May Crowning

Emma's Sunday School class is scheduled to participate
in the May Crowning event on Sunday. The class was asked to
bring a flower or two, real or not, on Sunday.

May Crowning for those of you who are unfamiliar with it,
is a Catholic tradition that happens around the month of May.
Children of all ages offer flowers to the statue of the Virgin Mary.
One of these children will have a crown made of flowers to be
placed on Mary's head.

Flashback to my childhood:
After my grandparents moved to Meralco Village in Taytay (Rizal),
I started joining my Dollar Street friends in the festivities.
Unlike the Catholic tradition here in the U.S., where it's only for
one day, back home we were doing flower offerings everyday
at 6 PM during the whole month of May.
This tradition is called Flores de Mayo.

Prior to us going to the little chapel, we go from house to house
to gather the fresh flowers that we were going to offer.
Sometimes we procure them from overhanging branches
that were encroaching the sidewalks leading to the chapel.

Our little basket of flowers usually contains common
garden variety flowers like Gumamela (aka Hibiscus), Santan,
Yellow Bells, Roses, and if we are lucky, a few Sampaguitas.




So there were were, with our basket of flowers, in our
simple white dresses, we all lined up to put the flowers
in Mary's altar. After we have offered the flowers
and sang a few hymns, the organizers or sponsors
will then give us biscuits and juice.
The month of May closes with a procession called the Santacruzan.

When my friends and I got too old to be in the actual nightly
flower offering, we ended up volunteering to help out or we
chaperoned the smaller children and helped them with their
flower baskets.

Fastforward to present time:
Now, I have a daughter who will be doing it for the first time.
I am passing down a somewhat different, and yet
still in many ways a time honored tradition.
The timing of this could not be perfect, because Sunday
is MOTHER'S DAY.

To all the Mommies out there...
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!