Today is the first of May; otherwise known as May Day.  In pre-Christian times it was celebrated with the festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers.  Secular versions of this day observed in Europe and America may be best known for dancing around the beribboned maypole.  It is the celebration of spring.  On May 1, 1561 King Charles IX of France received a lily of the valley as a lucky charm and he decided to offer one each year after that to the ladies of the court.  It became customary to give a sprig of lily of the valley, a symbol of springtime, on May 1.  For Christians (Catholics, Orthodox and Anglicans), May is known as the month of Mary, the mother of our Lord.  She is known as the Queen of May and it is the occasion for a moving tribute of faith and love in which Christians in every part of the world pray to her, the Queen of Heaven.  This is Mary’s month.  Two Marian liturgical celebrations are commemorated in May.  When the Ascension of our Lord (into heaven) falls in May, the Saturday after is traditionally celebrated as The Feast of Our Lady, Queen of the Apostles.  Liturgy commemorates the period of time after the Ascension when the apostles were gathered in prayer with Mary and the women in the Upper Room.  On May 31 in the U.S. we celebrate the Commemoration of the Visitation.  When Mary heard that her elderly relative Elizabeth was expecting a child she hurried to help.  May is considered the beginning of the season of new life.

“May, queen of blossoms, and fulfilling flowers, With what pretty music Shall we charm the hours?  Wilt thou have pipe and reed, Blown in the open mead?  Or to the lute give heed In the green bowers.” ~ British lawyer Lord Edward Thurlow

It is no surprise to me that in France the Lily of the Valley will be everywhere today.  Lilies and roses are the flowers of the Ever Blessed Virgin Mother Mary.  I came across this picture of us at a renaissance festival in May several years ago called Scarborough Fair just outside of Dallas.  I still have my wreath of roses and the necklace my little one was touching was made just before my husband took the picture.  I customized the design and it was created by pounding the images into the metal after having an enormous rock dropped on top of it.  On one side is the wolf and the other, the fleur-de-lis.  This month celebrates the beauty of the flowers in the fields; the hardy dandelions that still manage to spring up in this cement world.  Celebrate the women in your life.  Mother’s Day is just one week from today — May 8 … yet another connection with mothers and flowers this month.  I would say it hits the mother lode on May Day.

It is the national flower of my beloved France:  HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS??  I love to learn and I especially love to research when I am learning.  I saw this beautiful flower at my little one’s school and of course knew it was an iris.  Maris remarked upon how pretty it was and I wisely imparted the (very limited) sum total of my knowledge.  I told her they bloomed in the spring and they did not need to be replanted; they would simply come up again the next year.  She seemed impressed so I decided to find out more about this beautiful flower.  I was absolutely floored to discover it was in fact my beloved fleur-de-lis!  For some reason I always thought that was an actual lily.  It of course has been used in French heraldry as a decorative design but has also been a symbol at the time same of religious, political, dynastic, artistic, and emblematic iconography.  The iris! (fleur-de-lis) was the symbol of the Ile-de-France; the core of the French kingdom.  Modern scholarship has established that the fleur-de-lis was a religious symbol before it was a true heraldic one.  In the Middle Ages the symbols of the lily and fleur-de-lis overlapped considerably in Christian art.  French historian Michel Pastoureau says that until about 1300 they were found with depictions of Jesus, but gradually took on Marian symbolism and were associated with the Song of Solomon’s “lily among thorns”, understood as a reference to the Ever Blessed Virgin Mary.  Other scripture in which the lily symbolizes purity and chastity also helped establish the flower as an iconographic attribute of the Virgin.  Images of Mary holding the flower first appeared in the 11th century on coins issued by cathedrals dedicated to her, starting with Notre Dame de Paris in 1146.  A standard portrayal was of Mary carrying the flower in her right hand, just as she is shown in Notre Dame’s Virgin of Paris statue, and in the center of the stained glass rose window (with fleur-de-lis scepter) above its main entrance.  It was also believed that the fleur-de-lis represented the Holy Trinity.  Louis VI and Louis VII started to use the emblem on scepters, connecting their rulership with this symbol of saintliness and divine right.  Until the later part of the 14th century the French royal coat of arms was blue with golden fleur-de-lis.  Charles V changed the design from an all-over scattering of flowers to a group of three in about 1376.  These two coats are referred to in heraldic terminology as France Ancient and France Modern respectively.  In the reign of King Louis IX (St. Louis) the three petals were said to represent faith, wisdom and chivalry, and to be a sign of divine favor bestowed upon France.  During the next century the tradition of Trinity symbolism was established in France.  In the Bible Jesus compares the colors of the “Lilies of the Fields” (probably native iris) favorably to the garments worn by Solomon, a very wealthy and wise King of Israel and also a son of David.  Katherine M. Beals in “Flower Lore and Legend” says:

