Honoring 'the Queen of May'

IC photo/Marie Mischel

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The Luke 2:40 ministry of St. Joseph Parish in Ogden held a May Crowning May 1 in the grotto of St. Florence Mission in Huntsville.

During the month of May, the Blessed Virgin Mary will be honored during various Marian devotions held in the Catholic Church. Many parishes will set aside time for a special rosary, or erect a special May altar. A May crowning also is a popular tradition. Several popes have written about these traditions, including Pope Paul VI in his 1965 encyclical Mense Maio, in which he said, “the person who encounters Mary cannot help but encounter Christ likewise.”

Pope Pius XII proclaimed the queenship of Mary in his 1954 encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam, stating, “From the earliest ages of the Catholic Church a Christian people, whether in time of triumph or more especially in time of crisis, has addressed prayers of petition and hymns of praise and veneration to the Queen of Heaven. And never has that hope wavered which they placed in the Mother of the Divine King, Jesus Christ; nor has that faith ever failed by which we are taught that Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, reigns with a mother’s solicitude over the entire world, just as she is crowned in heavenly blessedness with the glory of a queen.”

Most recently, in this year’s Mass for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God on Jan. 1, Pope Francis said Mary “is not only the bridge joining us to God; she is much more. She is the road God travelled in order to reach us, and the road that we must travel in order to reach him.”