Filipinos’ colorful display of affection to the Mother
May is a month that is always met with excitement by Filipino Catholics wherever they are based around the world. Their deep-rooted loving devotion to Mary, the Mother of the Lord, always brings the Filipino faithful to pray together, and their colorful cultural celebration to honor her without any doubt gives life and color to their local parishes.
This is well-known at St. Mary’s Church Dubai. During this month, Filipinos usually celebrate with a daily prayer of the Holy Rosary, and special activities such as Rosary Making, Dress Like Mary, and other Marian activities. Most awaited is most often the Marian procession around the church where even the faithful from other communities in the parish have started to join. Children and ladies come dressed like Mother Mary, an effective way to catechize to the children about the role of Mother Mary in our faith.
But what is the Flowers of May?
Flowers of May, commonly known to Filipinos as Flores de Mayo, is a month-long festival dedicated in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Brief History
The origin of this devotion is still relatively unknown. However, according to Fr. Herbert Thurston, an English Jesuit priest, the earliest instance of this devotion was adopted and witnessed during the 17th century in Italy.
According to Monsignor Frederick Holweck, a German-American priest and church historian, the May devotion in its present form originated in Rome when Father Latomia of the Roman College of the Society of Jesus, to counteract infidelity and immorality among the students, made a vow at the end of the 18th century to devote the month of May to Mary. From Rome, the practice spread to the other Jesuit colleges and thence to nearly every Catholic church of the Latin rite. The tradition of honoring Mary in a month-long May devotion spread eventually around the Roman Catholic world. It reached the Philippines in1865 and was first celebrated in Malolos, Bulacan.
Extracted from our 2020 post.
Significance
Why is it important for us?
This is the month during which Christians, in their churches and their homes, offer the Virgin Mother more fervent and loving acts of homage and veneration. As devotees to the Mother, we believe that this is a month in which a greater abundance of God’s merciful gifts come down to us from our Mother’s throne. We are delighted and consoled by this pious custom associated with the month of May which pays honor to the Blessed Virgin and brings such rich benefits to the Christian. Since Mary is rightly to be regarded as the way by which we are led to Christ, the person who encounters Mary cannot help but encounter Christ likewise. For what other reason do we continually turn to Mary except to seek the Christ in her arms, to seek our Savior in her, through her, and with her? To Him men are to turn amid the anxieties and perils of this world, urged on by duty and driven by the compelling needs of their heart, to find a haven of salvation, a transcendent fountain of life.
Extracted from our 2020 post.
Online Flowers of May 2021
No pandemic can stop the Filipinos from their devotion to Mother Mary. The Lord’s Flock Community and the Missionary Families of Christ, this year’s in-charged of the celebration, have prepared a number of activities that will, as in the past, display the Filipinos’ faith and devotion to the Holy Family. Please stand by for our announcements.
