The month of May (Overview
- Calendar)
is the "month which the piety
of the faithful has especially dedicated to Our Blessed
Lady,"
and it is the occasion for a "moving tribute of faith and
love
which Catholics in every part of the world [pay] to the
Queen of
Heaven. During this month Christians, both in church and
in the
privacy of the home, offer up to Mary from their hearts an
especially
fervent and loving homage of prayer and veneration. In
this month,
too, the benefits of God's mercy come down to us from her
throne
in greater abundance" (Paul VI: Encyclical on Month of May, no. 1).
This Christian custom of dedicating the month of
May to the Blessed Virgin arose at the end of the 13th
century.
In this way, the Church was able to Christianize the
secular feasts
which were wont to take place at that time. In the 16th
century,
books appeared and fostered this devotion.
The practice became especially popular among the
members of the Jesuit Order — by 1700 it took hold among
their
students at the Roman College and a bit later it was
publicly practiced
in the Gesu Church in Rome. From there it spread to the
whole Church.
The practice was granted a partial indulgence by
Pius VII in 1815 and a plenary indulgence by Pius IX in
1859. With
the complete revision of indulgences in 1966 and the
decreased emphasis
on specific indulgences, it no longer carries an
indulgence; however
it certainly falls within the category of the First
General Grant
of Indulgences. (A partial indulgence is granted
to the faithful
who, in the performance of their duties and in bearing the
trials
of life, raise their mind with humble confidence to God,
adding
— even if only mentally — some pious invocation.
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Find out more about Mary here: About Mary
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