Our Lady the Queen

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

The Entrance Antiphon of today’s Mass for the Feast of Our Lady the Queen says, “The Queen stands at your right hand, arrayed in cloth of gold” (Ps. 45:9).

We celebrate the Queenship of Our Lady, a beautiful feast day which comes as a consequence of the Assumption. Our Lady is assumed into heaven and then she is rightly crowned Queen.

The Opening Prayer says, “You have given us the Mother of your Son to be Our Queen and Mother.” And so, while Our Lady is Our Mother, she is not just Our Mother; she is also Our Queen, arrayed in cloth of gold.

We look up to her reigning. You see her in her beauty, crowned in glory.

The Preface of Our Lady says, “In celebrating the memory of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is our special joy to echo her song of thanksgiving.”

When Our Lady reached heaven and was crowned, she must have had many reasons to give thanks to God for all that He had done for her—thanking God for the graces of her fidelity, of her correspondence, of living out the words that she pronounced at the moment of the Annunciation, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

She gave God a blank check, and now she receives her reward: her crowning.

Her soul must have been filled with those words that she said when she reached Elizabeth, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46).

The Preface continues, “What wonders you have worked through the world. All generations have shared the greatness of your love.”

The greatest wonder worked of God was Our Lady. St. John Paul II liked to call her God’s first Opus Dei.

“All generations through her have shared the greatness of your love. When you looked on Mary,” the Preface continues, “your lowly servant, you raised her to be the Mother of Jesus Christ, your Son, Our Lord, the Savior of all mankind.”

“He has looked upon the lowliness of His handmaid” (Luke 1:48). And now Mary has been raised on high. All graces we know come through her intercession.

“Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary… that when you stand in the presence of God you say good things for us” (Prayer, The Memorare).

She is the most accessible ruler of all, and so with great reason Our Lord on the Cross said, “Behold your Mother.”

Our Lord could have said at the same time, ‘Behold your Queen. Look at your Queen, and never stop looking at your Queen, reverencing her, looking up to her, thanking her, lauding her.’

We contemplate this wonderful scene in the Fifth Glorious Mystery of the Rosary, the Coronation of Our Lady: the crowning of everything, of her correspondence, of her fidelity. All of her virtues. The Catechism says that she is the model of all the virtues for us.

Although she’s glorified as Queen of the Universe, she who called herself the Handmaid of the Lord at the Annunciation remained faithful to what that name expresses throughout her earthly life.

St. John Paul II in his Encyclical Redemptoris Mater (The Mother of the Redeemer), which he issued in 1987 to prepare us for the coming of the new Millennium, said, “To serve Christ is to reign with Him. … Her ‘glory in serving’ is completely compatible with her royal exaltation. Taken up into heaven, she does not cease her service for the sake of our salvation.”

Our Mother and Queen is always at our service. She’s the Queen who serves. She’s at our beck and call, waiting for us to call upon her like small children in our hour of need.

“Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection and implored your help or sought your intercession was left unaided…” (Prayer, The Memorare).

All through our lives, we are like little children. “We never cease to be little children” (Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 290).

God wants us to grow in that spirit of abandonment and childlike-ness as we grow in our spiritual life, so that we come to have a deeper conviction that we cannot do anything on our own.

Our Lady departed for heaven to be crowned by the Blessed Trinity as Queen of all Creation.

In Lumen gentium of the Second Vatican Council, we read, “The Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all guilt of original sin, on the completion of her earthly sojourn, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen of the universe, that she might be…more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords (Rev. 19:16) and the conqueror of sin and death.”

This truth has been affirmed since antiquity by the piety of the faithful, and taught by the Magisterium of the Church.

Many years ago, I saw a royal wedding taking place. The Princess went through the streets of the city in a golden carriage. She pulled up at the main cathedral.

She stepped out of the carriage onto a red carpet. She had a big, long veil going back about twenty-two kilometers. Little children were there to carry the veil.

She was escorted up that red carpet into the cathedral. The church was full of royalty, kings and queens, and presidents and prime ministers from all over the world.

