No. 44 (New Series)
Summer, 2002

"May is Mary's month, and I Muse at that and wonder why ....?"
The Celebration to Include and Unite


In The May Magnificat, the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins asks why May is Mary's
month. Mary's different feasts, he reasons, are liturgically "dated due to season." May as Mary's month, he continues, must have something to do with "Spring" which means "Growth in everything."

All things rising, all things sizing,
Mary sees, sympathising
With that world of good,
Nature's motherhood.


The poem continues, "Spring's universal bliss / Much, had much to say / To offering Mary May, " and it concludes

This ecstasy all though the mother
earth
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ's birth
To remember and exultation
In God who was her salvation.


Popular religion spontaneously dedicated the months of the year to various
patrons and devotional practices. Already in the early church, Christians in the East dedicated months to Mary: the Copts had a month corresponding to our month of December, and Byzantines marked a thirty-day observance centered on the Assumption.
In the northern hemisphere, the month of May was hailed in the pre-Christian era
as the time of new life and growth. The Greeks celebrated Artemus, and the Romans, Flora, with festivities, games, garland decorations. Exuberant celebrations developed in the middle ages, and church authorities had to deal with the carousing and riotous conduct which erupted as May approached. The feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross (formerly on May 3) suggested a relation between the ancient Maypole and the tree of the cross, a symbol of new life. In 1549, Wolfgang Seidel, O.S.B., published at Munich Spiritual May (Der geistliche Mai), which began giving the month a new meaning.
The earliest recorded association of Mary with the month of May is found in the
thirteenth-century Cantigas de Santa Maria of Alfonso X. St. Philip Neri, sometimes credited with beginning May observances in Rome, encouraged youth to gather for floral and musical tributes to Our Lady. In Rome and other parts of Italy, customs and observances marking May as Mary's month spontaneously arose in families and religious communities.
A new stage in the month's history was reached in the eighteenth century as Italian
Jesuits wrote books of meditations for the month of Mary. The first, The Month of May or the Month of Mary (1725), by A. Dionisi, S.J., appeared to describe already existing practices -- floral decorations before a Marian image, prayers, suggested "good works" to be practiced daily. In 1758, F. Lalomia, S.J., wrote The Month of May, daily meditations for May, based on the life and attitudes of Mary; Fr. Lalomia is credited with introducing May devotions to the sodalists of the Jesuit college in Rome. The most influential of the early writers, and an ardent promoter of May observances, was A. Muzzarelli, S.J., whose The Month of Mary (1785), was reprinted over 150 times in the nineteenth century and several times in the twentieth century. Muzzarelli's work dealt with the basic themes of the Christian life-creation, the immortality of the soul, sin, salvation, grace, the sacraments-- each meditation containing references to the Virgin Mary. These meditations were intended for private use in the home, with family or friends.
Fr. Lalamia's The Month of Mary, the oldest extant work currently available on
May, merits further examination. The French translation of the work (1816) introduced French readers to the designation of May as Mary's Month. Lalamia's meditations were translated into German by P. Beckx, S.J. (who later served as the General Superior of the Society of Jesus, 1853-1887). Each of Lalamia's Marian meditations consisted of three succinctly-stated points, dealing with Mary's holiness, her role in the Incarnation, her offering of self and her cooperation with God as seen the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Purification, the joys and sorrows of her life. Directions were given on how the devotions were to be conducted: The family or the community was to gather in a fitting room of the house before an "image of Our Lady . . . decorated with flowers." The three points of the meditation were to be "read, slowly and distinctly, a pause sufficient for meditation being made between each point, so that the truths forming the subject of contemplation may take the deeper hold upon the mind, be applied by each to his own individual case . . . . The teaching or practice is also to be carefully studied." The May observance were to began on the "eve before the first of May," and, on the final day, there was to be an "offering of one's heart to the Mother of God that she might strengthen it with holy fear, unshaken confidence, and ardent love of God."
From Italy, meditations for May, "Mary's Month," spread rapidly through
nineteenth-century Europe. In Germany, writers frequently combined the moral tradition of "practicing virtue" with the German love of flowers: each day of May was associated with a Marian and Christian quality or virtue and illustrated by a specific flower. "God is to the soul, what the sun is to nature, its light, its warmth, and its life." French writers offered meditations for May on the Litany of Loreto or the mysteries of the Rosary. Although St. Alphonsus de Liguori seems not to have been aware of special May observances, his Marian writings, in English translation, were quickly adapted and proposed as May meditations. Following the example of St. Philip Neri, Cardinal John Henry Newman wrote both poetry and meditations for the month of May. His May meditations begin, "Because in this climate we have sometimes a bleak, inclement May, it is nevertheless a time of promise and hope that begins and heralds in the summer . . . . May is a time of promise; it is the month of Mary, the sure promise of the coming Savior." (The Marian Library's collection contains about a thousand books of meditations for the month of May).
At the end of the nineteenth century, Fr. Frederick Faber wrote that what began
as a family devotion in Rome "has overrun the world we can hardly tell how." Specific May practices developed. A May altar - an image of Mary with fresh flowers of the season - was a prominent feature in homes, schools, churches, the town center. Hymnals, first in Germany then in the United States, included a new type of hymn-for May devotions and processions. Programs in schools included musical and literary offerings, processions, and May crownings. May devotions were included in the evangelization and missionary movements of the nineteenth century. French, Italian, and German missionaries implanted May devotions in Asia, Africa, and South America.
After Vatican II, the celebration of special devotional months and some features
of May celebrations appeared to be at variance with the liturgical calendar and the Scriptural orientation of Marian devotion. May usually falls during the Paschal season, and commemorations of the Virgin Mary during that period were to reflect the spirit of the liturgical season. Slowly, materials with a broader orientation are being developed.
Cardinal Newman observed that May belongs to the Easter season: the great feasts
of the Ascension, Pentecost, and, not infrequently, the feast of the Holy Trinity are in May. "It is the time in which there are such frequent Alleluias, because Christ has risen from the grave, Christ has ascended on high, and God the Holy Ghost has come down to take His place. Here then we have a reason why May is dedicated to the Blessed Mary. She is the first of creatures, the most acceptable child of God, the dearest and nearest to Him. It is fitting then that this month should be hers, in which we especially glory and rejoice in His great Providence to us, in our redemption and sanctification in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost" (Meditations and Devotions, Pt. I. The Month of May [London: Longmans, Green, 1920]).

