Contemporary Europe is currently blessed to have 2 reigning queens (UK and Denmark), 1 retired reigning queen (Netherlands), 4 queens consort (Belgium, Norway, Spain, Sweden), and 1 queen mother (Belgium). What a glorious array of queens, for which their countries must surely be grateful!
Today, however, the Church focuses her attention on the most glorious queen of all.
While devotion to Mary as queen is certainly ancient in the Church, today's feast dates only from the first-ever Marian Year 1954 and Pope Pius XII's encyclical letter Ad Caeli Reginam (October 11, 1954). In that encyclical, Pius XII exhorted all Christians to glory in being subjects of the Virgin Mother of God, who, while wielding royal power, is on fire with a mother's love (40).
In the context of the time, the Pope lamented that in some countries of the world there are people who are unjustly persecuted for professing their Christian faith and who are deprived of their divine and human rights to freedom. Today we might think of Nicaragua and China, among other such places. For them, the Pope prayed, May the powerful Queen of creation, whose radiant glance banishes storms and tempests and brings back cloudless skies, look upon these her innocent and tormented children with eyes of mercy; may the Virgin, who is able to subdue violence beneath her foot, grant to them that they may soon enjoy the rightful freedom to practice their religion openly, so that, while serving the cause of the Gospel, they may also contribute to the strength and progress of nations by their harmonious cooperation, by the practice of extraordinary virtues which are a glowing example in the midst of bitter trials. (50).
Pius XII assigned the new feast to May 31. Pope Saint Paul VI's post-conciliar reorganization of the Roman Calendar transferred it to August 22, the Octave Day of the Assumption, a date which had also been considered for it back in the 1950s. In retrospect, the logic of linking Mary's Queenship with her Assumption seems immediately obvious. It highlights her ongoing intercessory role in the fullness of her heavenly glory, which, while implicit in the celebration of the Assumption, may risk getting under-emphasized in the doctrinal emphasis on Mary's bodily glorification. In the daily life of the Church on earth, it is Mary's ongoing intercessory role in the fullness of her heavenly glory that seems so immediately significant. Thus, the Second Vatican Council proclaimed: Taken up to heaven Mary does not lay aside her salvific duty, but by her constant intercession continued to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation. By her maternal charity, she cares for the brethren of her Son, who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties, until they are led into the happiness of their true home. (Lumen Gentium 62)
(For a brief image of Pope Pius XII proclaiming the feast of the Queenship of Mary and crowing her image, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-yNoacJcFg)
Photo: "The Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary" by William Laurel Harris (1870-1924) at the Paulist "Mother Church" of Saint Paul the Apostle, New York. Harris' mural above the Blessed Virgin Mary's altar at the front of the church portrays Mary's crowning as Queen of Heaven by the Holy Trinity, surrounded by, among others, Saints Casimir, Clare, Francis of Assisi, Dominic, Luke, Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena, Mary Magdalene, Augustine, Monica, Anthony of Padua, Bernard of Clairvaux, Philip Neri, Alphonsus Liguori, and John of the Cross.
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