One simple answer is that May often occurs in Eastertide, and it is only right that the emphasis in the liturgy should be focused on the Resurrection. But there are wider issues involved. A number of people have criticised the effect of the Second Vatican Council. But I think this is a mistake. It's true that the council did not issue a separate document about Mary, and that the council would not yield to the pressure to declare Mary as ‘mediatrix of all graces’, arguing, with scripture, that ‘there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus’. The council in fact did something far more significant – it placed its teaching on Mary in its document on the Church. In doing this, the council fathers showed more clearly what Mary's place is in the Christian life. She is the type that the Church is to be, she is ‘the outstanding model in faith and charity’.
So the council has brought Mary closer to our Christian lives by presenting her as a member of the Church whom we can imitate.
There are two main ways of looking at Mary. In the first, her privileges are stressed – someone who is like Christ, and so very far from us; Mary is the mother of God; Christ is sinless, Mary is conceived without sin. This Mary can be admired but not imitated. The form is that of dogmatic truth.
The other approach is complementary – it doesn't deny her uniqueness, but stresses her oneness with us. Instead of focusing on her privileges, it highlights the fact that she is human, that she needed redemption, that besides being his mother, she is also Christ’s disciple. This contemporary approach sees Mary’s role as the first and most perfect disciple of Christ.
Bible scholars insist that the overriding truth about Mary that emerges from the gospels is that she is a disciple of Jesus. St Augustine says ‘.......it is a greater thing for her that she was Christ’s disciple than that she was his mother’. This helps modern Christians to see in Mary a model of what a life of discipleship means. It calls them to a place at her side as co-disciples who want to work for the coming of God's kingdom on earth.
Pope Paul VI taught that a true Marian theology and devotion views Mary in the context of the Trinity’s plan for the salvation of the human race. Devotions that isolate Mary are unsuitable. Marian devotion needs to be rooted in the liturgy and the Bible.
Father Barry