On this day, the Memorial and Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Homily by Fr. Joseph Mueller, S.J., Associate Professor in the Department of Theology
We celebrated the Virgin Mary arriving in heaven a week ago on the Feast of the Assumption . Today, on the octave (that is, eight days later) of her assumption, it’s time to celebrate her coronation and Queenship. Aug. 22 marks the Memorial and Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Queenship can be considered a prolongation of the Feast of the Assumption. Mary is Queen and Our Lady because of Christ and like Christ. Vatican II, sanctioning a tradition going back to the fourth century, reaffirmed authoritatively the doctrine of Mary’s regality: “When her earthly life was over,” she was “exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son.” (Lumen Gentium 59)* On this day, we share here a homily from Fr. Joseph Mueller, S.J., Associate Professor in the Department of Theology, given at last week’s Feast of the Assumption Mass in the Chapel of the Holy Family.
The signs of the woman and the dragon in the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation show us the chosen people of God giving birth to the messiah, Jesus Christ, in front of the threat of the devil and all the forces of evil that threaten God’s good creation. Jesus becomes the first born of those who rise from the dead after his victorious struggle with evil on the cross. As a result of that struggle, he goes to heaven to be at God the Father’s right hand in glory, and the Church, the new people of God, goes to the protected place of pilgrimage that is ours, where we travel through the wilderness of history on the way to the promised land of heaven and God’s glory at the end of the world.
The Church has for many centuries seen Mary in the heavenly sign of the woman who represents God’s people. After all, more than anyone, she gave birth to the one who rules all nations. She, then, was the place of God’s presence in the world, THE ark of God’s covenant, when she carried the Redeemer in her womb for nine months. And, as we celebrate today, she was taken body and soul to a heavenly place of safety with her resurrected Son in divine glory at the end of her earthly life.
So when we think of her assumption into heaven today, we can say, along with the loud heavenly voice, “Here now is the salvation, power, and reign of our God, and here is the power of his Christ, all shining out to us through Mary glorified with her son, Jesus.” Mary shows us the sort of salvation and powerful rule that God will exercise at the end of the world for the benefit of all who love him. All of them will be raised from the dead, body and soul, to be with Christ and his mother in the lovely and eternally joyous presence of God the Father. No more sickness, no more war, no more injustice, no more suffering or death. Just the total happiness of a love without bounds, both received and given.
As Saint Paul tells us in today’s reading from near the end of his first letter to the Corinthians, our time to enter into this fulfillment will be at Christ’s return at the end of the world. Mary, his mother, has gone before us to show us what we can hope for at Christ’s side.
Today God invites us to consider that Mary was generous enough to give herself to the role of bringing the savior into the world, of raising him, of following him to his cross, and of staying with the Church born after his resurrection. God calls us to think about how overflowing-ly happy forever Mary is because at the end of this life, she began accompanying the Church with the intensity possible only for those with Christ body and soul in heaven.
It is with that unparalleled intensity that she celebrates the reversal of all pride and injustice and the care for the lowly and the hungry because she knows that it is still beginning through the hands and hearts of those of us who live this way and because she rejoices at seeing already what it will be like when this process of God’s reign comes to completion at the end. Today we have the chance to spend time with her who has been so generous and so generously graced with God. And we have a day when we can share as much of her joy as our hearts can take.
*Excerpt from Servants of the Magnificat: The Canticle of the Blessed Virgin and Consecrated Life, a book published after the 210th General Chapter of the Order of Servants of Mary, 1996: (pp. 62–66).
