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Catholic Liturgical Living in May

Updated: May 13

Quick Links & Resources for Catholic Liturgical Living in May


As a short guide and aid to your May liturgical living, I have compiled some quick tips, ideas, and links to bring joy and festivity into your domestic church. This is not a list of every single May feast day, but will be a very good start.


Back of a Mother Mary statue, she is wearing a blue garment and white veil. Catholic liturgical living in May. Quick links and resources for feast days in May.


Feast days that you will find in this post!


1. St. Joseph the Worker

2. Our Lady of Fatima

3. Ascension of the Lord

4. Pentecost

5. The Visitation



Note: This is not a full list of resources on my blog for feast day celebrations, activities, and recipes in the month of May. Go browse around for saints and feast days that are special to you.



Enjoy! 😊


Infographic with Catholic May feast days and days of fasting. Recipe suggestions come from Liturgy Kitchen with ideas for tradition on various feast days.


 

The Month of May is Dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary


 


St. Joseph the Worker- May 1st


About



To foster deep devotion to Saint Joseph among Catholics, and in response to the “May Day” celebrations for workers sponsored by Communists, Pope Pius XII instituted the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker in 1955. This feast extends the long relationship between Joseph and the cause of workers in both Catholic faith and devotion. Beginning in the Book of Genesis, the dignity of human work has long been celebrated as a participation in the creative work of God. By work, humankind both fulfills the command found in Genesis to care for the earth (Gn 2:15) and to be productive in their labors. Saint Joseph, the carpenter and foster father of Jesus, is but one example of the holiness of human labor.


Jesus, too, was a carpenter. He learned the trade from Saint Joseph and spent his early adult years working side-by-side in Joseph’s carpentry shop before leaving to pursue his ministry as preacher and healer. In his encyclical Laborem Exercens, Pope John Paul II stated: “the Church considers it her task always to call attention to the dignity and rights of those who work, to condemn situations in which that dignity and those rights are violated, and to help to guide [social] changes so as to ensure authentic progress by man and society.”


Saint Joseph is held up as a model of such work. Pius XII emphasized this when he said, “The spirit flows to you and to all men from the heart of the God-man, Savior of the world, but certainly, no worker was ever more completely and profoundly penetrated by it than the foster father of Jesus, who lived with Him in closest intimacy and community of family life and work.” (Franciscan Media)


Quick Links


1. Celebrate St. Joseph in Your Home

2. Feast Day Crafts and Activities

3. Loyola Press Little Lesson


St. Joseph Prayer


O Glorious Saint Joseph, model of all those who are devoted to labor, obtain for me the grace to work in a spirit of penance for the expiation of my many sins; to work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above my natural inclinations; to work with thankfulness and joy, considering it an honor to employ and develop by means of labor the gifts received from God; to work with order, peace, moderation, and patience, never shrinking from weariness and trials; to work above all with purity of intention and detachment from self, keeping unceasingly before my eyes death and the account that I must give of time lost, talents unused, good omitted, and vain complacency in success, so fatal to the work of God.

All for Jesus, all through Mary, all after thy example, O Patriarch, Saint Joseph. Such shall be my watch-word in life and in death. Amen.


Food


1. St. Joseph Bread

Recipe Here!


Picture of broken bread on a table. Catholic St. Joseph bread suggestion for the feast of St. Joseph the Worker.