Today begins May, the month dedicated to the Virgin Mary

Michie · May 1, 2025

The Catholic Church dedicates the entire month of May to the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God and spiritual mother of all.

In the plan of salvation, the Blessed Virgin Mary holds a special place. By virtue of her role to be the mother of the Son of God by divine election, she was conceived immaculately — i.e., without the stain of original sin — and by fidelity to her son has been crowned queen of heaven and earth.

Everything Mary said and did leads to Christ. Who knows a child better than a mother? And what good and loving child does not know his or her mother and love her with all of his or her heart?

Mary knew and loved Jesus like no one else on earth — and she loves each of her children, human beings, with similar affection and tenderness.

Continued below.

Today begins May, the month dedicated to the Virgin Mary

The Catholic Church dedicates the entire month of May to the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God and spiritual mother of all.

www.catholicnewsagency.com

Michie · May 1, 2025

Our Lady plays a pivotal role in our salvation. The Church asserts this, bestowing the titles “Co-redemptrix” and “Mediatrix of All Graces” upon her. Yet, prior to these titles, Christ imparts upon Mary a name more fitting and endearing: that of mother. In a final act of love toward humanity, Christ entrusted Mary to St. John on the cross, gifting the Church — and subsequently each Christian — his mother.

As God’s mother, Mary intimately knows her son. Being the fairest of all creation — by virtue of her Immaculate Conception— she is most conformed of all humanity to Christ. As our mother, Mary personally knows and loves each of us. Her maternal love for both her son and for us her children incites within her a burning desire for us to continually deepen our love for her son and be united to him.

Turning to Mary, we discover she readily shares insights into Christ’s life, reveals ways to grow closer to him and intercedes for us — as she once did for the newlyweds in Cana. Her mediation is so powerful, St. Bernard of Clairvauxemphasizes: “with her for a guide, you shall never go astray … so long as she is in your mind, you are safe from deception; while she holds your hand, you cannot fall; under her protection you have nothing to fear; if she walks before you, you shall not grow weary; if she shows you favor you shall reach the goal.”

Continued below.

8 ways to honor Mary this May

Discover 8 Marian devotions to grow closer to Mary this May — and deepen your love for Christ through his mother.

www.oursundayvisitor.com

Michie · May 1, 2025

Private family chapels seem to always raise a great deal of interest, but seldom to we get to share such projects, including on so ambitious as this, from the contemporary, new world. Today we can remedy that, sharing a project by O'Brien and Keane Architecture which they undertook for an undisclosed family at an undisclosed location in North America -- though based on the landscape, it would appear to be somewhere on the east coast.

The chapel is simply called "Mary's Chapel" and O'Brien and Keane set some context for us:

Mary’s Chapel is the realization of the clients’ dream to build a small family chapel for private use on a rural site; they were inspired by the Porziuncola of St. Francis near Assisi, Italy, whose volume and proportions served as a point of departure for this project. Through refinements, rooted in classical architecture, O’Brien & Keane conveyed the clients’ great appreciation for the dignity of traditional sacred architecture.

The selection of construction materials and detailing reflects an intense drive for permanence, durability, and authenticity. The walls are faced on the exterior with fieldstone native to the region, resting on a base of honed green Vermont granite, and the windows, door, and eaves are trimmed with Indiana Limestone. The roof is composed of red clay tiles and standing seam lead-coated copper roofing. The custom bell, window frames and entrance door are fabricated in bronze. Limestone was chosen for the interior pilasters, bases, and matching entablature to create one unified architectural expression between interior and exterior. The church’s interior design offers marble liturgical furnishings which were designed by O’Brien & Keane to bring the highest level of detail and finish to those elements of greatest sanctity.

Through the direct use of natural materials of Creation, the church design honors the Creator. As a result, Mary’s Chapel serves to offer a permanent place of intimate reflection and worship and stands as a witness to God’s presence.

