Sacred Hearts/St. Stephen's Church held its annual May crowning today during the 11:45 Mass. In the Roman Catholic Church, the month of May is dedicated to Mary, the Blessed Mother, and churches and Catholic schools usually hold a ceremony to crown a statue of Mary with a wreath of flowers. All the CCD program students, along with their parents and teachers, attended today's ceremony and placed carnations in a vase at the foot of the statue. Looking angelic in her Communion dress, 8-year old Abigail Favorito had the honor of crowning Mary. Then the children sang a song that brought back memories to all the adults gathered: "Oh Mary we crown thee with blossoms today."
That song held particularly bittersweet memories for me. This weekend I attended a reunion marking the 40th anniversary of my Sacred Hearts of Jesus & Mary graduating class of 1973! After seeing all my classmates last night, today I recalled all those May crownings, 40 plus years ago, in the sunny schoolyard on Cheever Place, where our school used to be. I remembered how kids would bring flowers from their gardens, with their stems wrapped in aluminum foil, and the entire school would assemble and sing that very same song to Mary, "Queen of the angels, Queen of the May."
My dear old friend, John Russo, who travelled from California for our reunion, said last night that we grew up in a "neighborhood," a concept that is somewhat unknown to people in other parts of the country. While I've commented in prior posts that, like all things, neighborhoods and communities change, Carroll Gardens continues to be a real neighborhood, one with many beautiful, long-standing traditions that continue to be lovingly upheld by a close and devoted community, even after all these years. And for that I am very grateful.
