Saturday, August 22, 2020

Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Readings for Today

The following is an excerpt from My Catholic Faith!, Chapter 8:

The best way to conclude this volume is to reflect upon the final and glorious role of our Blessed Mother as the Queen and Mother of all the saints in this new age to come. She already played an essential role in the salvation of the world, but her work is not over. By her Immaculate Conception she became the perfect instrument of the Savior and, as a result, the new Mother of all the living. As this new mother, she undoes the disobedience of Eve by her continual free choice of perfect cooperation with and obedience to God’s divine plan. At the Cross, Jesus gave His mother to John, which is a symbol of the fact that He gave her to all of us as our new mother. Therefore, insofar as we are members of the Body of Christ, members of the Body of her Son, we are also, by the necessity of God’s plan, children of this one mother.

One of the Dogmas of our faith is that upon the completion of her life on Earth, our Blessed Mother was taken body and soul into Heaven to be with her Son for all eternity. And now, from her place in Heaven, she is given the unique and singular title of Queen of All the Living! She is the Queen of the Kingdom of God now, and she will be Queen of this Kingdom for all eternity!

As Queen, she also enjoys the unique and singular gift of being the mediatrix and distributor of grace. It’s best understood like this:

–She was preserved from all sin at the moment of her Immaculate Conception;

–As a result, she was the only fitting human instrument by which God could take on flesh;

–God the Son did take on flesh through her by the power and working of the Holy Spirit;

–Through this one divine Son, now in the flesh, the salvation of the world came about;

–This gift of salvation is transmitted to us through grace. Grace comes primarily through prayer and the sacraments;

–THEREFORE, since Mary was the instrument through which God entered our world, she is also the instrument through which ALL grace comes. She is the instrument of all that resulted from the Incarnation. Therefore, she is the Mediatrix of Grace!

In other words, Mary’s act of mediation for the Incarnation was not just some historical act that took place long ago. Rather, her motherhood is something that is continuous and eternal. It is a perpetual motherhood of the Savior of the world and is a perpetual instrumentality of all that comes to us from this Savior.

God is the source, but Mary is the instrument. And she is the instrument because God wanted it this way. She can do nothing by herself, but she doesn’t have to do it by herself. She is not the Savior. She is the instrument.

As a result of this, we must see her role as glorious and essential in the eternal plan of salvation. Devotion to her is a way of simply acknowledging what is true. It’s not just some honor we bestow upon her by thanking her for cooperating with God’s plan. Rather, it’s an acknowledgment of her continual role of mediation of grace in our world and in our lives.

From Heaven, God does not take this from her. Rather, she is made our Mother and our Queen. And a worthy Mother and Queen she is!

Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears! Turn, then, O most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.

V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.

R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

More Gospel Reflections

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Saint of the Day – Queenship of Blessed Virgin Mary

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Image: Coronation of the Virgin by Diego Velázquez