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May and Mary

Guest Blogger Stephanie A. Budwey is the Luce Dean’s Faculty Fellow Assistant Professor of the History and Practice of Christian Worship and the Arts and Director of the Religion in the Arts and Contemporary Culture Program at Vanderbilt Divinity School.

 

 

 

 

As we approach the month of May, for many of us this brings up memories of May processions, crowning statues of Mary, and singing songs such as “Bring flowers of the rarest.”[1] In one parish that I served in Boston, they kept a tradition of singing one Marian congregational each week during May (Mary’s month) and October (the month of the Rosary). We would sing songs such as “Mother dear, O pray for me,”[2] “On this day O beautiful mother,”[3] and “Tis the month of our mother”[4] as well as many other hymns to Mary that I found to be some of the most commonly sung in Roman Catholic Churches in the United States from the nineteenth century up to today.[5] How did this tradition of May being Mary’s month come about?

 

May Devotions

What became known as “May devotions,” decorating maypoles, crowning Mary with flowers, and singing hymns to her, were made popular by Philip Neri in the sixteenth century and Jesuit priest Annibale Dionisi in the eighteenth century. They seem to have been an attempt to transform popular pagan celebrations that also occurred during the month of May, including the May 1 festival of Flora in Rome which included processions with the statute, putting a wreath on her statue, and many floral decorations.[6] These festivals spread throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, including celebrations around a May pole, a tradition which continues in many parts of Europe today.

While these pre-Vatican II songs to Mary remain meaningful to the many people who continue to sing them, the celebration of May devotions with flowers and crowning of statues of Mary is not as common as it was before Vatican II. Perhaps this month of May might be a time to introduce some new Marian congregational songs to your community in addition to such classics as “Hail, holy Queen”[7] and “Immaculate Mary.”[8] Many of the older Marian songs reflect a “christotypical” (maximalist) Mariology that aligns Mary with Christ as she “stands alongside Christ . . . facing the church, so that it is quite natural to think of Mary as having a role in redemption.”[9] Following the placement of the discussion of Mary in the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium rather than writing a separate document about her,[10] the Roman Catholic Church shifted to an “ecclesiotypical” (minimalist) Mariology which “understands Mary as standing with the church and facing Christ as one in need of redemption alongside the remainder of humanity.”[11]

In other words, before Vatican II, Mary was often put on a pedestal, almost at the level of Christ, making her a model for women that was difficult to obtain (no other woman could be sinless and both virgin and mother) and at times harmful and oppressive. After Vatican II, an attempt has been made to bring Mary down from this pedestal to make her a more approachable model, someone who had doubts and fears and suffered just like us.

 

4 Criteria

I encourage you to consider teaching your community some of these newer Marian congregational songs that lift up Mary in this post-Vatican II understanding by reflecting the four criteria that I believe are helpful as we work to ecumenically reclaim Mary for all Christians today.[12] The first of these four criteria is a strong biblical foundation. One example is Delores Dufner’s “Mary, first among believers”[13] which refers to Mary’s role in the biblical stories of the Annunciation, exile into Egypt, and crucifixion, among others. In addition, Dufner links these biblical stories to those currently in similar situations (e.g., refugees and those who have lost loved ones in acts of injustice).

Adam Tice’s “Come, join in Mary’s prophet-song”[14] exemplifies the second criteria, the ability to speak to the problems of today. He challenges assumptions around gender norms by describing Mary as “the maiden Mary, not so mild,” turning the usual description of Mary as meek and mild on its head. Tice also forces “Us” to see that we are not the only ones made in the image of God; those we consider to be “Other” or “Them” are made in God’s image too.

The third criteria, to find new and creative ways to understand Mary as opposed to previous ones that have been harmful, is found in Mary Frances Fleischaker’s text, “Mary, woman of the promise.”[15] She uses many beautiful titles to describe Mary such as “song of holy wisdom,” “morning star of justice,” “model of compassion,” and other positive images to help make Mary relatable to us.

The final criteria is an active (rather than passive and spiritual) understanding of the message of the Magnificat to work for social justice. There are many excellent paraphrases of the Magnificat, but I will highlight two that emphasize its call to turn the world right-side up, in the words of Bishop Michael Curry. The first is Fred Kaan’s “Sing we a song of high revolt (Magnificat now!)”[16] His passionate call to action is just as powerful today as it was when he wrote it in 1968, calling us to “revolt and fight / with him for what is just and right, / to sing and live Magnificat / in crowded street and council flat.” The second is Rory Cooney’s “Canticle of the Turning,”[17] which speaks of a world that is on the verge of turning right-side up: “My heart shall sing of the day you bring. / Let the fires of your justice burn. / Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, / And the world is about to turn!”

