Every year the sisters would organize a festival for the entire month of May in honor of the Virgin Mary. There was always a May Queen ... I have no idea how she was chosen, but she and a boy (the May King??) got to head up the procession to a large outdoor statue of Mary, and we sang devotional songs all the way.
Each of us was encouraged to make a May Altar, with a statue of the Virgin and flowers, and of course to pray to her especially often. I can't recall when during the month we had the procession. The boys wore suits or sports jackets, and the girls wore white, ruffly, layered sheer dresses, and all the girls wore circlets of flowers in their hair.
My mother said I was too tall to wear frilly dresses, and she had me wear a plain white dress that had"tailored" lines. She also insisted that I did not need florist's flowers for my May headdress, so she picked lilies of the valley from our garden and wove them into a dainty wreath. They grew on the north side of the house, and I loved them, but I was mortified to wear a "homemade" wreath on my head!
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4 comments:
AWWWW you told Mom a lie ... ten hail marys and 5 our fathers for you, girlie, and wipe that smile off your face!
I used to live in Ealing, West London, and we had a similar kind of festival, but, looking back, with a rather more outrageously pagan aspect to it. It was held on Mayday, and there was a procession round all the houses, led by Jack o'the Green, wearing a suit of foliage, and culminated in maypole dancing on the green.
Amazing what goes on in the suburbs. :)
Mom wove me a lily of the valley crown for my graduation. I was mortified as well. The rigid metal teetered on my pate. She also used to sew my uniform. That made me feel like we were too poor to buy the standard uniform and I looked different in-spite of the conformity.
today, I would be honored to have mom sew me clothes. I am older, wiser and weigh more.
I loved the song we sang for the May Queen:
"Oh Mary we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the Angels
Queen of the May..."
I had wanted to be picked to crown Mary.
I prayed and was so devoted but the nuns never noticed or honored me with the privilege.
Last night Paul and I tried to sing the song in harmony.
it does come from old pagan rituals of the union of the male and female, the may pole, phallic and embedded into mother earth. paganism bleeds through catholicism because the catholics planted all of their holidays right on top of earth based, season based rituals of long ago. now catholics look like pagans! haha.
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