St Pancras in Ipswich celebrates the crowning of Mary
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St Pancras in Ipswich has revived the time-honoured tradition of the May procession and crowning of Our Lady.
The event took place on Sunday May 8. “We could not have wished for a better afternoon,” writes Mim MacMahon: “alight with blue sky and brimming with tree blossom. The somewhat unglamorous setting of the patch of grass beside the church hall was made brilliant by her statue, standing on an old porta-Madonna inside a garland of pink and white flowers. A young girl, Emelia Wasag, our ‘May Queen’, stepped forward to crown her with the tiny garland that had been prepared.”
The procession made its way through the car park, whose asphalt was decorated by the scattering of flower petals. Some bystanders looked on, a bit bemused by what was taking place. Inside the church, parishioners carried the statue of Mary lovingly to its place beside the altar and those gathered sang her praises, with the Litany and Benediction to follow.
There was tea afterwards, and sausage rolls, buns and fellowship. “People went home happy,” writes Mim. “And Our Lady did what she always does: beautified our homely world with her immaculate, God-bearing presence.”
Pictured above is the statue of our Lady from St Pancras with the May Queen, Emelia Wasag.