Up on the parapet, there were trumpeters who were trumpeting the arrival of the Princess, who walked slowly up the red carpet. At the end of the red carpet, her Prince Charming was waiting for her. The authorities of the Church were there to witness this royal wedding.

If the arrival of an earthly Princess in this world could be filled with so much pomp and ceremony, what must the arrival of Our Lady in Heaven be crowned have been, the golden carriage, the long veil, the little children carrying the veil, the red carpet?

Now the important people in the Church are not just the kings and queens of this world but the blessed in heaven who have received their glory.

The trumpeters up on the parapet are the angels, and at the end of the red carpet, there, waiting for her, her spouse, St. Joseph, and beside him, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

We can take the earthly realities and lift them onto the supernatural plane, and contemplate their glory and their beauty. We are called to contemplate the scene for all eternity.

St. Ephraim places some beautiful words on the lips of Our Lady. He says, “Let heaven hold me in its embrace, for I am more honored than heaven, since heaven was only your throne, not your Mother.

“Of course, how much more worthy of honor and veneration than his throne is the Mother of the king!” (St. Ephraim, Hymn about the Blessed Virgin Mary).

Often in earthly realms, the mother of the king is a very important lady. She is very powerful; she has great influence over her son, the king.

Christian tradition tells us something similar: devotion to Our Lady. We know from our doctrine that there are three levels of worship or cult.

There’s latria, which is that given to God alone. There’s hyperdulia, which is that given to Our Lady; and there’s dulia, given to the saints. So latria, hyperdulia, and dulia.

One level of veneration never becomes the other. With all the veneration, worship, or whatever word you’d like to call it—we are quite free in our Catholic faith using these words because we know what we mean—the veneration we give to Our Lady never is of the same level as the veneration we give to God.

Even if we have a couple of million people in Lourdes, or Subukia, or Kitui, or Fatima, or Rwanda, or any other shrine around the world, it never becomes in the level of latria. We never make a God out of Our Lady.

It’s the same with the veneration of the saints. It never comes up onto the level of the veneration we give to Our Lady.

We can feel quite free about bestowing all sorts of attention, which highlights attention on Our Mother, on the most beautiful woman, the woman in our life, the most beautiful woman that God has given to us.

Down through history, it has been quite popular to bestow Queenship on Mary through the custom of canonically crowning her images, with the express approval of the popes.

Very often we see a statue of Our Lady with the crown on it, and very rightly so, because she’s Our Queen.

From the very first centuries, Christian art has represented Mary as Queen and Empress, surrounded by angels and seated on a royal throne, with all the trimmings of such majesty.

In recent years, as China has begun to open up, there has been a greater Christian influence. Paintings have also begun to be painted with Our Lady as the Empress of China, and I’m told, in the Cathedral of Beijing, in the side aisle, there’s a beautiful painting there of Our Lady as the Empress of China.

Our Lady adapts herself to different cultures. She speaks to us. There are other images of her precisely with that same idea, dressed as the empress would be dressed, to convey that message. Very often, in those paintings, she’s shown crowned by her Son.

Christian tradition has long had recourse to Our Lady as Queen through popular hymns like the Salve Regina (the Hail, Holy Queen), the Ave Regina Caelorum, and the Regina Caeli.

We’re quite accustomed to referring to Our Lady as Our Queen. Everybody has experienced that reality.

People have sought her protection and asked her to rule over this part of the earth, or this domestic Church, or this particular endeavor that I’m involved in, or this particular battle in my spiritual life, to acquire a virtue or to conquer a vice.

We know that Our Mother has been there crushing the head of the serpent when he rears his ugly head (cf. Gen. 3:15).

And so, in our prayer today. and throughout the day, we can ask her to reign in a special way.

Mary, reign in my heart, reign in my thoughts, in my desires, in my intentions, in all the little things I do each day, in my professional work, in my apostolate, in my efforts to evangelize culture, have an influence in society, to leave a splash, to make a mark.

The Songs of Songs says, “You are all fair and without blemish. … You are a garden enclosed, my sister, my bride, an enclosed garden, a sealed fountain. … Come: You shall be crowned” (Song, 4:7,12).

