Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces

I was going to say this would be a great interest to those with a particular devotion to Our Lady, but it may be even more important to those of us who have not.
Fr Hunwicke, at Liturgical Notes http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com/
is using the beginning of May to discourse on the Blessed Mother, through his own translation of a homily by St. Gregory Palamas.
I won't pretend to understand it all, but I urge you to read it.
I remember there was an enormous hub-bub a few years back, even in the MSM, (because this was before I came to realize there even was non-mainstream media,) that JPII was about to make some declaration exalting Mary in such a way that the protestant rift with the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church would NEVER be mended, and I looked at the whole thing very skeptically, I'm afraid.
I am starting to come 'round, coming to understand it better now, thank to some very simple words by Fr Samuel Weber about the similarity of a boy's love for His Jewish mother and some other boy's love for his Italian mother.
(Someone like him needs to write a Catholic Theology for Dummies, for someone like me.)
(No, wait, Catholic Theology for the Incorrigibly Shallow... that's the ticket. I digress..)
Anyway, go read Fr Hunwicke and St. Gregory on Mary.
http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com/2008/05/marys-month-of-may-1.html
http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com/2008/05/marys-month-of-may-2.html
http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com/2008/05/marys-month-of-may-3.html
http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com/2008/05/marys-month-of-may-4.html

(He also has an intriguing snippet of Newman, and how the Arian heresy, in effect, paved the way for a greater understanding of Mary's stature, and thus, role in the economy of salvation --- surely and excellent example of God drawing straight with crooked lines!)