Each year at Mount Royal Academy we customarily celebrate the month of May in harmony with the liturgical pace of the Church. May is dedicated to the Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary. In addition to the weekly recitation of the rosary on Friday mornings, we also honor Mary with a May Crowning ceremony.
On Friday, May 27th, we were privileged enough to host Fr. Lance Harlow from the Diocese of Burlington. Fr. Lance is a world renowned specialist in Mariology, and was invited in order to reinvigorate and reconsecrate our school's devotion to Our Lady. He engaged the youth by enlisting specific intentions for each decade of the rosary, inspiring the students to select more selfless prayers, rather than the usual selfish petitions that often plague our communication with the Sovereign Queen of Heaven. Following the rosary, we all processed while chanting our devotion to Mary through traditional hymns, led by the new communicants of the school. Fr. Lance subsequently renewed our school's consecration to Mary, which has been a crucial component of recent developments in the campus and community. Father then blessed all the Marian religious artifacts that help students and teachers live out their devotion to Mary on a day-to-day basis, such as scapulars, medals, images, and rosary beads. The Crowning was completed when the students shared cake in celebration of Mary's fiat, Her great acceptance and affirmation of God's plan for salvation history.
We want to extend a special note of gratitude to Fr. Lance, who so graciously reignited our hearts with a desire to call out to our Mother in a charitable and trusting manner. We regularly entrust the mission and protection of our school to Our Lady, respecting her desire to draw closer to her Son, while ceaselessly thanking her for all the gifts obtained through her intercession.
[slideshow]