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For this week’s Marian Monday, I want to highlight one of my favorite Marian devotions, The Little Crown of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In its simplest form (the one I tend to pray), the Little Crown consists of three sets of one Our Father, four Hail Marys, and one Glory Be. Though it is not required, I typically close with an appropriate prayer like the Hail, Holy Queen or the Memorare. Taken together, the twelve Hail Marys symbolize the triple crown of twelve stars that graces the head of the Queen of Heaven. The Little Crown was a beloved childhood prayer of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, and it was promoted and embellished St. Louis Marie de Montfort, as detailed in his book True Devotion to Mary.
I have been praying the Little Crown for a little over a year now, and I absolutely love it! Lately, it has become even more of a favorite, after a friend of mine, knowing of my devotion, made me a beautiful Little Crown rosary on which to pray.
On one side of the medal is an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; on the reverse is an image of the Virgin of Carmel.
What drew me at first to this devotion was its brevity and the ease with which it can be completed. It’s the perfect Marian prayer for someone with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. One of the things with which many of us who have ADHD struggle is accurately assessing how long a task is going to take, because being able to focus on and assess each of the individual component parts is difficult. Ten minutes worth of room cleaning might appear, to the ADHD mind, to be the work of an hour. Praying the Rosary, instead of twenty to twenty-five minutes, can feel like something that literally will take forever! Also, even if we properly assess the time the Rosary will take, the prospect of staying focused in prayer for twenty straight minutes can be daunting. The Little Crown is short and simple enough to be clearly the work of only a few minutes. So in both these regards, it is less challenging and makes me more eager to plunge into prayer.*
The thing I love most about the Little Crown, though, is how sublime and moving such a simple prayer can be. I remember one occasion when I was praying in the Perpetual Adoration Chapel of my parish. I was kneeling before a statue of Virgin Mary, and praying the Little Crown. As I did so, the idea popped into my head that I was weaving a crown of roses to present to Our Blessed Mother, and all of a sudden I was overcome by emotion and broke down crying tears of love and gratitude for all mercy and kindness she had shown me, and tears of sorrow for all the pains that I had caused to her and her son Jesus by my many sins. It was an overwhelming experience of grace, and it firmly cemented my devotion.
*That being said, ADHD or not, you should still try to pray the Rosary daily. The fruits and graces of it are immense, and it becomes easier over time if you are able to get into a good habit.