St. Josemaría in the Holy Rosary says, “If you and I had been able, we too would have made her Queen and Lady of all creation.

“‘A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman with a crown of twelve stars upon her head, adorned with the sun and with the moon at her feet’ (Rev. 12:1). Mary, conceived without stain, has made up for the fall of Eve: and she has crushed the head of hell's serpent with her immaculate heel. Daughter of God, Mother of God, Spouse of God.

“The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit crown her as the rightful Empress of the Universe. And all the angels pay her homage as her subjects…and the patriarchs and prophets and apostles…and the martyrs and confessors and virgins and all the saints…and all sinners, and you and I” (J. Escrivá, Holy Rosary, Fifth Glorious Mystery).

It’s a rather beautiful title on why we invoke Our Lady. The sovereign royalty of Mary is intimately connected to her Son’s royalty. Jesus Christ is King since total, proper, and absolute power belong to Him, as much in the natural order as in the supernatural.

The royalty of Mary is entire as well: it stems from her Son. The terms Queen and Lady concerning the Virgin are not metaphors.

By means of them, we designate a true pre-eminence and an authentic dignity and power in heaven and on earth.

As Mother of the King, Mary is truly and properly Queen. She is the apex of creation, and effectively the first entirely human person in the universe.

This is why she has the greatest dignity in heaven. After God comes Our Lady, way above all the other saints and above the angels.

Pope Pius IX, in the document Ineffabilis Deus, on the 8^th^ of December 1854, wrote some very beautiful words also. He said:

“Almighty God placed her far above all the angels and all the saints, and so filled her with every heavenly grace, taken from His own divine treasury, that she was always free from all stain of sin, all beautiful and perfect, possessing such a fullness of innocence and holiness to be found nowhere outside of God, and which no one but God can comprehend.”

One time on the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, I was asked to give a homily in a church in Singapore that had great devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. Every year they had a special feast day and every month they would have a procession.

On that particular day, the church was packed. I think 95 percent of the people were ladies. I stepped up to give the homily. I don’t know if they didn’t understand my English too much, or maybe they didn’t know too much English, but I have never seen so many bored faces in all my life.

I have given many homilies in many places, but I have not been met with such stone faces like that. It was quite unusual.

But what was very interesting was that the moment that the statue of Our Lady appeared at the end of Mass, all those faces lit up. They became absolutely radiant, so full of joy and happiness.

I learned a great lesson. Priest, wake up! These people are not just here to listen to you. The star of the show has yet to come! It was a very beautiful thing and a great lesson.

It was very beautiful also to see so many people with so much childlike devotion to Our Lady. She was the joy of their lives, truly their Queen. It was written all over their faces.

In the Litany of Loreto, we invoke Our Lady as the Queen of many things. We address her with beautiful terms, and those titles and terms would have a special meaning for us.

A young couple told me once how they say the rosary every night, and their 4-year-old daughter tries to join them. But after the third Hail Mary, she gets a bit bored, so she goes off to play with her dolls.

But they said she always comes back for the Litany because she loves to say, Pray for us…pray for us…pray for us…pray for us.

You could see how there was some connection with that little girl and the participation that she had in the Litany. She was hearing all those beautiful titles.

From a very early age, she was hearing that Our Lady is the Queen of Peace, Queen of Confessors, Queen of Martyrs, Queen of the Rosary, Queen of the Family, Queen of all Saints. It must get etched in her mind.

Mary is the Queen of Peace. We can ask her to reign in our hearts and to have peace in our hearts, peace in our families, peace in our marriage, peace in our neighborhood, in our city, in our country, in the world.

The Prelate of Opus Dei, Don Javier, wrote several years ago, “Let us go to her intercession filled with trust, placing in her hands our personal struggle for sanctity and our prayer for peace.

“Our Lady, the Queen of Peace will obtain from Jesus, ‘the Prince of Peace’ (Isa. 9:6), this divine gift so longed for by souls, by the Church, and by the whole world” (Javier Echevarría, Pastoral Letter, January 2007).