“As a religious symbol the iris is sacred to the Virgin Mary.  There was once a knight who was not learned, but who was most devout.  He never could remember more than two words of the Latin prayer to the Holy Mother.  These words were ‘Ave Maria’, and he repeated them over and over, night and day, until at last he died and was buried in the chapel-yard of a convent near which he lived.  After a while a strange flower grew on his grave, a fleur-de-lys, which bore on every blossom in golden letters the words ‘Ave Maria’.  The monks, who had held him in contempt during his life, because of his ignorance, opened the grave and were surprised to find the root of the plant resting on the lips of the holy knight, whose body lay in the grave.”

What a wealth of discovery and yet another connection to the Ever Blessed Virgin Mary I never knew — all from pausing to admire this flower’s beauty my Marian child found.  Treasures abound; one only has to notice them.  Ave Maria.

The first day of April, once called All Fools’ Day, is a time for playing practical jokes and spreading hoaxes.  The exact origin of this day is uncertain but its historical roots are interesting.  One precursor to this day was the Roman festival of Hilaria.  It has been theorized that during the reign of Constantine a group of court jesters and fools told the Roman emperor they could do a better job of running the empire.  Amused, Constantine is said to have allowed a jester to be king for one day.  The jester passed an edict calling for absurdity on that day and the custom became an annual event.  The current thinking is that it began around 1582 in France with the reform of the calendar under Charles IX.  The Gregorian Calendar was introduced, and New Year’s Day was moved from April 1 to January 1.  Communication traveled slowly in those days and some people were only informed of the change several years later.  Still others who were more rebellious refused to acknowledge the change and continued to celebrate on April 1.  These people were labeled “fools” by the general populace.  They were subject to ridicule, being sent on “fools’ errands”, given invitations to nonexistent parties, and had other practical jokes played upon them.  These pranks became known as a “Poisson d’Avril” or “April Fish” because a young naive fish is easily caught.  In addition, one common practice was to hook a paper fish on the back of someone as a joke.  The harassment spread elsewhere to Britain and Scotland in the 18th century and was introduced to the American colonies by the English and the French.  Because of this movement into other cultures, April Fools’ Day has taken on an international flavor with each country acknowledging it in its own way.  In Scotland, for instance, April Fools’ Day is devoted to spoofs involving the buttocks and as such is called “Taily Day”.  The butts of these jokes are known as April “Gowk”, another name for cuckoo bird.  The origins of the “Kick Me” sign can be traced back to the Scottish observance.  In England, jokes are played only in the morning.  Fools are called “gobs” and victims of jokes are called “noodles”.  It is considered bad luck to play a practical joke on someone after noon.  In Rome it is still referred to as “Roman Laughing Day”.  In Portugal many people throw flour at their friends.  At the Huli Festival in India people smear colors on one another celebrating the arrival of spring.  This custom of prank-playing continues on the first day of April to this day.  I have never been much of a practical joker so I have not gone out of my way to do anything “special” for April Fools’.  I have always tried to stay quiet on this day; I believe I shall follow the advice of our sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln, who said:  “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”