Gospel of 22 August 2020
Memorial of Queenship of Mary
Luke 1:26-38
'I am the handmaid of the Lord'
The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. He went in and said to her, ‘Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’ She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, ‘Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God’s favour. Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘But how can this come about, since I am a virgin?’ ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you’ the angel answered ‘and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God. Know this too: your kinswoman Elizabeth has, in her old age, herself conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible to God.’ ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord,’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me.’ And the angel left her.
Reflexion
Last week we celebrated the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. A week later (or an octave later), which is today, the Church celebrates her Queenship.
The queenship of Mary seems like a strange idea to modern folks because we live in an age of people power, republics and whatever vestiges of royal power that has survived the onslaught of the rise of the democratic or socialist state, that have left kings and queens as mere figureheads with little political power.
It is clear that Mary’s queenship is closely related to the kingship of her Son. She would not be Queen if He was not king. In 1954 Pope Pius XII gave Mary the title Queen of Heaven in his encyclical “Ad Caeli Reginam” (On Proclaiming the Queenship of Mary) and instituted her feast day under this title on this day. In this document he explains the linkage between the two:
“Jesus is King throughout all eternity by nature and by right of conquest: through Him, with Him, and subordinate to Him, Mary is Queen by grace, by divine relationship, by right of conquest, and by singular choice [of the Father]. And her kingdom is as vast as that of her Son and God, since nothing is excluded from her dominion."
Some may continue to press the issue by asking: Yes, it is easy to state that Jesus is King, but how can we claim Mary to be queen when Jesus was not married to her or to any other woman? This idea may lead to some scandalous suggestion of an incestuous nature. Well, we will find the answer in scriptures and in the Old Davidic kingdom.
There are three kinds of queens that we need to consider: a) there is the Queen Regent who reigns as supreme sovereign like Queen Elizabeth II; b) then, there is the Queen Consort, the wife of the king; and finally c) the Queen Mother, the one who gave birth to the ruling monarch.
Mary’s Queenship falls under the third and last category. She is Queen because she is the mother of the King of the Universe, our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Davidic dynasty, the Queen Mother is not just a figurehead but has the exclusive privilege of sitting at the right hand of the king as in the case of Solomon who honoured his mother, Bathsheba, in this way (1 Kings 2:19).
Mary did not seek the throne or the crown for personal ambition. In fact she demonstrates what is at the heart of her Son’s ideal for Christian discipleship, the last shall be the first, the smallest shall be the greatest, the one prepared to serve would be the one who will get to rule. In her Queenship, we do not see the product of human meritocracy but the solicitude and greatness of God’s abundant grace. Mary fully acknowledges this when she says, “‘I am the handmaid of the Lord (nothing more nothing less) ... let what you have said be done to me.” She recognises that if she is Queen, it is purely God’s doing. And if it is entirely God’s doing, who are we to question His wisdom and choice?