REFLECTION FOR TODAY,
August 22, 2020
By Fr. Andrew Ibegbulem, OSA
“And Mary said, behold I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word” Lk. 1: 37
Mary our Mother, is queen of heaven and earth. Today is the Feast of the Queenship of Mary. We celebrate the example she gave us by her complete and unwavering “yes” to God’s will. As the mother of Christ, our King, we honor her as our queen and mother.
The Blessed Virgin Mary played an essential role in the salvation of the world, but her work is not over. By her Immaculate Conception she became the perfect instrument of the Savior and, as a result, the new Mother of all the living. As this new mother, she undoes the disobedience of Eve by her continual free choice of perfect cooperation with and obedience to God’s divine plan.
At the foot of the Cross, Jesus gave His mother to John, which is a symbol of the fact that He gave her to all of us as our new mother. Therefore, insofar as we are members of the Body of Christ, members of the Body of her Son, we are also, by the necessity of God’s plan, children of this one mother.
The Blessed Virgin Mary was the instrument through which God entered our world, she is also the instrument through which ALL grace comes. She is the instrument of all that resulted from the Incarnation. Therefore, she is the Mediatrix of Grace!
In other words, Mary’s act of mediation for the Incarnation was not just some historical act that took place long ago. Rather, her motherhood is something that is continuous and eternal. It is a perpetual motherhood of the Savior of the world and is a perpetual instrumentality of all that comes to us from this Savior.
God is the source, but Mary is the instrument. And she is the instrument because God wanted it this way. She can do nothing by herself, but she doesn’t have to do it by herself. She is not the Savior. She is the instrument. As a result of this, we must see her role as glorious and essential in the eternal plan of salvation.
Devotion to her is a way of simply acknowledging what is true. It’s not just some honor we bestow upon her by thanking her for cooperating with God’s plan. Rather, it’s an acknowledgment of her continual role of mediation of grace in our world and in our lives.
Reflect today on the role of Mary as the queen of both heaven and earth. Ponder on the truth in this statement “the mother of a king is a queen who receives honor in her son’s realm”. Mary is that heavenly queen in the mysterious vision of the Book of Revelation in which appears “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Rv 12:1-3). The complex symbolism of this crowned empress encompasses Mary, Israel, and the Church Herself. Mary’s coronation, the Fifth Glorious Mystery of the rosary, has not been defined dogmatically but has been celebrated liturgically and depicted in art since early medieval times.
Mary, Queen of the Universe, in your Son’s Kingdom, the faithful struggle to be faithful and to be fruitful. We are under your regal yet maternal care. May we please both our King and Father, and you, our Queen and Mother, since all parents are deserving of their children’s honor.