May is the “month which the piety of the faithful has especially dedicated to our blessed Lady,” and it is the occasion for a “moving tribute of faith and love, which Catholics in every part of the world [pay] to the Queen of Heaven. During this month, Christians, both in church and in the privacy of the home, offer up to Mary from their hearts an especially fervent and loving homage of prayer and veneration,” stated Blessed Paul VI in Month of May, 1.
“This Christian custom of dedicating the month of May to the Blessed Virgin arose at the end of the 13th century. In this way, the Church was able to Christianize the secular feasts which were wont to take place at that time. In the 16th century, books appeared and fostered this devotion,” explains the Enchiridion of Indulgences.
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