If we are to bring peace to the world, that peace has to start inside ourselves: peace in our heart, peace in our mind, peace in our imagination, peace in our battle to live the virtues; the peace that we spread around us through unity, through cooperation, through our generous self-giving to the people who work or live with us.

Our Lady is the Queen of the World. She’s omnipotent in her prayer. We can ask for her maternal intercession so that our apostolate may bear much fruit.

We go to her also as the Queen of Apostles, Queen of the Family, Queen of all Saints, Queen of our hearts, Queen of Angels, of Patriarchs, of Prophets, of Martyrs, of Virgins.

Mary, may you reign in our desires and in our passions; help the true good to reign there, the will of God; so that in everything we do, we may want to fulfill that will of God above all else.

Show yourself to be a Queen in bringing peace to all troubled lands, all troubled areas. We know that the power of the Queen is universal.

We are told in Scripture, “Let us go with faith to the throne of glory and of grace in order that we might obtain mercy” (Heb. 4:16).

We are called to approach that throne of mercy and of grace when we say, “Hail, Holy Queen, hail our life, our sweetness, and our hope.”

If there’s some little cross that’s a bit more difficult to bear, then we can turn to Our Lady, our sweetness.

There’s a hymn that talks about “Hail, Queen of Heaven, the Ocean Star, Guide of the wanderer here below.”

We are wandering here and there like the Chosen People. But we’re wandering in the direction of a specific destination along our pilgrimage of faith.

St. John Paul II in his Apostolic Letter about the Rosary of Our Lady says, “Crowned in glory—as she appears in the last Glorious Mystery—Mary shines forth as Queen of the Angels and the Saints, the anticipation and the supreme realization of the eschatological state of the Church.

“The Glorious Mysteries thus lead the faithful to greater hope for the eschatological goal towards which they journey as members of the pilgrim People of God in history” (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, October 16, 2002).

We have the goal of heaven in our lives. “This can only impel them,” he says, “to bear courageous witness to that ‘good news’ which gives meaning to their entire existence” (Ibid.).

Mary, with that confidence that you give us as Our Queen, that you’re with us, you’re behind us, help us to be full of courageous initiatives, to break new ground, to see where we can make an impact, where we can have a contribution, where we can be more effective in bringing the good news to more people.

Pius XII, when he instituted this feast day, invited all Christians to draw near to “the throne of grace and mercy of Our Queen and Mother, to ask for her help in adversity, light in obscurity, and relief in suffering.”

He encouraged everyone to ask grace from the Holy Spirit, to make an effort to hate sin, to be free of its slavery, for us “to be able to render the Queen, who is so great a Mother, constant obedience, fragrant with filial devotion (Pius XII, Encyclical, Ad caeli Reginam, October 11, 1954).

“Let us draw near, therefore, with confidence, to the throne of grace and of mercy, that we may obtain that mercy and find grace in our time of need” (Heb. 4:16).

This, her royal throne, is a symbol, we are told, of the authority of Christ. He wanted His Mother to be the throne of grace, where we could easily encounter compassion since He gave her to us as “our advocate of grace and Queen of all creation” (Roman Missal, Preface of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of all Creation).

St. Josemaría in The Forge says, “You have to make use of her power! With the daring of a child, join in this celebration in heaven. For myself, since I have no precious stones or virtues to offer, I crown the Mother of God and my Mother with my failings, once they have been purified. —She expects something from you too” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 285).

We can think: What can I give Our Lady on this beautiful feast day?

She’s waiting for us. She wants us to be united to the joy of the angels and the saints. We have a right to participate in such a big celebration, since she is Our Mother.

St. Paul says, “God has predestined human beings from all eternity to share the image of His Son” (Rom. 8:29). He has predestined Our Lady in a special way.

The Second Vatican Council says, “Let the entire body of the faithful pour forth persevering prayer to the Mother of God and Mother of men, that they may implore that she, who aided at the beginnings of the Church by her prayers may now, exalted as she is in heaven above all the saints and the 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” (Vatican II, Lumen gentium, Point 69, November 21, 1964).

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

JSD