Let's then take a look at this interesting and inspiring project, beginning with a view from the outside through the small narthex and into the chapel proper.

Continued below.

Mary's Chapel: An Award-Winning Private Chapel in the United States

Catholic liturgical art, vestments, sacred architecture, sacred art, sacred music, liturgical books

www.liturgicalartsjournal.com

Michie · Friday at 3:07 PM

May is the month of Mary, and thus the perfect time to reflect on the Marian doctrines: her divine motherhood, perpetual virginity, immaculate conception, and assumption into heaven. Of these four, Catholics often share the first with Protestants, given that many Protestant denominations accept the Council of Ephesus (431), at which the Church declared Mary the theotokos, meaning “God-bearer,” since she did indeed give birth to Christ, who is both God and man. Even Mary’s perpetual virginity, though rejected by most Protestants today, was accepted by early Reformers such as Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Bullinger, Turretin, and Cranmer.

It is the latter three Marian doctrines that are often major obstacles to Protestants (like my former Presbyterian seminarian self), especially given historic Protestant antipathy to Marian devotion. All three doctrines do indeed have biblical support—though, as I argue in my new book The Obscurity of Scripture, Catholics need to be wary of how they employ such evidence, lest they imply to their Protestant interlocutors that only Scripture is an authoritative source for Christian doctrine. Doing so effectively gives rhetorical ground to Protestants, given that as Catholics, we do not accept sola scriptura.Moreover, doing so also elides the fact that even Protestants accept some traditions as authoritative, such as the formation of the biblical canon. And, as I’d like to argue below, the extra-biblical evidence for the Marian doctrines is substantial.

Continued below.

The Extra-Biblical Marian Doctrines

We shouldn't restrict ourselves to using only the Bible to prove Marian doctrines like the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception.

www.catholic.com

Michie · Saturday at 9:23 AM

The land is an inheritance. Since mankind first drew breath in Eden, the garden was placed into his care to cultivate and hand on to the next generation. A life on the land unsurprisingly reflects the spiritual life, as we were made for the garden. As I have written in Theology of Home IV: Arranging the Seasons, the beauty of God’s created order within the seasons informs the spiritual life. As each season comes to a close, giving way to the next, my understanding of this reality deepens.

When matters of life are rightly ordered, the beauty and importance of God’s created order are apparent, and, in turn, we comprehend the necessity of our participation. Nature is a unique means through which God’s fingerprint is recognized and his creatures encounter him. Since the dawn of time, the garden has been a common backdrop of man’s relationship with God. As the recent readings of the Easter Octave remind the faithful, this is the setting where St. Mary Magdalene meets the Risen Lord, mistaking him for a gardener.

Continued below.

‘We Crown Thee With Blossoms’: The Mary Garden and Gift of Sacrificial Beauty

THEOLOGY OF HOME: It is in the month of May that the visuals of the garden shift entirely.

www.ncregister.com

Michie · Sunday at 8:29 PM

Conrad Schmitt Studios, based out of Wisconsin, recently shared news of a beautiful project they undertook at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Hays, Kansas that effectively functions as both a "before and after" as well as a tutorial on something we like to discuss here from time to time: the power of colour and ornament in liturgical architecture. In this particular case, one will note here that, architecturally speaking, and in terms of the general liturgical ordering of the church, it remains effectively the same. What has changed, however, is that pattern and ornament has been added to both accentuate the architecture and give it a greater sense of liturgical focus -- especially as it relates to the altar.

Conrad Schmitt offer their own commentary on the project:

Continued below.

Before and After: Immaculate Heart of Mary in Hays, Kansas

Catholic liturgical art, vestments, sacred architecture, sacred art, sacred music, liturgical books

www.liturgicalartsjournal.com

RileyG · Monday at 4:09 PM

Blessed May all!

Search

Search

Today begins May, the month dedicated to the Virgin Mary

Michie

Well-Known Member