizing later that that date had past significance to us as a couple because of our Lourdes trip ten years prior. As Fr Gaitley says in his preparation meditations, "After Consecration Day, everything changes. A gloriously new day dawns in our spiritual lives. Indeed, when we give Mary our "yes," she begins to arrange all the events and details of our lives in such beautiful, tender, and loving ways."
Early in 2016 I made a resolution to work more on getting to know Mary, and called 2016 "the year I'll get to know Mary better." I told her I was sorry I had ignored her and that I wanted to know her better, but just so she knew, I still didn't think I'd ever love the rosary!
On May 13, 2017, the 100th anniversary of the first Fatima apparition, D. and I traveled to an Unbound: Freedom in Christ conference, our second time attending a weekend event that in 2015 had been a life-changing experience for us. The conference was non-denominational (although the leaders are Catholic) but the small auditorium in which we sat had a very large statue of Mary in the corner overlooking all of the attendees. I felt her presence as I prayed for grace and freedom and rocked my amazing perfectly contented and peaceful 5 month old Zuzu, whom I had worried about bringing.
And this year, in this month of Mary, there are great things happening in my life that I know she is doing, tenderly and with great love. She has been working on my marriage, our family's life together and even, most especially now, on D's business and our financial situation -- she is good at that! -- helping us to detach, helping us to trust and helping us to want what God wants for us. There was an important step made in our lives yesterday on the 1st of May, that I know is all her doing! We've been saying a family rosary more often, something we've never done outside of Lent before. I have been working to begin the habit of saying the rosary on my own, while walking, or driving, with the aid of a rosary bracelet (and definitely also some will power!). I have prayed the Our Lady Undoer of Knots novena and countless Memorares, hoping and desiring to leave in her hands many things in our lives that are tangled and to trust her fully to do what is the very best for us. I am a slow learner, and I wonder sometimes that Mary can be patient with my lack of understanding or trust!
When I look at all these small, scattered points that I have mentioned, I hesitate to even post this reflection, because the pathway isn't a striking one, but simple, subtle and perhaps only noticed by me. I have, however, been reflecting on the fact that there is an absence of coincidence in the lives of God's children. A quote that I once read says, "Coincidence is when God remains anonymous" (or Mary, as the case may be!). I think she has always been softly calling to me, always giving, always loving me. I may miss her gestures of love and caring, sometimes so small as to be brushed off, but later, I can see and recall some moments when she has been more obvious. When I do this awe is kindled as this life-reflection brings my eye up from the microscope lens, as it were, blinking at the wonder that is the whole and entire specimen of my life, that I often forget to draw back and behold. This story, that spans years (and is still being carried out!), these threads that interweave are so individual to me, show me how she is a mother of each of her individual and different children! It is all part of the plan to draw us into relationship, deeper and deeper. Mary is good at leading us to God. As St Louis de Montfort says, "We make more progress in a brief period of submission to and dependence on Mary than in whole years of following our own will and relying upon ourselves."
And here are some words by Fulton Sheen: "If we have a box in which we keep our money, we know that one thing we must always give attention to is the key; we never think that the key is the money, but we know that without the key we cannot get the money. Our Blessed Mother is like the key. Without her we can never get to Our Lord, because he came through her . . . If we lose her, we cannot get him. That is why we pay so much attention to her; without her we could never understand how that bridge was built between heaven and earth."
God is in the events that she arranges in my life, and in those tiny motherly details --unnoticed often even by I who am living this life!--are where I can find and see her work. Just as she went to her son on behalf of the couple getting married in Cana, so she goes to Him on behalf of me, again and again.
It's all about the seeing --seeing what God has done and praising Him for it. I am seeing Mary everywhere, and am waiting with joy to see the blessings that this month and all the following months will bring to me!
Come and hear, all who fear God, and I will tell of what he has done for my soul! -- Psalm 66:16
I love this song that we used to sing during May crowning when I was a child.
