GENERAL AUDIENCE
On the Queenship of Mary
Adapted from
August 22, 2012
At his weekly General Audience today, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the Queenship of Mary, the feast that the Church observes on the Octave of the Assumption.
“Devotion to Our Lady is an important part of spiritual life,” the Pope told the faithful who gathered in the courtyard of the Apostolic Residence in Castel Gandolfo, as he asked them to always turn confidently to Mary in prayer, because "she will not fail to intercede for us with her Son.”
He said that Mary, as the Queen of Heaven, is "close to God – and also close to each of us, a mother who loves us and listens to our voice.”
In English, he said:
Today the Church celebrates the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary. May the prayers of Our Lady guide us along our pilgrimage of faith, that we may share in her Son’s victory and reign with him in his eternal Kingdom. Upon all of you I invoke the Lord’s abundant blessings!
The Holy Father also had especial greetings for the visiting Chaldean Sisters of Mary Immaculate, praising them for their work on behalf of people in their native Iraq.
The Pope is in Castel Gandolfo for the Summer months, with a reduced schedule of appointments, but he will be travelling to :Lebanon for an apostolic visit on September 14-16.
Here is a translation of the Holy Father's catechesis:
Dear brotehrs and sisters,
Today is the liturgical commemoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary invoked with the title of Queen. It is a feast that was recently instituted, even if its origin and the devotion itself are ancient.
The feast was established, in fact, by the Venerable Pius XII at the end of the Marian Year 1954, setting the date of its observance as May 31 (cfr Enc. Ad caeli Reginam, 11 Oct 1954; AAS 46 [1954], 625-640).
On that occasion, Pius XII said that Mary is Queen more than any other creature because of the elevation of her soul and the excellence of the gifts she had received. She does not cease to spread the treasures of her love and her concern for all mankind (cfr Address in honor of Mary the Queen, Nov. 1, 1954).
After the post-Conciliar reform of the liturgical calendar, the feast of the Queenship of Mary was transferred to the Octave of the Assumption, to underscore the close link between the queenship of Mary and her glorification in body and soul next to her Son.
In the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Church, we read: "Mary was assumed to celestial glory and exalted by the Lord as Queen of the Universe so that she might be more fully conformed to her Son" (Lumen gentium, 59).
This is the root of today's feast: Mary is Queen because she is associated in a unique way to her Son, both in her earthly journey as well as in the glory of Heaven. The great Syrian Saint, Ephrem the Syrian, said that Mary's queenship derives from her motherhood: She is the Mother of the Lord, of the King of Kings(cfr Is 9,1-6) and she points us to Jesus as our life, salvation and hope.
The Servant of God Paul VI in his Apostolic Exhortation Marialis cultus recalled that "In the Virgin Mary, everything is relative to Christ and everything depends on him: Because of him, God the Father, from all eternity, chose her as the all-holy Mother and adorned her with the gifts of the Holy Spirit that have not been granted to anyone else" (No. 25).
But we may well ask: What does it mean that Mary is Queen? Is it just another title added to the others, a crown, an ornament along with her other titles? What does it mean? What does this queenship mean?
As indicated earlier, it is a consequence of her being united to the Son, of her being in heaven, namely, in communion with God. She participates in God's responsibility for the world and in God's love for the world.
There is a vulgar, or common, idea about a king or a queen: that he or she would be a person of power and wealth. But this is not the regality of Jesus and Mary.
Let us think of the Lord: the regality and the being of Christ consist of humility, service love - it is, above all, to serve, to help, to love.
Let us recall that Jesus was proclaimed king on the cross with an inscription from Pilate: "King of the Jews" (cfr Mk 15,26). And during his time on the Cross, he showed that he is King. How? By suffering with us, for us, loving to the very end, and thus he governs and creates truth, love and justice.
Or let us think of another moment: Before the Last Supper, he bent down to wash the feet of his disciples. So, the regality of Jesus has nothing to do with that of the powerful of the earth. He serves his sevrants - that is what he showed during all his life.
The same goes for Mary: she is queen in her service to God and to mankind. She is the queen of love who lives the gift of herself to God in order to enter into his plan of salvation for mankind. To the angel, she answered: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord" (cfr Lk 1,36). In the Magnificat, she sings: "He has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness" (cfr Lk 1,49).. She helps us. She is a queen, precisely by loving us, helpign us in our every need. She is our sister, a humble servant.
Now we come to the point. How does Mary exercise her queenship of service and love? By watching over us, her children: children who turn to her in prayer, to thank her or to ask for her maternal protection and her heavenly help, perhaps after losing our way, or are oppressed by sorrow or anguish for the sad and troubled vicissitudes of life.
In serenity or in the darkness of life, we turn to Mary, entrusting ourselves to her continual intercession so that she may obtain from her Son every grace and mercy that we need on our pilgrimage in the world.
Through the Virgin Mary, we trustingly turn to him who rules the world and has the destinies of the universe in his hands. For centuries, she has been invoked as the Queen of Heaven. Eight times, after praying the Holy Rosary, she is implored in the Loretan litanies as Queen of the Angels, of the Patriarchs, of the Prophets, of the Apostles, of the Confessors, of Martyrs, of Virgins, of all the Saints, and of Families.
The rhythm of these ancient invocations, and daily prayers like the Salve Regina [Hail, Holy Queen...] help us understand that the Blessed Virgin, as our Mother who is seated by her Son Jesus in the glory of heaven, is always with us, in the daily unfolding of our daily life.
The title of queen is therefore one of trust, of joy, of love. We know that she who holds in part the fate of the world is good - she loves us and helps us in our difficulties.
Dear friends, devotion to Our Lady is an important element of pour spiritual life. In our prayers, let us not fail to turn trustfully to her. Mary will never fail to injtercede for us to her Son.
Looking to her, let us imitate her faith, her full readiness for God's plan of love, her generous acceptance of Jesus. Let us learn to live from Mary. She is the Queen of Heaven who is close to God, but is also a mother close to each of us, who loves us and listens to us.
Thank you for your attention.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/08/2012 04:39]