Today is the Feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Honoring Our Lady as Queen finds its roots in Scripture, as can be seen from today’s Gospel reading, in which we hear Our Lord say: “[W]hosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled: and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted” (Mt 23:12 DRB). At the Visitation, Our Lady herself acknowledged that God exalted her because “[H]e hath regarded the humility of [H]is handmaid” (Lk 1:48). For this reason, Our Lady is the Queen in Apocalypse, “clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Apoc 12:1).
Our Lady’s humility is the model for attaining union with God. As the Immaculate Conception, Our Lady never once experienced concupiscence or gave in to pride. At all times, she humbly submitted herself to the Will of God, giving her fiat not only at the Annunciation but at every moment of her life as she permitted herself to be a pure vessel of grace. In Our Lady can be found the most perfect example of humility among all created beings, and as a result of her great humility, God has exalted her as Queen of Heaven and Earth.
In honoring Our Lady as Queen, we honor Christ as King even more fully, because in His great love, He has chosen to exalt His Mother as Queen alongside Himself. As St. Louis de Montfort said, “We never give more honor to Jesus than when we honor His Mother, and we honor her simply and solely to honor Him all the more perfectly.” In honoring Our Lady as Queen, we are honoring through and with her the One Who has made her Queen and Who filled her with an abundances of graces by which she became the model of all virtues.
The Litany of Loreto lists thirteen titles of Our Lady as Queen: Queen of Angels, Queen of Patriarchs, Queen of Prophets, Queen of Apostles, Queen of Martyrs, Queen of Confessors, Queen of Virgins, Queen of all Saints, Queen conceived without Original Sin, Queen assumed into Heaven, Queen of the most holy Rosary, Queen of the Family, and Queen of Peace. Each of these titles points to a beautiful attribute of Our Lady as she holds us all in her maternal care and guides us with her loving prayers.
On this Feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I would encourage readers to choose one of the above thirteen titles of Our Lady and to meditate on it as a way of honoring today’s feast. This is a beautiful tradition encouraged by some Dominican nuns, and meditating on a title of Our Lady often yields unexpected fruits in the lives of the faithful.
May we always seek to make Our Lady the Queen of our lives and strive to imitate her virtues, especially her humility, so that we might become ever more conformed to Christ through her queenly example.
Our Lady, Queen of Heaven and Earth, ora pro nobis!