When I was younger, however, I didn't like Mary very much. She was so unrelatable to me. She lived a life with no sin and I felt like that made her aloof, a perfect woman with none of the struggles that I had. I think I unconsciously avoided a relationship with her and instead looked to St. Therese, a name saint of mine who I could understand and who inspired me to get to know Jesus more and more.
Not long ago I discovered a copy of a book that I remembered being read to me in childhood called Leading the Little Ones to Mary by Sister Mary Lelia. It has a pretty cover and a sweet title and I picked it up to page through it. As I did I was shocked to see in its pages some of what must have fed the misconceptions that I had formed about Mary from an early age.
Here is a passage about Mary as a girl:
"Some of Mary's little neighbors were not always good. They did not obey their mothers. Some told lies and called names. And some made fun of people. These children copied from naughty boys and girls.
The mothers told their children to see how Mary acted. And do you know, many of these boys and girls really began to copy holy Mary, because she always did the better thing. . . . I wonder if we always do the better thing? It would be sad if we copied bad children. . . .We don't ever want to do that. We want to please Our Lady....
Sometimes boys and girls think they are better than others. They are mean. They won't speak. Is that acting like Mary? I hope no one here acts like that.
Upon reading this I was struck with something bordering on disgust at the moralizing guilt-trip that this book was putting forth, albeit with the intention of teaching little ones about Mary. The author is using Mary and some sappy perfect image of her as a child to manipulate good behavior in small children! I recognized in this passage the portrayal of Mary that contributed to my feelings of apathy toward Mary. I think they were similar to those that Laura Ingalls felt towards her sister Mary when Mary's simpering "goody-two-shoes" behavior gets approval from Ma and so Laura gets guilted into behaving the same way, though she feels naughty inside. Who wants to be with someone like that anyway?
So, when I think back, I believe I avoided a relationship with Mary. Not consciously that I recall, but I didn't understand her and maybe resented her perfection a bit. She was too perfect and too sinless and I couldn't see a way to relate to that. I didn't like saying the rosary and never chose to on my own. I became close to St Therese and through her to Jesus. I prayed to St Joseph. Mary felt like a distant relation.
But I know now that she never gave up on a relationship with me. As the month of May begins this year, I am grateful for the growing friendship that Mary and I have now, all because of her care and patience with me, and have begun to notice the past times in my life when she patiently laid the foundation for more closeness.
Then when I became a mother, my good and patient Mother Mary was able to touch my heart all the more as I have learned to love, pray, and sacrifice for my children and understand her motherly heart through my own.
I think of my pregnancies, especially the first, when I began to understand what Mary's own with Jesus must have been like. I felt a new closeness to her.
May was the month in 2008 when we moved away from our first home in the country for a reason that made me angry and sad, to a place that it took a long time for me to give in and accept. I still sometimes wonder about that move and what it was meant to teach me, but I know Mary was there for me then too, as I struggled to make a home in a place where I felt so homesick.
Then there was my surprise pregnancy with Sunshine, discovered in the month of May as well, that was emotionally and psychologically the hardest pregnancy I have experienced. But then on January 1, the feast of the Mother of God, I was given my Sunshine, beautiful, perfect, and peaceful, with "Blessed Mother blue" eyes. We named her after our good Mother, who I see now had been the one caring for me and her when I didn't feel like I could be a good mother.
In 2013, May was a month in which I grew closer to her again as I prayed gasping, exhausted prayers constantly to Mary who once nursed her son, as I tried to nurse my own, while he cried and cried and cried for weeks and weeks, and I was convinced that my breast milk was the cause of intestinal discomfort for him. He would cry so hard in the car that all of us could hardly bear it and when we had to go places I would tape a picture of Mary to the seat in front of him while tearfully assuring him that she would be with him while we drove even if I couldn't be.
