May Crowning 2009

One of the things I don't like about blogging is the pressure I place on myself to come up with new things instead of enjoying the same thing year after year and planting it as a tradition in the hearts of my children. I know I am not alone! Why are we tempted to think that what has been said already can't be said again? Second verse, same as the first! On the other hand, keeping a blog has helped us establish some traditions either by helping me to remember or by helping my children remember to remind me.

We decided to do our May Crowning today on the first Sunday of May and many things are repeats traditions that our family has embraced and enjoyed.Our May Crowning tradition is to celebrate the many beautiful titles of Our Lady found in the Litany of Loreto and to pray a Memorare each night for those people who might fall under her patronage through a specific title. You can go see our list here while I dust off the forget-me-not flowers and crowns. We also sing hymns (Sing of Mary is one of our favorites), crown our three Mary statues and place flowers on our May altar. We pray the Litany of Loreto and then enjoy a feast. As for the menu today, some old favorites and some new treats were planned and prepared.

~Mother Most Pure Calla Lily Sandwiches~

A variation of these. Peanut butter inside of white bread circles and pinched at one end. A banana segment rolled in yellow sprinkles and a green swizzle stick stem completes the lily nicely.

~Mirror of Justice Bites~
We chose tuna fish (Star of the Sea) on top of Melba toast rounds served on a mirror but you could choose anything since it is the mirror that ties this in. Might I suggest a little cream cheese on the bottom of each bite. Mirrors make very slippery serving trays. Ask me how I know.

~Queen of Martyrs Cake~
I did not make this. We picked it up from the same bakery as last time. It is a Strawberry Boston Cream Cake and it is delicious! As The Professor said, "The red is for the martyrs and the strawberries on top look like a crown!" Bingo! I did decorate simple sugar cookies again with frosting forget-me-nots as part of our decorative theme.

~Tower of Ivory, House of Gold~
Mozzerella Cheese Sticks and Colby Jack cheese cubes

~Mystical Roses~
Turkey breast roses and cucumber roses. I used the leftover turkey breast from the sandwiches below and a cucumber following these instructions (kind of). For some reason that website takes a long time to come up so wait for it. I think Japanese cucumbers have smaller seed pockets and roll up easier. Mine held together only because they were impaled on toothpicks but they did look cool!

~Vessels of Honor~
My kids know that using great-grandma's punch bowl and cups is a huge honor. This year, we used 7Up, vanilla ice cream, and one small box of berry blue gelatin (unsweetened if you can find it) to make our Mary Blue Punch. Stir the 7Up and gelatin together until gelatin dissolves. Pour into punch bowl and float vanilla ice cream clouds on top.

~Morning Star~
Star shaped turkey and cheese sandwiches (because we ran out of Calla Lilly stems).

If you need more information to make one of these I'd be happy to help and I would love to see what a May Crowning looks like in your home!

May Crowning

Today we brought flowers of the fairest to the fairest of all.

On the menu was Star of the Sea Tuna sandwiches, fresh blueberries, pasta salad, carrot sticks and celery for those who don't like pasta salad and Berry Blue Punch which ended looking more teal than blue. I couldn't find any blue Kool-Aid so I used Jell-O. It looked great until I added the white cranberry juice which had a tinge of yellow. The ice cream (Blue Bell of course!) did foam up like clouds which the kids thought looked very cool and I enjoy any opportunity to use my grandma's punch bowl.
Since I knew I was tampering with the recipe, I had a back-up ready. A scoop of vanilla ice in the cups with Frostie Blue Cream Soda poured over it. Definitely a true blue color and yummy to boot!
Dessert anyone? I did not make the cake (wanted to check out a new bakery we discovered before ordering a cake for Sunshine's First Communion...let me 'splain...later), but I did make the forget-me-not cookies. This cake is called a Strawberry Boston Creme Pie, but we called it a Queen of Martyrs cake.
Here is a close up of the May Day basket that was inspired by the very talented Alice and company. Inside we will deposit the flowers below on which we wrote one of Our Lady's titles and the special intentions we have paired with them. Oh, the blue flower candle holders just jumped into my basket when I was in the floral department. Somehow they knew that I had a little forget-me-not theme going. They were so clever those little candle holders... and on sale!
We all sang "Sing of Mary" along with Sunshine's cd called Standing on the Rock (she highly recommends it by the way) and we finished with the Litany of Loreto. Already, the kids have asked some questions (What's a patriarch?) and we have enjoyed discussing with them the what and why behind our plans to honor the rest of the days in this lovely month of Mary.

