A Month of Mary

Last week we began a special month marked by what are known as the "bookend feasts" -  the Assumption (8/15)  and Queenship of Mary (8/22) on one end and the  Birthday of Mary (9/8) and the feast of  Our Lady of Sorrows (9/15) on the other end.  This special thirty days which span the second half of August and the first half of September is a month of Mary in the liturgical year.   Certainly popular piety has not given up on May,  the month of mothers, as a time to honor our  Heavenly Mother, yet so often the focus placed upon  our Blessed Mother during May ends up inappropriately  shifting it away from  her Risen Son during the Season of Easter.   How much more then is this present month more appropriate as a special time bracketed by special Marian feasts to pray to, and honor Mary as the only boast of our fallen human race because it does not compete with any other season or major feasts of the church year.    

 We begin  these thirty days  celebrating  her glorious Assumption and heavenly  Queenship and end by celebrating  her birth and remembering the many sorrows she endured while in this world.  Thus we are invited to move our attention  from heaven to earth and  in some sense to  bring  Mary back down with us remembering her as loving mother and  powerful intercessor who because of  her own humanity and sufferings is  more than able to empathize with us.  So let us turn our attention to the Blessed Virgin Mary in these late summer days until the 15th of September and seek  the  solace that can be derived  from the  assurance that  this now  gloriously reigning   Queen of Heaven is still a  loving mother who  knows us and our present situation all too  well, and if only asked,  she  is more than ready to intercede for us!   So let us continue to frequently plead - Holy Mary, Mother of God,  pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death -Amen!

Fr. Edward Healey