The month of May is the "month which the piety of the
faithful has especially dedicated to Our Blessed Lady," and it is the
occasion for a "moving tribute of faith and love which Catholics in every
part of the world [pay] to the Queen of Heaven. During this month Christians,
both in church and in the privacy of the home, offer up to Mary from their
hearts an especially fervent and loving homage of prayer and veneration. In
this month, too, the benefits of God's mercy come down to us from her throne in
greater abundance" (Paul VI: Encyclical on the Month
of May, no. 1).
DEVOTION TO MARY
The Blessed Virgin Mary is the Mother of the Church and
therefore the example, as well as the guide and inspiration, of everyone who,
in and through the Church, seeks to be the servant of God and man and the
obedient agent of the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit, as Pope Leo XIII reminded us, is the soul
of the Church: All the activity and service of the members of the Church,
beginning with the supreme participation of the Blessed Mother in the work of
the Church, is vivified by the Holy Spirit as the body, in all its activities,
is vivified by its soul. The Holy Spirit is the Paraclete, Advocate, and
Comforter which Christ Himself sent to be our consolation in the sorrowful
mysteries of life, our source of moderation in the joyful mysteries of life,
our added principle of exaltation in the glorious mysteries of life.
So He was for the Blessed Mother; so also He is for the
least of us; so also He is for the rest of the Church, even for those who are
its unconscious but conscientious members.
Wherever there is faith there is the example of Mary,
because she lived by faith as the Scriptures remind us....
If, then, piety is the virtue which binds us to the sources
of all life, to God, to our parents, to the Church, to Christ, certainly
Christian piety binds us, in grateful love, to Mary — or our acceptance of
Christ and of the mystery of our kinship with Him is imperfect, partial, and
unfulfilled. — Cardinal John Wright
(Resources: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/overviews/months/05_1.cfm)
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