Flowers here. Flowers there. Flowers everywhere! And yes, definitely, Mayflower devotion is still one of the widely celebrated Marian devotion in the Philippines.

The month of May is contemporaneous with the start of the blossoming of beautiful flowers at the entrance of the rainy season.  As the country experience the first raindrops of the month or “Agua de Mayo,” it begins to nourish the dry soil of the land thus giving way for more beautiful flowers to bloom. In the hometown of our Lord, this is most special in one of the valleys in Nazareth, around the Sea of Galilee and in the Northern Israel which is the same area.

What do these flowers remind us this month? The spring flowers remind us of beautiful Mary and she, in turn, reminds us of our love of God.

For us Catholics, this month is especially devoted to the offering of flowers of springtime to the most beautiful flower of the Church and the mother of the Most High, the Blessed Virgin. This tradition of “Flores de Mayo” or “Flowers of May” is not an official doctrine but is a pious practice which is of course biblical. This devotion is to remind us of the love story between Christ and His Church and of the Holy Women whose lives were like fragrant flowers offered to God most especially Mary.

The annual celebration of daily floral offerings lasts for the entire month and is culminated by the famous Santacruzan, “Santa Cruz” or “Holy Cross”, on the last day, May 30.

Although the Feast of the Holy Cross of Christ has its own feast in September and is not directly connected to the celebration of Flores de Mayo, the “Santacruzan” or the commemoration of Queen Helena’s finding the relics of the wooden cross where Christ was said to have been nailed, the True Cross, still highlights and culminates the festivity of this May devotion.

How and when did this start? Floral offerings on May was actually adopted by the Church in the eighteenth century as a celebration of the flowering of Mary’s maidenly spirituality. With its origins in Isaiah’s prophecy of the Virgin birth of the Messiah under the figure of the Blossoming Rod or Root of Jesse, the flower symbolism of Mary was extended by the Church Fathers, and in the liturgy, by applying to her the flower figures of the Sapiential Books – Canticles, Wisdom, Proverbs and Sirach.

Why flowers? Hundreds of flowers are symbolically associated with Mary’s life, mysteries, excellence and divine. This flower symbolism serves as a mirror of the popular faith which originated in the countrysides of medieval Christendom.  Among the Marian flower symbols are those reflecting Mary’s immaculate maidenly spirituality; the life of the Holy Family in Nazareth, Mary’s Rosary Mysteries; and her divinely bestowed privileges and prerogatives.

In our celebration of Flores de Mayo, Archbishop Socrates B. Villegas reminds us that the Mayflower festival should always be an act of Marian devotion and diligent pastoral care. We have to protect it from becoming a merely socio-cultural event of the most beautiful and most wealthy and ensure that our Mayflower devotional practices remain essentially within the mainstream of Catholic theology and liturgical discipline.

So this month of May, expect more flowers and make the month truly merry by offering these flowers to the most beautiful flower of them all, Mary. And don’t forget to wrap it with love!