Meditations and Devotions

May is Mary’s Month: Newman and Hopkins

Robert Kirkendall May 8, 2026

The month of May arrives in a season of new life. The natural world and the human world are aburst with flowers, birds, vacations, and graduations. It is also the customary time for new gifts of grace in the Church: baptisms, confirmations, first communions. 

The Blessed Virgin Mary brought Divine life into our broken Lord. She was so fully graced as to bloom with Christ Incarnate, the New Creation. It is therefore fitting to give her not only single feast days, but also an entire month most commonly associated with new life. It is customary to crown statues of her with flowers and celebrate her exceptional favor in God’s plan with special devotions. Both Newman and the poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, agree. Newman does so in a meditation called “May the Month of Promise,” and Hopkins does so in a long poem called “May Magnificat.” They first met in 1866 when Newman received young Hopkins into the Roman Catholic Church. Hopkins taught at Newman’s Oratory School for the 1867-1868 school year, and although he was not a great teacher, his time with Newman and the Oratory brothers helped him discern his gifts and directed him toward the Jesuit Order. 

Certainly, they both shared a strong faith, a love of poetry, and deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It seems fitting, therefore, to intersperse passages from Newman’s meditation with stanzas from Hopkins’ poetry. The reader who ponders these inter-layered reflections slowly and prayerfully will harvest some beautiful spiritual fruits. Observing the extraordinary grace showered upon the Virgin in God’s plan for salvation, we can more gratefully and joyfully receive the graces God gives us so that we can live out His plan, dedicated to His service, in our ordinary lives.

Hopkins: 

May is Mary’s month, and I
Muse at that and wonder why…

Candlemas, Lady Day;
But the Lady Month, May,
      Why fasten that upon her,
      With a feasting in her honour?

Newman: The first reason for dedicating the month of May to the Virgin Mary is because it is the time when the earth bursts forth into its fresh foliage and its green grass after the stern frost and snow of winter… the blossoms are upon the trees and the flowers are in the gardens… For such gladness and joyousness of external Nature is a fit attendant on our devotion to her who is the Mystical Rose and the House of Gold.

Hopkins:

…What is Spring? —
Growth in every thing…

All things rising, all things sizing

Mary sees, sympathising

With that world of good,

Nature’s motherhood.

Newman: …it is the month of promise and of hope. Even though the weather happen to be bad, it is the month that begins and heralds in the summer… It was prophesied that God should come upon earth. When the time was now full, how was it announced? It was announced by the Angel coming to Mary. “Hail, full of grace,” said Gabriel, “the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women.” She then was the sure promise of the coming Saviour, and therefore May is by a special title her month.

Hopkins: 

Their magnifying of each its kind
With delight calls to mind
      How she did in her stored
      Magnify the Lord.

Newman: May…belongs to the Easter season, which lasts fifty days, and in that season the whole of May commonly falls, and the first half always… May, therefore, is the time in which there are such frequent Alleluias, because Christ has risen from the grave, Christ has ascended on high, and God the Holy Ghost has come down to take His place… [Mary] is the first of creatures, the most acceptable child of God, the dearest and nearest to Him.

Hopkins:

This ecstasy all through mothering earth
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ’s birth
      To remember and exultation
      In God who was her salvation.

Newman: But Mary is not only the acceptable handmaid of the Lord. She is also Mother of His Son, and the Queen of all Saints, and in this month the Church has placed the feasts of some of the greatest of them, as if to bear her company… These are some of the choicest fruits of God’s manifold grace, and they form the court of their glorious Queen.

As we give due honor to our mothers this Sunday, let us not forget to also honor our Blessed Mother, the Mother of all Saints, the Mother of the New Creation, the Mother of God! 

Suggested prayer: Newman’s Litany to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

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A Guide to John Henry Newman will interest educated readers and professors alike, and serve as a text for college seminars for the purpose of studying Newman.

