The Queenship of Mary: a crown that serves

IWhat the Church teaches

The Second Vatican Council teaches that the Immaculate Virgin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory “and exalted by the Lord as Queen of the universe, that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and the conqueror of sin and death” (Lumen Gentium, 59; see Catechism 966).

Pius XII gave the Church her feast of the Queenship in the encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam on 11 October 1954, during the Marian Year he had proclaimed for the centenary of the definition of the Immaculate Conception, to bring that year to a happy conclusion (nos. 3, 5). He was careful to say that he proposed no new truth: the title and the reasons for it were already found in ancient documents of the Church and in the liturgy (no. 6). The main reason, he wrote, is her divine motherhood (no. 34). The angel promised that her Son would receive “the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever,” and Elizabeth greeted her as “the mother of my Lord” (Luke 1:32, 43, Douay-Rheims). The mother of the King is queen. Pius XII quotes Saint John Damascene: “When she became Mother of the Creator, she truly became Queen of every creature.”

The second reason is her cooperation in our redemption, a cooperation wholly subordinate to her Son, the one Redeemer (Mater Populi Fidelis, 22). As Christ is King not only as Son of God but as our Redeemer, so Mary is Queen not only as Mother of God but because, as the new Eve, she was associated with the new Adam (Ad Caeli Reginam, 35–38). Pius XII is careful to add that “in the full and strict meaning of the term, only Jesus Christ, the God-Man, is King”; Mary shares in his royal dignity “in a limited and analogous way” (no. 39). The encyclical also sets a guard on both sides: no exaggerations that go beyond the truth, and no narrowness that shrinks her dignity (no. 44). Saint John Paul II added the key that keeps it all in proportion: “The title of Queen does not of course replace that of Mother: her queenship remains a corollary of her particular maternal mission” (General Audience, 23 July 1997).

IIA queenship of service

Mary’s crown was first a handmaid’s answer: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38, Douay-Rheims). Her reign keeps that shape. John Paul II called her “a Queen who gives all that she possesses,” whose glory brings her closer to us, not farther away.

Every baptized Christian, man or woman, shares in Christ’s kingly office (Catechism 786), and the Council describes that kingship in a phrase worth carrying through every ordinary day: Christ is “that King for whom to serve is to reign” (Lumen Gentium, 36). Our Lady’s queenship is not domination, and neither is a woman’s share in it: whatever authority is rightly hers, in her home, her work or her community, she holds as a service. She images Mary’s queenship by serving with her whole heart, freely, from a dignity no one can take away: in her marriage and her children, in her work and her friendships, in her single life, her vows or her widowhood. Pius XII asked all, “according to their state,” to bring Mary’s virtues to life, and said that none of us should count ourselves Mary’s children unless, like her, we are just, gentle and pure, helping and comforting others (Ad Caeli Reginam, 49).

IIIThe woman crowned with stars

The Church reads this chapter at Mass on the Assumption. Benedict XVI explains the double meaning: “This Woman represents Mary, the Mother of the Redeemer, but at the same time she also represents the whole Church” (General Audience, 23 August 2006). The liturgy also sings to her the verse of the royal psalm, “The queen stood on thy right hand, in gilded clothing” (Psalm 44:10 [45:10], Douay-Rheims; see Ad Caeli Reginam, 30).

Here the Queenship touches the heart of what 1765 Regina is about. The Council calls Mary a type of the Church in faith, charity and perfect union with Christ (Lumen Gentium, 63), and, glorified in body and soul, “the image and beginning of the Church” as she is to be perfected in the world to come (no. 68). Crowned in glory, John Paul II wrote, she is the anticipation of what the whole Church will be (Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 23). When we look at the Queen, we are looking at the Church, the Bride, as she will be on the last day, and at what every faithful soul is made for.

IVThe feast, and how to keep it

Pius XII set the feast on 31 May (Ad Caeli Reginam, 47). In the reformed calendar it falls on 22 August, a week after the Assumption; Paul VI described it as the Assumption prolonged, contemplating her “who, seated beside the King of ages, shines forth as Queen and intercedes as Mother” (Marialis Cultus, 6). It is a memorial in the calendar of the dioceses of the United States. In 2027, 22 August is a Sunday, so the memorial gives way to the Lord’s Day that year.

• Pray the Glorious Mysteries, ending with the fifth, which Pius XII called the mystical crown of the heavenly Queen (no. 31).
• Sing or say the Salve Regina (below), the “sweet and ancient prayer,” as Pius XII calls it (no. 30).
• Pray the Litany of Loreto, which, in Pius XII’s words, “daily invites Christian folk to call upon Mary as Queen” (no. 31), and linger over each of its titles of Queen, beginning with Queen of Angels.
• Crown an image of Our Lady at home with flowers, and let the children carry them.
• Do one hidden act of service in her honour: the queen’s own way.