From the Heart of the Shepherd

From the bulletin for The Fifth Sunday of Easter (2026 May 03)

5th Sunday of Easter

In the month of April, a strangely conspicuous number of wild turkeys (plump, slow moving ones…) have been wandering about in St. Paul. I’ve seen them all over. I have heard them all over. I don’t know what to make of it. In other ages, they would surely discern in this some prophetic portent. In ours, we point at them and say, “Oh look, turkeys!” That is, until the fifth time we have seen them in a fortnight and we just shrug our shoulders. And wonder.

Not having had occasion to make germane mention of this thus far, I am stating it now.

Now: on to May! This 5th Sunday of Easter (already!) finds us in the midst of the spring bloom. The trees are unfurling their new crop of leaves, crabapples are putting forth their flowers, and plump, slow rabbits are overrunning the rectory garden. Life has risen! Nature is getting into the spirit of the Easter season.

And into this annual sigh of delight steps the Queen of Heaven.

Mary, of course, prefers that the focus always be on her son. “Do whatever HE tells you!” she ever says to her servants. And then she steps into the background, contemplating her Jesus as she prays for those who follow Him… and those who don’t yet. But in the month of May, it’s as though her humility can no longer restrain her devotion (though of course the two are never opposed). She must step forward into the spotlight of the Resurrection and, exuberant with Easter joy, shows her children how to dance and rejoice as is right and just before the face of so good a God. “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness… as a bride adorns herself with her jewels” (Is 61:10). And all of Heaven explodes with delirium and praise!

In May we celebrate with gratitude Mothers’ Day, but let’s not forget that all thirty one days are part of the Blessed Mother’s Month. It all typically culminates with the feast of the Visitation before the calendar changes to June, when, with Elizabeth, the “mother of our Lord” comes to visit us unworthy hosts to fill us with the Spirit of Jesus. This year, that feast is appropriately subsumed into the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, a reminder that Mary herself is submerged into Father, Son, and Holy Spirit more than any other creature. But this whole month, stretching from our parish May crowning in the first Sunday, to the memorial of Our Lady of Fatima May 13, to the commemoration of Mary, Mother of the Church the Monday after Pentecost, and every Saturday in between, can be filled with flowers on her altars and Rosary processions and those kisses we blow at her images which none but the Lady herself see.

This May at St. Mark’s promises to be an exceptionally busy one. Each weekend has its major event(s): May Crowning, Deacon Ordination, First Communion, Capital Campaign Commitment Weekend, Pentecost/Memorial Day… actually the last weekend, other than a big wedding, is relatively open. But amid the busyness, I beg you: Mary! It was the first name Our Lord uttered after the Resurrection. Can we make it our refrain during this Marian season? Mary! You don’t need time, much less leisure to think of her, to call upon her. To acknowledge that she is there! Mary!

It’s a nice real-life “Easter egg” to see turkeys by the roadside. It is infinitely better to remember that Mary is beside Jesus, unfathomably happy in Heaven and extremely eager to do us whatever good we ask her for. Mary! What a service we do when we put statues or images of Mary up in our homes and yards, or even on our cars, so that those who pass by them can be reminded and say, “Look: Mary!” What power we have at arm’s reach if we always have Mary’s name ready on our lips, like an arrow in the quiver! What consolation shall be ours, if our days are peppered, bolstered, by frequent recourse to Mary. What flowers and fruit and new growth we shall surely experience in our lives if we but learn to say with Jesus and all the Church, MARY!

From the Heart of the Shepherd: The Fourth Sunday of Easter