Reflections
May, the Month of Mary
Mary is a mother for each of us in these times, teaching us how to respond.
Some of my fondest church memories from when I was a child happened in May – the May altars with bushels of daffodils, tulips and lilacs, May crownings, processions. I grew up having a deep love of Mary. As an adult, I have a whole new appreciation of her. I picture Mary, the Blessed Mother, standing quietly in the center of our troubled world—not removed from it, but deeply within it.
She is a mother for each of us in these times because she teaches us how to respond: not with fear, but with courage; not with indifference, but with compassion; not with despair, but with quiet, enduring hope.
She is a mother who knows uncertainty. Before her child was even born, she traveled as one displaced, seeking shelter, turned away, and finally finding refuge in the most fragile of places. In our own time of mass migration and displaced peoples, Mary is not distant. She walks with every family searching for safety, every parent carrying hope across borders, every child longing for home.
She is a mother who knew violence. She raised her son under the shadow of the Roman empire, and she stood at the foot of the cross as state power took his life. In a world marked by war and division, Mary does not look away. She stands in solidarity with grieving mothers, with those who bury their children, with those who refuse to let violence have the final word.
She is a mother who knew how to care for life in its simplest, most sacred forms. She pondered, listened, nurtured, and protected. In this age of ecological crisis, Mary reminds me that to be human is to be entrusted with the care of the earth—gentle, attentive, reverent. Her motherhood extends beyond one child to all creation.
She is a mother for each of us in these times because she teaches us how to respond: not with fear, but with courage; not with indifference, but with compassion; not with despair, but with quiet, enduring hope. Mary does not solve the crises of our world. She accompanies us through them, whispering the same invitation she lived: to say yes to God’s presence in the midst of it all and then to carry that presence into a world that longs to be made whole and holy.
Know that we at Sophia and the Mount pray for you daily during these troubled times.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us. Pray for our world.
