Devotion
May Crowning and the Month of Mary
Marian devotion · 20 min
May is kept as Our Lady's month, and its most familiar act is the crowning of her image with flowers by a parish or a family, a small ceremony that lets the whole household honour the Mother of God together.
Background
A popular devotion, not a rite of the liturgy: the custom of dedicating May to the Blessed Virgin took shape at the end of the Middle Ages, spread through the Jesuit colleges of Rome, and has been repeatedly recommended by the Popes. Because May falls inside the Easter season, the Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy asks that May devotions be harmonised with the paschal liturgy and never allowed to overshadow it.
How to practice
Set a statue or image of Our Lady in a place of honour, in the church or on a table at home, with flowers and a candle. Make a wreath of fresh flowers to fit the image and let a child carry it forward and place it on Mary's head while the others bring flowers. Sing a Marian hymn, pray the Rosary or the Litany of Loreto, read a short passage of Scripture, and end with a prayer entrusting the family to her care. Through the rest of May keep a daily Marian prayer together — a decade of the Rosary, the Angelus or Regina Caeli, or the Memorare — remembering that during Eastertide the risen Christ, not the devotion itself, remains the centre.
Duration
About 20 minutes
Content subtype
marian