May Crowning- Preparations

We are planning our May Crowning and I just wanted to share some of our ideas (so that I don't forget anything).

So far, we plan to sing a Marian hymn and say the Litany of Loreto during our Coffee, Tea and Thee time. There are cookies waiting to be dressed up in their frosted, floral best and I am thinking about a fun beverage. Maybe a pretty blue punch?

We have 3 Mary statues that we will crown which means that the three older children will each get a turn. Of course Bigboy won't be left out. I made one of these little May Day baskets that Alice inspired to be placed on the hand of our largest Mary. My idea is to use some of Our Lady's titles to inspire prayers for some person or group of people that might seek the Blessed Virgin's intercession under that title. After our May crowning this Sunday, there will be 25 days left in the month. Husband and I chose 25 of Our Lady's titles from the litany. We will ask the Blessed Virgin to intercede for, protect and guide these people under her patronage:

• Mirror of Justice - lawyers & judges
• Seat of Wisdom - lawmakers & elected officials
• Cause of our joy - entertainers
• Mystical Rose - florists, gardeners, conservationists
• Tower of David - construction workers
• Tower of Ivory - professors and teachers (this one might be stretching it! : )
• House of Gold - bankers
• Ark of the covenant - vets & animal shelter workers
• Gate of Heaven - soldiers (also talk about Blessed Andre and St. Faustina as porters)
• Morning Star - astronomers
• Health of the sick - doctors and scientists
• Refuge of sinners - people who are homeless & shelter workers (not that they are more sinful than anyone else...we are all sinners, but we thought about the "refuge" part and this is what we came up with)
• Comforter of the afflicted - hospice workers and those in their care
• Queen of Angels - policemen & firemen (they act as guardian angels sometimes and they are under the patronage of St. Michael)
• Queen of Patriarchs - the Holy Father
• Queen of Prophets - theologians & apologists
• Queen of Confessors - the Fathers of Mercy, all priests and our personal confessors (I know that is not actually what the word confessor means in this case, but the kids don't yet.)
• Queen of Virgins - religious sisters & consecrated virgins
• Queen of All Saints - the Church Militant (since we are all striving to be saints)

Since we combined the "vessel" titles into one we added:

• Mother most amiable - people who are hard to get along with & people suffering from depression
• Mother of good Counsel - counselors and therapists

Updated 5/09 to add:

• Mother Most Chaste ~ religious brothers and priests
• Spiritual Vessel ~ sailors and member of the Navy
• Singular Vessel of Devotion ~ those who keep Holy Hours especially in the middle of the night.
• Queen of Peace ~ those living in war torn countries
  

The order will be mixed up to honor a few very special days. Sunshine's birthday is on May 24th which is also the feast of Our Lady Help of Christians. We plan to honor Our Lady under the title "Help of Christians" that day and ask for her protection and guidance for our little miss Sunshine and for all Christians especially our separated brethren...and then...we celebrate BigBoy's birthday on the 25th so we are saving "Queen of Martyrs" for him (since his name saint is a martyr) with a special prayer for all who are persecuted for the Faith.

Yep, you read that right! We have back to back birthday celebrations. Double the cake, double the shopping, double the decorations. I really feel for mothers of multiples! My May babies are separated by 5 years and different genders so there really is no chance of a joint party right now. I don't think I'd do that anyway. Now you see why God gave me the cake gene?

I am printing out little forget-me-not flowers and we will deposit one each night into the basket and say a Memorare for that special intention. I am hoping that this will make bedtime prayers a little more interesting and maybe prompt some thoughtful discussions.

And we are also dressing up our Mary Altar, but since I am still tossing ideas around, take a look at Dawn's and Meredith's. Aren't they lovely?

Pictures to come.