Mary's Month of May

Hail Mary Full of Grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus...

I love reading about what other Catholic's do to celebrate Mary's month of May. Over at Home & School Mosaics, Renee had some good suggestions of things to do.  I wanted to share with all of you what my family has been doing this month to celebrate Jesus' wonderful Mother, Mary, Queen of All Saints.

"If you invoke the Blessed Virgin when you are tempted, she will come at once to your help, and Satan will leave you." --St. John Vianney

It is extremely important to pray together as a family.  The most powerful family prayer is the rosary. Since my children are young, in order to help them with their attention, we made rosary books. I printed coloring pages for them to color and focus on during the decades. Right now I am only doing a decade at a time with them.  I plan on working with them so that they can sit and pay attention for the full 15 minutes, but for now I am happy with doing a decade at a time.

Some of our rosary books

"Men do not fear a powerful hostile army as the powers of hell fear the name and protection of Mary."
--St. Bonaventure

Also, when planning our garden we learned about flowers that represent Mary.  In our garden we included: sage, rosemary, chives, parsley, marigold, and lavender.  We wanted to include zinnia but we could not find any. One day I hope to have a Mary Statue to add to my garden (and also a St. Francis of Assisi). We have a very small statue of Mary on our home altar, but she is a bit too small to crown. 

"Mary is the sure path to meeting with Christ. Devotion to the Mother of our Lord, when it is genuine, is always an impetus to a life guided by the spirit and values of the Gospel."
~St. John Paul II

We have been enjoying low key schooling while focusing on our religious catechism and character training. We have been memorizing Bible verses, reading stories in the Bible, and focusing on the liturgical calendar and what these special days mean to us. The rosary is another tool we are using to battle the fleshly world and raise stewards of our faith.

...Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.