Marian May: The Logic and Historical Origins of The May Devotion to the Most Holy Virgin Mary

The Month of May, Consecrated to Mary*

With a refined supernatural instinct christian piety has consecrated the month of May to Mary, the most smileful and flowerful of all the months in the year.

  "The month of May--Roschini writes (Gabriel Roschini: La Madre de Dios segun la fe y la teologia, Madrid 1955, vol 2  p.602-603)--could be defined as a solemn feast of Mary: a solemn feast which, instead of lasting a day, is prolonged for thirty-one days with a continual crescendo, culminating in the offering of our hearts to Mary.  It is one of the most majestic monuments erected by christian piety to Mary.
  Wisely, among all of the months of the year May has been chosen as the one most fittingly consecrated to Mary.  The analogies which justify this choice, in fact, are not few.
  As May is the most beautiful and the most delightful among the months of the year, so the Most Holy Virgin is the most beautiful and the most delightful among all creatures.  She is the completely beautiful one: tota pulchra.  She is every emanation of delights: deliciis affluens.  Just as in May nature awakens from the winter sleep and is covered with green and flowers, so in May the filial piety of the christian people towards our heavenly Mother awakens, it adorns itself with beautiful and perfumed flowers that do not wither: 'Flowers have appeared in our land' (Cant. 2:12); material and spiritual flowers; flowers of the most handsome colors, of the most delicate and sweet aromas; flowers of nature and flowers of grace...
  The first one to associate the month of May with the idea of Mary was--apparently--Alfonso X, king of Spain (1239-1284), right in the thirteenth century, a century so exuberant in Marian devotion.  Among his poems entitled Cantigas de Santa Maria there is one which begins: 'Welcome May!'...In it the 'Wise King' praises the return of May, because with its serenity and joy it invites us to pray to Mary with our songs before her altar so that she might free us from evil and shower us with benefits.  It seems therefore that already toward the end of the thirteenth century the custom was well established of gathering  before Mary's altar in the month of May to praise and call on her.
  A little later, in the fourteenth century, we find it in Blessed Enrique Suson, O.P. (+ 1365), who, among his various displays of tender love for Mary, was accustomed to consecrate Spring to her, the season of the flowers."

This beautiful practice of the month of May in honor of Mary was spread evermore throughout the world that today it can be boasted that there is no city or country (parish) church, nor school chapel or that of any house of religious, however humble, which does not engage in this exercise of the month of May in honor of Mary, rose of all roses, flower of all flowers, virgin of all virgins and love of all loves...

*Translated from La Virgen Maria, Antonio Royo Marin, O.P., Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos: Madrid, 1968.