Inspired by the prophetic call of “the maiden Mary, not so mild,” let us go forth and turn the world right-side up!

 

Footnotes

[1] https://hymnary.org/text/bring_flowers_of_the_rarest

[2] https://hymnary.org/text/mother_dear_o_pray_for_me

[3] https://hymnary.org/text/on_this_day_o_beautiful_mother

[4] https://hymnary.org/text/tis_the_month_of_our_mother_

[5] Stephanie A. Budwey, “Mary, Star of Hope: Marian Congregational Song as an Expression of Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the United States from 1854 to 2010,” The Hymn 63, no. 2 (Spring 2012): 7–17.

[6] Stephanie A. Budwey, Sing of Mary: Giving Voice to Marian Theology and Devotion (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2014), 149.

[7] https://hymnary.org/text/hail_holy_queen_enthroned_above_o_mar

[8] https://hymnary.org/text/immaculate_mary_your_praises_we_sing

[9] Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Mary: Glimpses of the Mother of Jesus (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), 13.

[10] For more information see Budwey, Sing of Mary, 195–210.

[11] Gaventa, Mary, 13.

[12] Budwey, Sing of Mary, 274–88.

[13] https://www.praytellblog.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/05/MaryFirst.pdf

[14] Adam M. L. Tice, Woven Into Harmony: 50 Hymn Texts (Chicago: GIA Publications, 2009), 28–29.

[15] The Hymn Society of the United States and Canada, “New Hymn and Tune,” The Hymn 41, no. 1 (January 1990): 36.

[16] https://www.hopepublishing.com/find-hymns-hw/hw5225.aspx

[17] https://hymnary.org/text/my_soul_cries_out_with_a_joyful_shout

 

Introduction

This episode is with hymn text writer Sister Delores Dufner. Sister Delores is a member of St. Benedict’s Monastery in St. Joseph, Minnesota, a Benedictine women’s community of about 200 members. She holds Master’s Degrees in Liturgical Music and Liturgical Studies. She is currently a member of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, the National Pastoral Musicians (NPM), the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), and the Monastic Worship Forum.

Sister Delores was a school music teacher, private piano and organ instructor, and parish organist/choir director for twelve years. She served as liturgy coordinator for her religious community for six years, Director of the St. Cloud Diocesan Office of Worship for fifteen years, and a liturgical music consultant in the Diocese of Ballarat, Australia, for fifteen months. Since then, she has been writing liturgical, scripture-based hymn and song texts which are found in many Christian hymnals.  Her hymns have been published in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and China.

Sister Delores has received sixty-one commissions to write hymn texts for special occasions or needs, and her lyrics are the basis of over eighty choral octavos. She has four published hymn collections:

  • Sing a New Church (Oregon Catholic Press, 1994)
  • The Glimmer of Glory in Song (GIA Publications, 2004)
  • And Every Breath, a Song (GIA Publications, 2011)
  • Criers of Splendor (GIA Publications, 2016)

Sister Delores was named a Fellow of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada in 2013. In 2014 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from NPM, the National Association of Pastoral Musicians. In 2017 she received the Christus Rex award from Valparaiso University’s Institute of Liturgical Studies for her lifelong commitment to liturgical renewal.

 

Season 1 – Episode 4

An interview with hymn writer Delores Dufner, OSB, focusing on the craft and art of writing hymn texts.

 

 

Listening time: 32 minutes

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Highlights

Vatican II really motivated me and gave me materials with which to work.  That return to the sources was essentially a turning point in my faith life, especially the emphasis on Jesus’ ministry and his life…Seeing and paying attention to what Jesus taught gave me a whole new insight into what I wanted to teach and live.

 

I need to create space in order to write… When I actually sit down to write, I lock my office door, put the phone on automatic, and isolate myself until I have a first draft.

 

Pope John the XXIII was a huge influence.  He gave a new idea of what the church could be and should be.  There was a real freedom in that and a vocational call.

 

It has to be good news – not just true, but it has to be good news and it has to sound good!

 

My big goal right now is to try to connect science and faith, because so many of the prayers of the liturgy come from an antiquated view of the universe…I want to do more with writing about the cosmos.