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Endorsement by Neyra Blanco (Amazon)
I bought this book for my son and he loved it, he wrote this review and urged my to submitted: “I think this book has a very beautiful message, because it shows how the young Newman was so determined to achieve his dream of becoming a priest, but even after his dream he continued to work in the church with passion until the day he died, it’s so admirable that even Newman so old and so weak still had that urge to continued his work of being a priest. And the book is well written with words not too complicated with very enjoyable texts and well illustrated pictures. I highly recommend this book for a 5th grader.  

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What is a Classical Liberal Arts Education? Why is it so important for the development of a person?

Fr. Juan R. Vélez answers these and more questions you might have about University Education in the 21st century. This book is aimed for parents, prospective University students, and educators. It will help you discern why adding Liberal Arts electives to your education will help it form it better, and help the student learn to reason, and not just learn.

He also explains how many Universities have changed the true meaning of Liberal Arts, and the subjects, and gives advise on how to choose College Campus, Subjects, and Teachers.

A wonderful book that every parent should also read way before your children are College bound. A Liberal Arts education can start earlier in life, even from home.

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Endorsement by Christopher Moellering (Goodreads, September 14, 2019)
In Passion for Truth Fr. Vélez gave us an outstanding biography of Cardinal Newman. In this work, he provides a concise overview of his thought and his devotion. This is a great work for someone who, perhaps hearing of Newman for the first time because of his beatification 13 October, 2019, wants to know more about this English saint.Vélez is a wonderful writer in his own right, and the frequent quotations from Newman round out the work nicely. I especially appreciated the frequent citing of Newman’s Meditations and Devotions, which show a different side of his spirituality than his more well-known works, Development of Christian Doctrine and the Grammar of Assent.

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Take Five: Meditations with John Henry Newman, endorsement by Illow M. Roque (Amazon, September 3, 2010)
“There is a time to put direct inquiry on hold and give ourselves to prayer and practical duties.” Sound advice from one of the earlier, thought-provoking reminders in this sparkling gem of a book: Take Five | Meditations with John Henry Newman, written by Mike Aquilina and Fr. Juan R. Vélez and published by Our Sunday Visitor. This particular paragraph, referenced above, which begins with a direct quote from soon-to-be canonized priest, cardinal and poet, John Henry Newman: “Study is good, but it gets us only so far . . .” is actually the 15th in a series of 76 concise, logically organized meditations moving from the elementary to the sublime. Each meditation–one per page–is built upon the great man’s writings and remarkably rich spirituality. Whether taken whole in one reading or in part page-by-page over a course of weeks and months, these wonderfully insightful meditations will open up, even to the busiest reader in the midst of the world, a unique pathway into prayer and contemplation. My advice to spiritual inquirers at all levels, from the novice to the spiritually adept, is to follow the authors’ recommendation to use this book as a guide for daily prayer and meditation. The structure of the book itself is ideal: first, the authors introduce us to Cardinal Newman, the man, where we are given the opportunity to get to know him through a brief sketch of his life and spirituality at the beginning of the book. This is something readers will likely find themselves referring to again and again, prompting many, I suspect, to even wider explorations of this most gifted Christian leader. Then comes the meditations, consisting of a short summary of Newman’s thoughts on subjects taken, as the authors explain, from various salient points for which Newman is justly remembered: The pursuit of objective religious truth; Teaching on the Virtues; Defense of the Catholic Church; A devout spiritual and moral life; and Generosity and loyalty in his friendships, which sets the topic and tone for each meditation to follow. Each meditation consists of an excerpt taken from Newman’s thirty-plus volumes of writings and diaries. Next comes three brief and extremely useful sections entitled: “Think About It,” which establishes a prayerfully resonant tone throughout the book; “Just Imagine,” which provides a vivid, prayerful experience of the Scriptures that tie in, and finally, “Remember,” a pithy summation which the authors suggest may be used as a daily aspiration. Each meditation is given its own page, which makes it ideal for daily reflection for readers on the go. This book is a must have for every serious Catholic who wants to take their faith to the next level, which is to respond appropriately to the universal call to holiness and seek interior union with God.
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