Tower and Town, May 2017

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Clergy Letter: May: The Month Of Mary

Turning to the ever-reliable Wiki we learn that the month of May “was named for the Greek goddess Maia, who was identified with the Roman goddess of fertility, Bona Dea, whose festival was held each year in May.” Conversely, the Roman poet Ovid provides us with a second etymology, in which the month of May is named for the maiores, the Latin word, just in case you have forgotten it, for “elders.”

Perhaps equally helpful is the birthstone for the month, which as anyone born within the span of these 31 days will tell you, is the emerald – that most magnificent of stones and to me so redolent of those universal qualities of love and success.

For Christian people on every continent May has another connotation: it has been traditionally understood as “The Month of Mary.” On the 31st May believers celebrate the visit of Elizabeth, the pregnant mother of John the Baptist, to her cousin Mary of Nazareth. That particular encounter ends with Mary saying those words which speak so strongly of both love and success. Love, which had surrounded her from her birth. Success and the sense of unworthiness which should accompany it, because the God in whom she trusted in turn entrusted her with the birth and nurturing of a child. A child who by his teachings and example would revolutionise the lives of many of those whose lives he would touch, whether in the First century or in the Twenty-first. Mary’s song of love and success goes like this:

David Campbell