Queenship of Mary, Thursday, Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time During the Middle Ages Mary was venerated as Queen of the angels and saints. Pope Pius XII proclaimed the Queenship of Mary as a feast of the universal church at the close of the Marian Year of 1955. The feast is placed on this date, August 22, to stress its connection with the feast of the Assumption, exactly a week earlier. The gospel reading for today’s feast tells us that if Mary now reigns with her Son in heaven, it is because she gave herself over to God’s purpose for her earthly life, as did Jesus her Son. There are many call stories in the gospels and in the bible as a whole. Today’s gospel reading is the story of the call of Mary. According to the passage, Mary displayed a whole range of responses to God’s approach to her. Initially, she was ‘deeply disturbed’, and then she questioned, ‘How can this come about?’ It was only after an interior journey that she finally surrendered to what God was asking of her, ‘let what you have said be done to me’. The reading suggests that Mary’s response came at the end of a period of struggle. There will always be an element of struggle in our own dealings with the Lord, in our own efforts to respond to the Lord’s call. Mary’s response of total surrender to God’s purpose for her life did not come easy to her and does not come easy to us. However, in our struggle to live in harmony with God’s purpose for our lives, we all have the assurance of Gabriel’s words to Mary, ‘Nothing is impossible to God’. What may seem impossible to us is always possible with God’s help. We can all come to make our own the words of Saint Paul, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain’ (1 Cor 15:10).
Posted on: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 08:17:07 +0000
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