My dear family in Christ,
Now that Spring has finally sprung and we are enjoying the benefits of longer and warmer days, we are struck by the beauty of the world around us as trees leaf out and flowers blossom.  It is the season of gardens, growth, and for some of us, golf. However, in the life of the Church, in the radiance of Christ’s victory over sin and death, our thoughts turn to Mary, Mother of the Church, as we celebrate her month, the month of May.
Much has been written on Our Lady by people much wiser and holier than your bishop, so I simply invite all of us to regularly seek her motherly intercession to lead us all closer to her Son.  For this is her greatest desire, that we come to know and love her son.  Whether in praying a full rosary, a single Hail Mary or some other Marian devotion, may we all remember that she is our heavenly mother who prays for us in this “valley of tears” so that we might come to the glory of heaven and the throne of Jesus, her son, our savior.
In conclusion, I share a favorite poem on Mary and the month of May:
The May Magnificat
May is Mary’s month, and I
Muse at that and wonder why:
Her feasts follow reason,
Dated due to season—
Candlemas, Lady Day;
But the Lady Month, May,
Why fasten that upon her,
With a feasting in her honour?
Is it only its being brighter
Than the most are must delight her?
Is it opportunest
And flowers finds soonest?
Ask of her, the mighty mother:
Her reply puts this other
Question: What is Spring?—
Growth in every thing—
Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,
Grass and greenworld all together;
Star-eyed strawberry-breasted
Throstle above her nested
Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin
Forms and warms the life within;
And bird and blossom swell
In sod or sheath or shell.
All things rising, all things sizing
Mary sees, sympathising
With that world of good,
Nature’s motherhood.
Their magnifying of each its kind
With delight calls to mind
How she did in her stored
Magnify the Lord.
Well but there was more than this:
Spring’s universal bliss
Much, had much to say
To offering Mary May.
When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple
Bloom lights the orchard-apple
And thicket and thorp are merry
With silver-surfèd cherry
And azuring-over greybell makes
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
And magic cuckoo-call
Caps, clears, and clinches all—
This ecstasy all through mothering earth
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ’s birth
To remember and exultation
In God who was her salvation.
–Gerard Manley Hopkins
God alone suffices!
+John J. McDermott