Eleven Tips for a Happier and Beautiful You

1. Accept and give compliments: Many of us have difficulty accepting kindness from others, but we all need to remember the positive touch when time gets tough. Be kind to others and learn to accept them whoever they are.

2. Build confidence: Identify your abilities and weakness together, accept them, build on them and do the best with what you have.

3. Sharing is caring: Sharing a problem with others who have had similar experiences may help you find a solution and will make you feel less violated.

4. Make time for family and friends: Your relationship with them needs to be nurtured. Don’t take it for granted; family and friends are always there to share your joys and sorrows.

5. Volunteer: To be involved in a community gives a sense of purpose and satisfaction that paid work cannot.

6.Learn to be at peace with yourself: Know yourself, what makes you happy, what you want in life and learn to balance what you can and cannot change about yourself.

7.Create a meaningful budget: Overspending on our wants instead of our needs creates a financial problem that causes stress.

8. Take a vacation: Make time for yourself to meditate on what you really want to do for yourself. Me time is the best time to find your passion!

9. Work up a sweet: Do yourself and others good by walking, running or biking. Remember; An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day!

10. Practice random acts of kindness: Treat homeless people with respect, offer them food instead of pretending they're not there.  Volunteer to carry a bag of groceries for senior citizens; offer your seats on the bus or train to the elderly or pregnant women. 

11. The best is to say a little prayer to Our Queen of May:" Remember, most gracious Virgin Mary that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help or sought your intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence I fly unto you, Virgin of virgins, my Mother. To you I come, before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful, Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in your mercy hear and answer me. Amen."

And here's another poem dedicated to Our Queen of May:

MAY

Anonymous; The Catholic Record:  May 1875

Hail, sweet month of May! 

Hail, bright month of May! 

Bring sunshine with thee, 

Chasing clouds away. 

March has left us sighing 

In cold and chilly blast, 

April's tears have fallen, 

May has come at last!

I will wander in the meadows, 

I will search in sunny bowers, 

I will cut sweet-scented posies, 

I will twine a wreath of flowers.

The lily and the rosebud 

With May I will entwine, 

And lay them for an offering 

Upon Our Lady's shrine.

And there is another offering 

Which at Mary's feet I'll lay, 

I know that she will prize it more 

Than all the flowers of May, 

I will pray to her to keep it 

And never from it part, 

And my Queen will deign to take it - 

My poor, yet loving heart.

I will pray to her to guide it, 

In truth and wisdom's way, 

And make it pure and balmy 

As the flowers which spring in May; 

I will pray to her to warm it 

With the sunshine of her love, 

And make it fit to deck a crown 

One day in heaven above.

My Angel in May

A few years back, the same date as today, God sent me an angel and named him Francis. That was my happiest day; the day my son saw the light in this world. Being given the responsibility to be a vessel of creating another life is the most wonderful miracle that happened to me. The beauty of being a mother made me a complete woman. Today, my son is 15 years old; time passes by so quickly, I missed a lot of time away from him. But looking back and feeling sorry for all the moments away from him will not make our life any better, but cherishing our time together and spending it as best as we can is better. I am so grateful to God for all the blessings in our life especially for keeping my son safe and healthy, for giving me a wonderful son that every mother can dream of. Happy birthday, sweetheart, you're our Angel in May and all the days since you were given to us. 

Springtime is a universal growth, a season to celebrate motherhood; a reason May is dedicated to Mary, Our Blessed Mother who willingly accepts the role of motherhood to humanity. I am happy as wife and mother; like Mary, I willingly accepts and fulfill my responsibility of being a mother.

Here's another poem in honor to Our Lady of May:

THE MAY MAGNIFICAT

May is Mary's month, and I 

Muse at that and wonder why: 

Her feasts follow reason, 

Dated due to season-

Candlemas, Lady Day: 

But the Lady Month, May, 

Why fasten that upon her, 

With a feasting in her honor? 

Ask of her, the mighty mother: 

Her reply puts this other 

Question: What is Spring? 

Growth in every thing-

All things rising, all things sizing 

Mary sees, sympathizing 

With that world of good, 

Nature's motherhood.

Well but there was more than this: 

Spring's universal bliss 

Much, had much to say 

To offering Mary May.

Poem source: The Magnificat

May Crown: Finding of the Holy Cross

It's May 3, and as promised; here's another poem in honor for the Blessed Virgin Mary

If two of you shall agree on earth about anything at all for which they ask, it shall be done for them by My Father in heaven. St. Matthew 18:19

May 3 of every year is also the day to commemorate "The Finding of the Holy Cross" by Saint Helen, mother of Constantine the Great, who resolved to build a magnificent church in the City of Jerusalem. Saint Helen made a journey into Palestine in 326 A.D., inspired with a great desire to find the identical cross on which Christ Our Lord had suffered for our sins, in order to build the proposed church on the site of Calvary.

The Roman pagans who were dominated by an aversion to Christianity had done what they could to conceal the place where our Saviour was buried by heaping on it a great quantity of stone and rubbish, and building there a temple to Venus. They had also erected a statue of Jupiter in the place where Our Lord rose from the dead. The Emperor's mother ordered the profane buildings to be pulled down, the statue broken in pieces, and the rubbish removed. And then, upon digging to a great depth, the holy sepulchre was uncovered.

Near it were found three crosses and the nails which had pierced Our Saviour’s body, with the title which had been fixed to His cross. By this discovery they knew that one of those three crosses was the one they sought, and that the others belonged to the two criminals between whom Our Saviour had been crucified. But because the title was found separate from the cross, it was difficult to distinguish which of the three crosses was the one on which our Redeemer consummated His sacrifice for the salvation of the world. In this perplexity the holy Bishop of Jerusalem Macarius, knowing that one of the principal ladies of the city lay ill and at the point of death, suggested to the Empress to have the three crosses carried to the sick person, not doubting that God would reveal which one was the cross they sought. Saint Macarius prayed that God would have regard to their faith, and then he applied the crosses, one after another, to the patient. She was immediately and perfectly cured by the touch of the True Cross, after the others had been tried without effect.

Saint Helen, full of joy at having found the treasure which she had so earnestly sought and so highly esteemed, built a church on the site and placed the cross there with great veneration, after providing for it an extraordinarily rich silver reliquary. She afterwards carried part of it to her son Constantine at Constantinople, who received it with great veneration; and another part she took to Rome, to be placed in the church which she built there, called Church of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem, where it remains to this day.

The Church of the Holy Cross is located on a Roman imperial estate and is built into part of the Sessorian Palace. Several sources, including an inscription in the church, verify that the Sessorian Palace was owned by the empress St. Helen, Constantine's mother.

The discovery of the cross would have happened in the spring, after navigation began on the Mediterranean Sea, for Saint Helen went the same year to Constantinople and from there to Rome, where she died in the arms of her son on the 18th of August of the same year, 326.

Reflection: In all pious undertakings, above all in the sanctification of the soul, the mere beginning does not suffice. “Whoever perseveres to the end, he shall be saved.” Matt. 24:13

Sources:  Lives of the Saints in May  and  Sacred Destinations: Rome, Italy