We have different celebrations dedicated to Mary throughout the liturgical year. Mary is the mother of Jesus, the King of Kings, so we celebrate the Queenship of Mary, honoring her as Queen of Heaven and Earth, one week after we celebrated her Assumption into Heaven Body and Soul on August 15. Pope Pius XII established this memorial of the Queenship of Mary in 1954. Like most doctrine and dogma declared about Mary, the faithful for centuries had been believing this before it was officially declared so by the Church.
What does it signify for us to celebrate the queenship of Mary, since perhaps that term is foreign to us in the United States, since we do not have a king or a queen. Throughout Church history, different Church fathers and theologians called Mary “Queen.” St Ephram called Mary “Lady” and “Queen” in the 4th century. St Alphonsus Liguori stated: “Because the virgin Mary was raised to such a lofty dignity as to be the mother of the King of kings, it is deservedly and by every right that the Church has honored her with the title of Queen.” Perhaps it is important for us to see today’s feast of Mary’s queenship in the context of the solemnity of the Assumption of Mary that we celebrated last week. In his 1954 encyclical “To the Queen of Heaven,” Pius XII asserted that Mary deserves the title of Queen because she is Mother of God, because she is seen as the New Eve in the context of the redemption we receive through her son, and because of her power to intercede for us.
Our psalm states today: “Praise the Lord, my soul!” Although we honor Mary today, she always leads us to her son. Any honor given to her is directed to our relationship to her son and given in that context. As we praise the Lord at mass today, may we also united our prayers with the prayers and intercession of Mary.
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