[Carolina]

God calls each one of us to be a saint.

August 22, 2006

Queenship of Mary

Pius XII established this feast in 1954. But Mary’s queenship has roots in Scripture. At the Annunciation Gabriel announced that Mary’s Son would receive the throne of David and rule forever. At the Visitation, Elizabeth calls Mary “mother of my Lord.” As in all the mysteries of Mary’s life, Mary is closely associated with Jesus: Her queenship is a share in Jesus’ kingship. We can also recall that in the Old Testament the mother of the king has great influence in court.

In the fourth century St. Ephrem called Mary “Lady” and “Queen” and Church Fathers and Doctors continued to use the title. Hymns of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries address Mary as queen: “Hail, Holy Queen,” “Hail, Queen of Heaven,” “Queen of Heaven.” The Dominican rosary and the Franciscan crown as well as numerous invocations in Mary’s litany celebrate her queenship.

The feast is a logical follow-up to the Assumption and is now celebrated on the octave day of that feast. In his encyclical To the Queen of Heaven, Pius XII points out that Mary deserves the title because she is Mother of God, because she is closely associated as the New Eve with Jesus’ redemptive work, because of her preeminent perfection and because of her intercessory power.

Comment:

As St. Paul suggests in Romans 8:28–30, God has predestined human beings from all eternity to share the image of his Son. All the more was Mary predestined to be the mother of Jesus. As Jesus was to be king of all creation, Mary, in dependence on Jesus, was to be queen. All other titles to queenship derive from this eternal intention of God. As Jesus exercised his kingship on earth by serving his Father and his fellow human beings, so did Mary exercise her queenship. As the glorified Jesus remains with us as our king till the end of time (Matthew 28:20), so does Mary, who was assumed into heaven and crowned queen of heaven and earth.

Quote:

“Let the entire body of the faithful pour forth persevering prayer to the Mother of God and Mother of men. Let them implore that she who aided the beginnings of the Church by her prayers may now, exalted as she is in heaven above all the saints and angels, intercede with her Son in the fellowship of all the saints. May she do so until all the peoples of the human family, whether they are honored with the name of Christian or whether they still do not know their Savior, are happily gathered together in peace and harmony into the one People of God, for the glory of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 69).

[Carolina]

From Homily of the Day from Catholic Exchange

Homily of the Day

Title:	Don't Let Your Things Trick You!
Author:	Monsignor Dennis Clark, Ph.D.
Date:	Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Ez 28:1-10 / Mt 19:23-30

Ezechial has hard words for the Prince of Tyre in today’s first reading. For whatever reasons, the prince had let his imagination get the better of him, persuading himself that he had “the mind of a god” and that no one in the whole world was greater.

That was not a smart call for a mere prince, and it’s even more foolish for us ordinary mortals. Yet we seem to persist in it. For the five-year-old, it may take nothing more than a new color book to persuade him that he’s king of the mountain. For the teenager, it may take a trendy haircut and some new clothes, and for the adult, it may require a car or a house or a newly expanded stock portfolio or all of the above.

However we happen to get there, seeing ourselves as king or queen of the mountain is always an illusion, because all we have, including our very lives, is on short-term loan. We are mere caretakers.

Some people require grave illnesses or tragic reversals to come to that wisdom. Why wait for that? Why not just own the truth now: All we have is from God, to be enjoyed and shared as generously as God shares with us. What love put us here! Shouldn’t that be our greatest delight?