When I was ordained, an experienced priest advised me that in ordained life in a parish, there would probably be something that I missed from my own spiritual or church tradition that I would need to find elsewhere. They were wise and true words and as it turns out, I missed Mary!
If you have visited the vicarage where I live, you probably will have noticed very obvious signs of my Marian devotion. There is a stone statue of Our Lady outside the front door, a gift from an aunt. There is a figure of her in the window at the bottom of the stairs, something passed onto me by another family member. There is an art deco period ‘flat back’ bust of Our Lady with the infant Jesus in the sitting room. There are quite a number of icons of the Virgin and Child, and to top it all, for my 50th birthday last year, my friend bought me a 1.5m high statue of Our Lady Queen of Heaven which stands next to my desk in my study.
There are those that just think me eccentric, others who have said things like “I just don’t get it”, and others still that find my love of Mary troubling, it is too Catholic! But I am not alone because I also have many friends and colleagues who absolutely get it and are fellow devotees.
n my ‘sending church’, Mary was important, the picture here is of her statue there, where at the end of Sunday Mass we would stand and sing the ‘Angelus’ which is a devotional prayer thanking God for the incarnation and seeking God’s blessing, remembering that it was Mary upon whom God’s grace fell.
If you look at the picture carefully, you will notice that Mary is adorned with a crown, and roses are at her feet. That is because May is traditionally considered to be ‘Mary’s’ month and is a time when those of us who venerate Mary, give particular thanks to God for her and seek her intercession for the world.
The first thing I do when I get out of bed in the morning is pray the Angelus, then I endeavour to pray it at midday and again at 6pm, but from Easter day to Pentecost it is replaced with the ‘Regina Caeli’ or ‘Queen of Heaven’ which is a prayer of great joy recounting the wonder of Easter:
Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia.
For the Lord has truly risen, alleluia.
Let us pray.
O God, who have been pleased to gladden the world by the Resurrection of your Son our Lord Jesus Christ, grant, we pray, that through His Mother, the Virgin Mary, we may receive the joys of everlasting life. Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Set to music, it really is a song of great joy, and when in the past I have sung this in church during Eastertide instead of the Angelus, I have felt sent out with such a spring in my step.
To bust the myth, the veneration of Mary, or Our Lady, or the Blessed Virgin Mary, whatever name you call her, is not the same as worshipping God in the Trinity. It not an issue of worshipping a false idol as is sometimes suggested by those with a more protestant identity. For me, she is venerated because she said yes to God, and through her yes, she bravely helped God’s grace to grow in the world. She bore our Saviour in her womb, she endured the pains of his birth, she brought him up and then supported him in his ministry, she stood at the foot of his cross, bore his broken body when it was taken down and then was witness to his resurrection. She is truly most blessed not only amongst women but amongst the whole of humankind.
My devotion to Mary is not simple to explain, it is visceral and it is necessary, so that priest was right, I have had to find it elsewhere but I realised I didn’t have to look far because as much as I love my statues and icons, as much as I find the spiritual discipline of the Angelus or Regina Caeli useful, it is in my heart that she truly exists and I truly believe that when I seek her help and intercession she responds faithfully.
This May I will recite the Regina Caeli or Angelus as usually each day, but I will also be praying the Rosary daily too, with particular intentions for peace, but there is always room for more so if you have anything you would like me to pray for, please let me know.
Mary, Queen of Heaven, pray for us. Amen
Every blessing,
Paul.