Did you live in the "old" days when your local parish or parish school held a
May Crowning every May? Wasn’t it wonderful?
We sang those wonderful Marian hymns like: Bring Flowers of the Rarest;
"Mother Dearest, Mother Fairest;" and "On This Day, O Beautiful Mother." What beautiful hymns
those were, and how our hearts burst with love for Our Lady! How happy we were to call her
"Mother" and to be able to honor her specially during this month of May by crowning her Queen - "Queen of
the Angels, Queen of the May!"
My memories of the May Crownings "of old" cannot be separated from my
memories of taking an active part in the May Crownings. In 6th grade I was elected by my class to
be a May Queen attendant. In 7th grade I was again elected to be the May Queen’s attendant. Then as an
eighth grader I was elected the May Queen who crowned the beautiful statue of Our Lady in St. Peter’s
Church in Omaha, Nebraska.
My active participation did not stop there. As a senior in high school
(Mercy High in Omaha, an all girl’s school), I was elected by the total student body (about 700
students) to be May Queen, to crown the beautiful statue of Our Lady that was present on the high school campus.
Those are some happy and blessed memories of my youth. I didn’t deserve
those honors. But I must confess that from the time I was knee-high to a grasshopper, I had great
love for Our Blessed Mother and maybe it showed amidst my classmates without my realizing it.
Then after Vatican II (not because of it), many schools and parishes seemed
to let that beautiful devotion to Our Lady die out. That made me sad. I considered it one more
achievement of the evil one to put Our Blessed Mother in the "back seat" and out of sight.
But the May Crowning ceremonies may be on the way back, even if a bit.
On Mother ‘s Day, I am going to be crowning Our Lady again. I won’t be in
Church for the ceremony or on a school campus. Actually, the only other live human being to
witness the crowning will be my earthly mother who will be 91 next week.
I will crown Our Blessed Mother right here at home. My (earthly) mother and
I will sing those "old" Marian songs we used to sing and then both my mother and I will lay a
crown of flowers on Our Lady’s statue that we have right here.
The angels, the saints, and God will see what we do and the love with which
we do it, and the desire in our hearts that this precious display of love and honor for Our Lady
be revived in our Church in this country.
I believe it will some day. I can’t wait! I will weep tears of joy when
that happens again.
Why don’t you do the same this Sunday? It’s Mother’s Day! If we honor His
Mother, He will bless us.
O Beautiful Mother, "we crown you with blossoms today. Queen of the Angels,
Queen of the May!"
And to all those earthly mothers out there, I wish you also a very Happy Mother's Day. God bless you.