Medieval roots: May as a month of the Virgin

The association between May and the Virgin Mary is not a modern invention or a clerical imposition on pagan parties: it has deep roots in medieval theology and the popular sensitivity of the Christian world. In medieval Europe, May was the month in which nature blossomed, in which the cold of winter finally ceded and in which life revered in all its exuberance. For a deeply symbolic civilization like the medieval one, it was natural that this month of renewal and of flowers should be put under the protection of which theologians called flos fields —flor del campo— y lilium convallium - lily of the valleys -, following the images of the Song of the Songs applied to Mary by the patristic tradition.

The Dominican theologian Jacobo de Voragine (c. 1230-1298), author of the Golden LegendHe already mentions the custom of offering flowers to the Virgin in spring. Some Benedictine monasteries of the 12th century celebrated in May night processions with torches and flowers in front of Mary's images. However, this devotion was still dispersed and without a defined liturgical framework.

Jesuit systematization: Father Latomia and Rome, 1784

The systematization of the month of May as a structured devotional practice is attributed to Father Dionisio Latomia, SJ, a professor of the Roman College, who in 1784 organized in that institution the first formal celebration of the month of May to Mary as we know it today: every May, the students gathered in the chapel of the school, prayed the rosary, listened to a brief meditation on a virtue of Mary and offered flowers before her image. The model was quickly spread among the Jesuit schools of Europe and Ibero-America.

The Ignatian spirituality found in this devotion an ideal pedagogical vehicle: the combination of inner meditation, vocal prayer and external gesture (the offering of flowers) perfectly responded to the ignatian principle that faith must compromise not only intelligence, but also senses and imagination. Jesuit schools exported the May Month to all continents where they had a missionary presence.

Pius VII in Fontainebleau: the flowers in the prison cell (1809)

The episode that most deeply marked the devotional history of the May Month was lived by Pope Pius VII in the most difficult circumstances imaginable. In 1809, Napoleon Bonaparte - who had excommunicated the Pope - ordered his arrest and transfer to Savona first and to Fontainebleau later. The Pontiff remained in the palace of Fontainebleau for several years, without access to the Sacraments, separated from his collaborators and under constant pressure to sign documents contrary to the independence of the Church.

According to the testimony of his companions and of the French guards themselves - some of whom were moved by their behaviour - during the month of May Pius VII decorated his cell with wild flowers that he collected in the walks that were allowed him, and he had them in front of a small image of the Virgin he had been able to preserve. He prayed the rosary every day and, when he could, taught his guards to pray as well. The image of the old Pontiff turning his prison cell into a small Marian oratorio moved all of Christian Europe when it was known. Pius VII was released in 1814 and returned to Rome in triumph.

This episode turned the May Month into a cause to defend: the fact that the Vicar of Christ honored Mary with flowers in a prison cell gave this devotion a dignity and an emotional burden that no decree or pastoral instruction could have conferred on him.

The bloom of the 19th century

After the Restoration (1815), the Month of May to Mary spread throughout the Church with a surprising speed. Father Alfonso María de Ratisbonne - brother of Alfonso, the 1842 converted - published in Paris in 1838 a famous book entitled The Month of Mary which became the reference manual for the domestic and parish celebration of this devotion. The book was translated into Spanish, Italian, German and English and had dozens of editions throughout the 19th century.

La encíclica Qui nuper de Pius IX (1859) expressly recommended the May Month to the whole Church and granted indulgences to those who celebrated it. Leo XIII, a great devotee of the rosary, published in 1893 the encyclical Laetitiae sanctaewho insisted on the value of the rosary as a family prayer and recommended its prayer during the May Month. At that time, devotion reached its maximum popular extent: there was no parish in the Catholic world that did not organize at least some evening celebrations during May.

Flowers to Mary: popular practice

The gesture of offering flowers to the Virgin during the month of May has a symbolic depth that goes beyond the mere floral aesthetics. In Christian tradition, the flower is an image of short and fragile life - "man is born as a flower of the field" (Ps. 102,15) - but also of the regeneration and promise of eternal life. To offer flowers to Mary is, symbolically, to offer her the best of life: young, fresh, perfumed, but also passing through and dependent on the dew of grace.

In schools and parishes, the most widespread practice was the call flower offering:: children - especially children who were preparing for the First Communion - carried flowers to the altar of the Virgin singing "Come and go all with flowers to Mary", the most emblematic anthem of the Spanish Marian May, whose lyrics were composed in the 19th century by Aragonese priest Juan Bautista Ferreres.

The Marian traditions of popular May in Spain

In Spain, the month of May is intertwined with one of the oldest and most rooted traditions of popular culture: May Crosses. Originally in the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (May 3), the May Cruces are celebrations in which a cross with flowers and fabrics is set up, in a public place or in a courtyard, and the community meets to sing, pray and share. In Córdoba, Seville and Granada, the Cruces de Mayo have reached the highest level of party, with competitions between neighborhoods and massive popular participation.

The devotion to the Virgin of Flowers - specifically Spanish - has its most beautiful expression in the street altars that many peoples of Andalusia and Castile install throughout the month: an image of Mary framed in flowers, candles and typical ornaments of the place, before which the neighbors stop to pray an Avemaría as they pass. This practice, which combines popular devotion and community identity, is one of the most genuine treasures of Spanish piety.

In the Basque Country and Navarra, the month of May is celebrated in many houses with the prayer of the rosary in family, gathered around an image of the Virgin adorned with flowers from the garden or the countryside. In Galicia, the Marian devotion of May is mixed with the processions of the "maios" - plant figures - that travel the peoples in a fascinating mix of Christian piety and ancestral culture.

The Marian May in Italy: the domestic altars

In Italy, the tradition of May altar - small domestic altar of May - is especially alive in the south and in the center of the country. Each family has in one corner of the house an image of the Virgin surrounded by fresh flowers, candles and, often, photographs of the deceased of the family. Every evening in May, the family meets before the altarine to pray the rosary. This practice of community family prayer has survived all the cultural transformations of the 20th century and continues to be observed in millions of Italian households.

In Naples, the most Marian city of Italy, the Month of May has an almost public dimension: the images of the Virgin come out of the churches and the small niches of the streets (the votive papers) and are adorned daily with fresh flowers. The perfume of the flowers to Mary literally permeates the air of the historic Neapolitan neighborhoods throughout the month.

The "Mois de Marie" in France

In France, the month of May was adopted with particular enthusiasm for the female religious congregations, especially the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent of Paul and the Daughters of Our Lady of the Holy Hearts. The evening celebrations in the convents and schools became true cultural acts: reading Marian texts, singing hymns, composition of poems in honor of Mary.

The poet Charles Baudelaire, who maintained a tormentous relationship with faith, however wrote poems of great beauty to the Virgin, influenced by the devotion of the May Month he had known in his childhood. The writer Georges Bernanos, most deeply believer, described the May Month of his Norman village on memorable pages of his Diaries of a village priest. The French Marian May has this double record of mystical interiority and popular expression that characterizes gala spirituality at its best.

Prayer of the Month of May