Dear Brothers and Sisters,
‘March winds and April showers, bring forth May flowers’. So runs the old proverb. And though we’ve been rather short of April showers this year, that has not stopped God awakening Mother Nature from her slumbering. May is the month when new life is evident in the trees, shrubs, and flowers around us, and when the early clutches of birds’ eggs hatch. The Annunciation of the Lord was celebrated on 25th March and by May the Christ child was growing within Mary’s womb as around her Mother Nature also was growing. And it therefore seems particularly appropriate that May should be the month dedicated to Our Blessed Lady, Mary. Mary, whose yes to God changed the path of human history, reversed the disobedience of Eve and gave us all new life through her child bearing of Jesus.
Although the Church celebrates May as Mary’s month, the main liturgical celebration of Our Lady during May comes on the 31st, the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth (a feast replaced this year by the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity as it falls on a Sunday). However, many churches include some form of Marian devotion within their normal services and we mark the month with a procession of Our Lady. And you might choose to make your own celebration of Mary’s month by reciting the Rosary or even joining our Rosary group which meets once a month. It is a time also to reflect on Mary’s obedience, trust and humility and how she points us to her Son.
Following this letter is a poem called The May Magnificat by Gerald Manley Hopkins. Hopkins wrote this poem shortly after he was ordained as a Jesuit priest, and its title plays on the Magnificat proclaimed by Our Lady when she visited Elizabeth. Mary’s Magnificat begins ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour’, and Hopkins’ poem likens joy at the coming of spring to the rejoicing of Mary as it explains why May should be dedicated to Mary: ‘All things rising, all things sizing
Mary sees, sympathising
With that world of good,
Nature’s motherhood.’
As well as this being Mary’s month, until the solemnity of Pentecost we are also still in the season of Eastertide, the season when Mary’s sorrow at her Son’s crucifixion gives way to joy at his resurrection and ascension. After the Good Friday liturgy, we contemplated Maria desolata as we revisited some of the stations on the way to the cross; at Easter, Mary’s desolation gives way to joyfulness and so during Eastertide the Angelus, which recalls the incarnation and Mary’s role in it, has been replaced at the end of Mass by the Regina Caeli, with six Alleluias. as we join in Mary’s rejoicing at her Son’s victory over sin and death.
We celebrate Pentecost on 24th May when we mark the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Church. Let us pray for the Spirit to continue to work in our own church, that we may continue to live in the light of the resurrection, and let us ask for Mary’s prayers that we may have new life in our parish and that we may follow her Son faithfully.
Blessings,
Fr Christopher.
All Saints' Church, South Wimbledon 