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| The prayer"treasure box" -- we put our intentions here as though into Mary's heart |
Then in 2014, D. and I decided to make a Marian consecration, using the booklet, 33 Days to Morning Glory, and coincidentally chose the date of consecration as the 13th of May, only realizing later that that date had past significance to us as a couple because of our Lourdes trip ten years prior. As Fr Gaitley says in his preparation meditations, "After Consecration Day, everything changes. A gloriously new day dawns in our spiritual lives. Indeed, when we give Mary our "yes," she begins to arrange all the events and details of our lives in such beautiful, tender, and loving ways."
Early in 2016 I made a resolution to work more on getting to know Mary, and called 2016 "the year I'll get to know Mary better." I told her I was sorry I had ignored her and that I wanted to know her better, but just so she knew, I still didn't think I'd ever love the rosary!
On May 13, 2017, the 100th anniversary of the first Fatima apparition, D. and I traveled to an Unbound: Freedom in Christ conference, our second time attending a weekend event that in 2015 had been a life-changing experience for us. The conference was non-denominational (although the leaders are Catholic) but the small auditorium in which we sat had a very large statue of Mary in the corner overlooking all of the attendees. I felt her presence as I prayed for grace and freedom and rocked my amazing perfectly contented and peaceful 5 month old Zuzu, whom I had worried about bringing.
And this year, in this month of Mary, there are great things happening in my life that I know she is doing, tenderly and with great love. She has been working on my marriage, our family's life together and even, most especially now, on D's business and our financial situation -- she is good at that! -- helping us to detach, helping us to trust and helping us to want what God wants for us. There was an important step made in our lives yesterday on the 1st of May, that I know is all her doing! We've been saying a family rosary more often, something we've never done outside of Lent before. I have been working to begin the habit of saying the rosary on my own, while walking, or driving, with the aid of a rosary bracelet (and definitely also some will power!). I have prayed the Our Lady Undoer of Knots novena and countless Memorares, hoping and desiring to leave in her hands many things in our lives that are tangled and to trust her fully to do what is the very best for us. I am a slow learner, and I wonder sometimes that Mary can be patient with my lack of understanding or trust!
When I look at all these small, scattered points that I have mentioned, I hesitate to even post this reflection, because the pathway isn't a striking one, but simple, subtle and perhaps only noticed by me. I have, however, been reflecting on the fact that there is an absence of coincidence in the lives of God's children. A quote that I once read says, "Coincidence is when God remains anonymous" (or Mary, as the case may be!). I think she has always been softly calling to me, always giving, always loving me. I may miss her gestures of love and caring, sometimes so small as to be brushed off, but later, I can see and recall some moments when she has been more obvious. When I do this awe is kindled as this life-reflection brings my eye up from the microscope lens, as it were, blinking at the wonder that is the whole and entire specimen of my life, that I often forget to draw back and behold. This story, that spans years (and is still being carried out!), these threads that interweave are so individual to me, show me how she is a mother of each of her individual and different children! It is all part of the plan to draw us into relationship, deeper and deeper. Mary is good at leading us to God. As St Louis de Montfort says, "We make more progress in a brief period of submission to and dependence on Mary than in whole years of following our own will and relying upon ourselves."
And here are some words by Fulton Sheen: "If we have a box in which we keep our money, we know that one thing we must always give attention to is the key; we never think that the key is the money, but we know that without the key we cannot get the money. Our Blessed Mother is like the key. Without her we can never get to Our Lord, because he came through her . . . If we lose her, we cannot get him. That is why we pay so much attention to her; without her we could never understand how that bridge was built between heaven and earth."
God is in the events that she arranges in my life, and in those tiny motherly details --unnoticed often even by I who am living this life!--are where I can find and see her work. Just as she went to her son on behalf of the couple getting married in Cana, so she goes to Him on behalf of me, again and again.
It's all about the seeing --seeing what God has done and praising Him for it. I am seeing Mary everywhere, and am waiting with joy to see the blessings that this month and all the following months will bring to me!
Come and hear, all who fear God, and I will tell of what he has done for my soul! -- Psalm 66:16
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