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Paul Hume on Church Music and Marian Hymns

 

Paul Hume, the music critic of The Washington Post, who drew a famous rebuke
from President Harry S. Truman when he panned a vocal performance give by the president's daughter, died Nov. 26, 2001, in Baltimore. In his 1956 history of Catholic Church music, he lamented the poor taste manifest in many of the popular hymns sung at evening novena services and at May crownings.
He was greatly encouraged by Pius XII's encyclical on church music, Musicae
Sacrae (1956). The encyclical stated that the texts should be in "full conformity with the doctrine of the Catholic faith . . . and express and explain that doctrine accurately." They should possess a religious dignity and decorum. Also, they should "use plain language and a simple melody and must be free from violent and vain excess of words" (no. 63).
In 1956-57, Mr. Hume wrote three articles for The Marianist, a magazine from
the Marian Library. In the first, "Mother Dearest, Save Us" (May, 1956), Mr. Hume recalled how he had received a call from a Catholic layman who apparently was of the opinion that all Marian hymns were beyond criticism and who was irate because Hume had reviewed unfavorably the rendition at the previous evening's concert by a popular baritone of Ethelbert Nevin's "The Rosary." Hume described the melody as a "sentimental turn-of-the-century love ballad." After the phone call, Hume mused: "What, then, would he think if he knew the horrible truth about some of the musical atrocities that really are supposed to be doing honor to the Mother of God?" Some hymns sung in the Catholic Church "are very bad hymns indeed. And it is infinitely regrettable that so many from the absolute bottom of the barrel are hymns about the Blessed Mother."
The hymns were bad, not only because of the texts ("execrable poetry")
but also because of the melodies: "They are anything but simple and easy to sing. Wide, swooping intervals and an unconscionable use of the sixth (or what I always think of as the 'Liebestraum leap'), rampant chromaticism (or barber-shop harmony) do not combine to make an easy-to-sing hymn. Nor does the 3/4 time in which many of these hymns are written help. Most of them, remember, come from the era when the waltz rhythm was at its height."
In the second article, "More on Mother Dearest" (November, 1956),
he offered examples of good hymns which were being written by contemporary composers to replace the traditional potboilers. "Modern Church musicians are simply knocking themselves out providing you something better, friends, if only you'll listen to what they have to offer and stop fussing about 'tradition.' How, by the way, can these hymns be called 'traditional' when their average age is about seventy-five?"
The third article, "Those May Processions" (March, 1957), dealt with
the "old favorites" sung during the May processions.* Why, he asked, when the Sisters in Catholic schools were promoting good music and a "solid repertoire of excellent Masses," were such bad hymns taught in the school?" The answer, "even though most of the Sisters were too tactful to come right out and mention the reason, is the man who lives in the rectory." Why such bad music in the schools? "Because there is a small, loud group of parishioners who will complain about the absence of the 'old favorites' from the May procession? What would you say to a group who called on you to insist that Elsie Dinsmore and Horatio Alger be used as reading texts in English class? These items are literary equivalents, in point of time and value, of most 'old favorite' hymns."
Hume's three articles elicited more response than any article previously or subsequently
published in The Marianist. In the introduction to the third article, the magazine's editor noted that the previous two articles had brought "orchids and brickbats from all over the world." The Letters to the Editor covered the gamut. A lady in Chicago wrote, "Do you know, Mr. Hume, the more you continue to persecute the precious 'old time' hymns of Our Lady, the more they will survive: keep it up; they cannot die!" Frank J. Sheed (Catholic author and publisher) wrote: "Some hymns, like old soldiers, never die. They only sound that way."
A salute to the intrepid editor who, forty-six years ago, published Paul Hume's
three articles in The Marianist, and who, on April 2, 2002, marked his ninetieth birthday-Fr. Philip J. Hoelle, S.M. .

