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| May Procession |
Mother Ximenes' Handbook for Grade School Nuns features a section that discusses ways to turn any parish's procession into a spectacular event - or close to it [St. Fidgeta & Other Parodies, 112-3]. The Human Rosary is the most important part of the May Procession. One note about May Queens: it is best for the sisters to govern the choice of the girl for this part, especially if the school has lots of boys in it...what you want, of course, is someone who will grow up to look like the Catholic Art Calendar representations of Mary.
During May - a month both named for and dedicated to Mary - Catholics school children have traditionally held celebrations that include a procession and crowning of a Mary statute. All the girls are dressed in white with fresh flower wreaths and baskets of more flowers they scattered on the procession route. One of the girls was chosen to be the May Queen - a role eagerly desired by every girl - who would have the honor of placing a a wreath on the statue of Mary's head.
"Devotion to Mary was both intense and widespread in the Catholic church of my youth," notes Bowen. "We were taught to be scornful of Protestant claims that we worshipped the Blessed Virgin, but it's easy enough to see how the Protestants got that impression. Nuns were often given to the most sentimental of this devotion, and there were many pictures that expressed it in all it's sugary glory. No doubt John had in mind some of the more syrupy varieties of representation."
Adds Myers, "in other words, nothing of an even remotely sexual nature."
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| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procession |
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