Madonna Ceremony 

This ceremony was created for the Mt Shasta Goddess Temple’s 2020 Madonna Holy Week, and is shared here for your benefit. Feel free to use this ceremony as part of a daily practice, or for any devotional offering you’d like to create. Please do not share or reprint this ceremony without credit to the Mt Shasta Goddess Temple.

You will need:

• An image or statue of the Madonna

• A white or pink candle for her

• A journal for your notes, petitions, and prayers

• Optional: roses, incense, a vial of holy water
  

Ceremony Outline:

• Moment of silence to collect yourself
  

• Bless yourself from head to toe with a song (author: Z Budapest):
  Bless me, Mother
  For I am your child
  Bless my eyes to see your ways
  Bless my nose to smell your essence
  Bless my lips to speak your names
  Bless my breasts for strength and beauty
  Bless my belly for pleasure and life
  Bless my legs to walk your path
  Bless me, Mother
  For I am your child.
  

• Lighting of our candles, we say (author: Yeshe Matthews):
  Great Mother,
  By the power of this candle flame, may I live well to honor your name.
  By the light of this candle flame, may I be merciful and receive the same.
  By earth below and stars above, may I walk gently with grace and love.
  By starry sky and shining sea, I trust in you, watch over me.

• Prayer of Dedication (author: Soeur Alvine Marie Godbout)
  My Queen! My Mother!
  I give to thee all of myself, and,
  To show my devotion to thee,
  I consecrate to thee this day my eyes, ears, heart, mouth,
  My entire self.
  Wherefore, O Good Mother, since I am thine own, keep me, defend me, as thy child.

• Gratitudes & Petitions: Offer one statement of gratitude and one personal or planetary petition to the form of the Madonna you are working with on that day.

• Prayer for actualization of petitions (traditional- adapted by Yeshe Matthews):
  Oh most gracious Madonna,
  Never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help,
  or sought thy intercession was left unaided.
  Inspired by this, I fly to thee
  Oh mother of mothers
  Oh queen of queens!
  To thee I come, before thee I stand
  Humble and powerful.
  Oh Mother of Divinity,
  Despise not my petitions
  But in thy mercy and clemency hear and answer my prayers.
  Blessed be.
  

• Witnessing of miracles: Allow a few moments of time to contemplate a story or particular gratitude for a miracle you have seen, experienced, heard, or witnessed that is attributed to the Madonna in any of her many forms. If you do not have any stories that come to mind, contemplate how you might know one of the miracles of the Madonna if it were to happen to you or in front of you.

• Short poem or quote for inspiration: look for a short poem or quotation for inspiration and further reflection.

• Final Prayer (author: St. Catherine of Siena, adapted by Yeshe Matthews):
  O Mary, temple of heaven and earth.
  O Mary, bearer of fire.
  O Mary, dispenser of mercy.
  O Mary, restorer of humanity
  O Mary, peaceful ocean.
  O Mary, giver of peace.
  O Mary, fruitful land.
  You, O Mary, are that new plant from which we have the fragrant flower 
  because the spirit was sown in you, 
  O fruitful land,You are the land and the plant.
  O Mary, vehicle of fire, 
  you bore the fire 
  hidden and veiled beneath the ash of your humanity. O Mary, vase of humility, 
  in which there burns the light of true knowledge 
  with which you lifted yourself above the mundane.With this light and fire of your charity 
  and with the oil of your humility, 
  you drew and inclined divinity to come into you.
  Today, O Mary, 
  you have become the book in which our destiny is written. 
  In you, today, is written the wisdom of the eternal. 
  In you, today, is manifested the strength, dignity, and freedom of all humankind.
  When I look at you, O Mary, I see the great mystery.
  O Mary, your love has generated grace for us.
  O Mary, blessed are you among women throughout the ages.