*The "mainstay" of May processions hymns was "Bring Flowers of the Rarest, Bring flowers of the fairest..." written by Mary E. Walsh, known as the Crowning Hymn (with the refrain, "O Mary, we crown thee with blossoms today, Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May"). It first appeared in the Wreath of Mary, 1883, and later in the St. Basil's Hymnal (1889). Another favorite was "There blooms a wondrous flower in fair Elysian fields . . ." (Es blüht der Blumen eine") from the St. Cecilia Hymnal, 1929.


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Updates
On February 25, 2001, Pope John Paul II apointed Fr. Vincenzo Battaglia, O.F.M.,
of the Pontifical Antonianum Athenaeum (Rome) as president of the International Pontifical Marian Academy.
The René Laurentin Pro Ancilla Domini Award was conferred upon the Group
de Dombes, an ecumenical organization composed of Catholics and Protestants, for their document addressed to the churches, Mary in the Design of God and the Communion of Saints (Paulist Press will soon publish an English translation of this important text). The document is the result of several years of work and indicates how areas of disagreement could be converted into areas of agreement. The citation for the award affirms the study's conclusion: based on the investigation and suggestions proposed, "nothing permits us to make Mary a symbol of what divides us."
On June 7-8, 2001, Msgr. Jacques Perrier, bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, hosted
a meeting at Lourdes, "Mary in the Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue." In his address, Cardinal Francis Arinze (Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue) spoke of references to Mary in Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, and proposed that the world's religions seek convergence in Mary as an example for women, an inspiration for cultivating family and life values, and a model of openness to God (Documentation catholique, #2265 [3 March 2002]).
Dedicated to promoting family unity through the rosary, The Holy Cross Family
Ministries' website (www.hcfm.org) has reflections on the Family Rosary and on family prayers.
John M. Haffert, a man whose entire life was dedicated to making known the message
of Fatima and promoting the Brown scapular, died October 31, 2001. During the 1940s and 1950s, he made the message of Fatima better known in the United States than perhaps anywhere else. In 1946, he developed the "Fatima Message Pledge" and assisted in the founding of the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima (World Apostolate of Fatima), which now claims millions of members all over the world. In the 1950s, he traveled across the United States with the International Pilgrim Virgin Statue of Our Lady of Fatima. He was responsible for the construction of the Blue Army's International Headquarters in Washington, New Jersey, and Domus Pacis in Fatima, Portugual, through which millions have heard the message of Fatima.
Christianity and the Arts (Fall, 2001) In addition to essays, poetry, and fiction
related to "the Madonna," there is a section where readers identify and comment on their favorite image of Mary. Among the images were Our Lady of Czestochowa (Fr. Richard John Neuhaus); Christ and the Virgin in Michelangelo's Last Judgment (Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I.); the Belle Verrière (Rev. Frank T. Griswald).
The Missale Romanum, (editio typica teria) was approved by Pope John Paul II on
March 18, 2002. New material includes eight Masses from The Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1986). Among the new twenty-nine new commemorations added to the calendar are Our Lady of Fatima (May 13), and the Most Holy Name of Mary (Sept. 12).

From IMRI . . . .

An online course, "Mary in Catholic Teaching," with the possibility
of gaining CEU's will be offered through the University of Dayton's Institute for Pastoral Intiatives. Fr. Bert Buby will be the coordinator. For more information: www.udayton.edu/mary/intro.htm
On August 31, 2002, the Marian Library/IMRI will remember with great gratitude
Arthur W. Clinton, Jr. on the tenth anniversary of his death (1992). In his will, Mr. Clinton bequeathed a substantial sum to the Marian Library. Because of his generous bequest, this newsletter is coming to you. All contributions help our work. Do remember the Marian Library/IMRI in your will.


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