First, you can see some of the children laying flowers symbolically at the feet of the patroness of the school and the parish:
The statue is crowned with a garland of flowers to show the love and veneration that we offer to the Mother of God:
And here is a picture of the statue crowned and adorned with flowers:
Children of all ages had prepared work for this devotional service. From the Reception Class (age 4-5) to Year 6 (age 10-11) there were various prayers, thoughtful poems and compositions, and dramatic presentations based on the texts of Holy Scripture to remind us of the place of Our Blessed Lady in God's plan of salvation.
6 comments:
Fr Tim
A wonderful post, full of lessons that others could learn for catechetical practice! Devotions apart from the celebration of Mass do allow a "freedom" (eg for non-Scriptural readings such as poems)that may not exist in more strictly Liturgical celebrations.
Fr Tim, those photographs are beautiful and such an encouragement after this week. They speak of hope and of life. I hope you all have a blessed week in Lourdes.
This is marvellous Father, it has made my day :)
This is a beautiful thing to see, and it good to know some schools preserve the tradition of honouring Our Lady in her month of May. They seem to have made a special effort at Our Lady of the Rosary, Blackfen. And very splendid it looks. May the children of today never lose this devotion as they grow older.
When I was a child, we had similar devotions in May, and in June to the Sacred Heart, though I don't know that we managed such spectacular floral arrangements.
Fr. Tim is absolutely right about the difficulty of fitting all these extra devotions into a Mass, particularly for young children.
My childhood memories are of May and June processions, ending with a litany and Benediction. Quite long enough for children, and very lovely devotions they were.
How lovely! I always remember being chosen as the "May Queen" and getting to wear the wreath of flowers on my head prior to placing it onto the statue of Mary - must've been a pretty enormous statue, come to think of it!!! I also remember, several years later, in my adolescence, the (sometimes acrid) debates in our family home after the V2 changes, and being asked by a visiting cousin who was a Priest, what I missed since the changes, and my immediate response was "The May processions and devotions".
Thank God they're coming back in.
Wonderful! Sadly I missed our Primary procession..
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