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From CIN Daily Homily

August 22, 2006
Feast, Queenship of Mary - B

EZEKIEL 28:1-10
The word of the Lord came to me: Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre: Thus says the Lord God: Because you are haughty of heart, you say, "A god am I! I occupy a godly throne in the heart of the sea!"- And yet you are a man, and not a god, however you may think yourself like a god. Oh yes, you are wiser than Daniel, there is no secret that is beyond you. By your wisdom and your intelligence you have made riches for yourself; You have put gold and silver into your treasuries. By your great wisdom applied to your trading you have heaped up your riches; your heart has grown haughty from your riches- therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have thought yourself to have the mind of a god, Therefore I will bring against you foreigners, the most barbarous of nations. They shall draw their swords against your beauteous wisdom, they shall run them through your splendid apparel. They shall thrust you down to the pit, there to die a bloodied corpse, in the heart of the sea. Will you then say, "I am a god!" when you face your murderers? No, you are man, not a god, handed over to those who will slay you. You shall die the death of the uncircumcised at the hands of foreigners, for I have spoken, says the Lord God.

MATTHEW 19:23-30
Jesus said to his disciples: "Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and said, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "For men this is impossible, but for God all things are possible." Then Peter said to him in reply, "We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?" Jesus said to them, "Amen, I say to you that you who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first."

REFLECTION
Today's Gospel reading invites us to make a reflection very similar to yesterday's reflection. Jesus says in today's Gospel, "It's easier for a camel to pass through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Our tendency when we hear this statement is to rationalize it out of existence: it's just Jesus making use of hyperbole or exaggeration, the sort of thing the Jews of his day loved to use and hear. Or: the apostles were so startled by what Jesus said, that they asked, "Then who can be saved?" To ease the Apostles' anxiety Jesus immediately softened his words: "With God all things are possible." In other words, it'll take a miracle to save a rich man, but God can work miracles.

As in yesterday's reflection, that's not always true; there are limitations on God's miracle-making power. Remember the time Jesus went back to his hometown?

According to St. Mark, "Jesus was unable to perform miracles there, aside from curing a few sick people. He was amazed at lack of faith [of the people of Nazareth]."

More to the point, in yesterday's Gospel Jesus was unable to work a miracle in the heart of the rich man who wanted to become his disciple. The miracle Jesus tried to perform, separating him from his wealth, failed. God was powerless to work a miracle in the rich man's heart.

There's the trouble with riches. We pass so easily from the possession of riches to being possessed by them and then not even God can free us of our slavery.

The rich man in yesterday's Gospel was a perfect example. The rich are those who have steady work, secure jobs, assured incomes, comfortable homes, healthy food. In a country in which the vast majority of the people live below the poverty line, we are the rich, and therefore we are at risk in Jesus' eyes.

Can we detach ourselves, not from what we need for our daily living, but from our surplus, detach ourselves from it and offer it to God, to Jesus, for the poor? If we cannot, we're no different than the rich man in yesterday's Gospel. Against our will, God cannot work miracles in our hearts. Perhaps we are no longer servants of God but slaves of wealth. There are some really hard questions we have to ask ourselves.

From Catholic Culture

Collect:
Father, you have given us the mother of your Son to be our queen and mother. With the support of her prayers may we come to share the glory of your children in the kingdom of heaven. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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August 22, 2006

Queenship of Mary

Old Calendar: Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary; Sts. Timothy, Hippolytus & Symphorian, martyrs

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The faithful, under the guidance of an unerring Catholic instinct, have ever recognized the queenly dignity of the Mother of "The King of kings and Lord of lords": the Fathers, the Doctors of the Church, Popes, down through the centuries, have given authoritative expression to this truth and the crowning testimony to this common belief is to be found clearly expressed in the wonders of art and in the profound teaching of the liturgy. In their turn theologians have shown the fitting nature of this title of Queen as applied to the Mother of God, since she was so closely associated with the redemptive work of her Son and is the Mediatress of all graces. Pius XII, by his encyclical letter of October 11, 1954, granted the unanimous desire of the faithful and their pastors and instituted the feast of the Queenship of Mary, giving sanction thus to a devotion that was already paid by the faithful throughout the world to the sovereign Mother of heaven and earth.

Before the reform of the General Roman Calendar this feast was celebrated on May 31 and today was the feast of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary which is now celebrated on the Saturday following the Second Sunday after Pentecost. It was also the commemoration of Sts. Timothy, Hippolytus and Symphorian. St. Timothy is a Roman martyr put to death in 303 or 306 during the last persecution. His body lies at St. Paul's-Outside-the-Walls, near that of the great Apostle. The history of St. Hippolytus, martyred at Ostia, near Rome, remains extremely obscure; it is probably in error that he is called bishop of Porto. St. Symphorian was a martyr of Autun, put to death while still a young man in the second or third century. He is one of the great saints of Gaul and several churches were built in his honor. His Acts appear to be genuine.

Queenship of Mary

With the certainty of faith we know that Jesus Christ is king in the full, literal, and absolute sense of the word; for He is true God and man. This does not, however, prevent Mary from sharing His royal prerogatives, though in a limited and analogous manner; for she was the Mother of Christ, and Christ is God; and she shared in the work of the divine Redeemer, in His struggles against enemies and in the triumph He won over them all. From this union with Christ the King she assuredly obtains so eminent a status that she stands high above all created things; and upon this same union with Christ is based that royal privilege enabling her to distribute the treasures of the kingdom of the divine Redeemer. And lastly, this same union with Christ is the fountain of the inexhaustible efficacy of her motherly intercession in the presence of the Son and of the Father.

Without doubt, then, does our holy Virgin possess a dignity that far transcends all other creatures. In the eyes of her Son she takes precedence over everyone else. In order to help us understand the preeminence that the Mother of God enjoys over all creation, it would help to remember that from the first moment of her conception the holy Virgin was filled with such a plenitude of grace as to surpass the graces enhancing all the saints. Recall what our predecessor Pius IX, of blessed memory, wrote in his Bull Ineflabilis Deus: "More than all the angels and all the saints has God ineffable freely endowed Mary with the fullness of the heavenly gifts that abound in the divine treasury; and she, preserving herself ever immaculately clean from the slightest taint of sin, attained a fullness of innocence and holiness so great as to be unthinkable apart from God Himself, a fullness that no one other than God will ever possess."

Spurred on by piety and faith, may we glory in being subject to the rule of the Virgin Mother of God; she bears the royal sceptre in her hand, while her heart is ever aflame with motherlove.

Excerpted from Ad Caeli Reginam, Pius XII.

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From the MOST Theological Collection read the Queenship of Mary.

Sts. Timothy, Hippolytus & Symphorian

During the pontificate of Pope Melchiades (311-314), Timothy of Antioch came to Rome and preached the Gospel. The prefect of the city, Tarquin, placed him under arrest and after a period of imprisonment ordered that he be scourged three times because he refused to sacrifice to the gods. After further excruciating torments Timothy was beheaded. At Ostia, the bishop St. Hippolytus, was a man of exceptional culture. Because he was an outstanding witness to the faith, he was bound hand and foot by Emperor Alexander and cast into a deep pit filled with water; thereby he obtained the crown. Not far away Christians buried his body. At Autun the youthful Symphorian was brought to judgment under Emperor Aurelian (270-275). His mother urged perseverance: "My son, think of eternal life. Raise your glance to heaven and behold your eternal King! Your life will not be taken from you, but transformed into a better one!" (Roman Martyrology).