This weekend we will hold our May Crownings, where we place a flower offering and sing a song in honor of Our Lady at the beginning of each Holy Mass.

At its heart, a May crowning is a simple act of love for our heavenly mother. Next week, we will honor our mothers with flowers or breakfast in bed or even doing the dishes without complaining! Does any mother refuse such acts of tenderness? Once I gave my mother eight very small flowers that I brought back from a pilgrimage to a Marian Shrine. One flower for each of her eight children. Mom treasured this gift, and I saw them dried out and framed on her bookshelf until the time Jesus called her home.

But imagine if you gave mom flowers by just tossing them at her feet and then going about your business as if it were just another day. An external act, if it is not also internalized, is meaningless. So much of our Catholic way of liturgy finds itself at this nexus. The external is not itself the meaning, but it gives expression to and forms the internal. Show me how you pray, and I will show you how you believe.

May the flowers at the feet of Our Lady, be an external manifestation of the many more acts of love we place in her hands for her to give to Jesus.

Do you want to know and see the face of Our Lady? Contemplate the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This image is one that is uniquely miraculous. Other images of Our Lady were created by human hands, but not this one. This is why I have a framed image of just her face. A few years ago, staff borrowed it, and hung it in the parish office lobby area, so that all could see her! As your loving heavenly mother, she looks kindly upon all who enter.

pax,

Father John Mosimann