Venerating Mary as Our Queen and Queen of Heaven, The Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, August 22, 2024

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Church of the Holy Family, Manhattan
Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
August 22, 2024
Is 9:1-6, Ps 113, Lk 1:26-38

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• Today we celebrate the Memorial of the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was placed in the 1970 reform of the liturgical calendar at the end of the Octave from her Assumption, since it’s on the Coronation that we celebrate the enduring purpose of the Assumption. Mary was raised body and soul into heaven not so much as an honor but as a mission, a mission flowing from her vocation. As the Second Vatican Council taught, at the culmination of her earthly life, Mary “was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory… and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son” (LG 59). She was assumed and crowned in order to intensify further her conformity to her Son in glory. Mary is, as we remember, first and foremost a disciple of her Son. She sought to conform her existence to him in everything. God’s having crowned her Queen of heaven and earth — Queen of Angels, Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, all Saints, Families, and Peace, as we proclaim in the Litany of Loreto — is so that she may first share in the glory and heavenly reign and work of the blessed Fruit of her womb.
• There are two grounds for Mary’s queenship. The first is her maternity. Isaiah in today’s first reading prophesied that the child to be born to us would have from David’s throne a vast dominion, and as a result of his reign, the people in darkness would see a wonderful light. We see that fulfillment in the Gospel, when that “child to be born for us” would be “called holy, the Son of God” and “Son of the Most High.” The Archangel says he would simultaneously receive “the throne of David his father and rule over the house of Jacob forever and of whose kingdom there would be no end.” Our Lady would give to the light in Bethlehem the Light of the World so that all those in the darkness of despair and even death would see the greatest light of all. We know that in most realms the mother of the King is traditionally called Queen and in many of them has some real authority. Mary would share in her Son’s authority. And since his reign is eternal, so would be her queenship. She would exercise her maternal queenship, for example, in Cana of Galilee, interceding with confidence. And at the end of her life on earth, Jesus took her up to heaven so that she could continue that work. At St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome, in its beautiful 13th century apse mosaic, Jesus is depicted crowning Mary while the two of them were seated on Jesus’ throne. With his right hand, Jesus is placing a crown on Mary’s head; with his left, he has an open book with the words that describe what he was in fact doing: “Veni, electa, ponam te super thronum meum,” “Come, chosen one, so that I may place you on my throne.” Jesus once sat on Mary’s lap as the throne on which he reigned as an infant king of heaven and earth. At the end of her life, Jesus took her and sat her on his throne.
• This humble Nazarene teenager, growing up in simple circumstances in a place where Nathaniel would later wonder whether any good could come, is now the queen of the universe. As we prayed in Psalm 113, the Lord indeed raises up the lowly to seat them with princes. As Mary prayed in her Magnificat, that’s because the Lord casts down the mighty, exalts the humble, and never ceases to do great things for her for which all generations would call her blessed. She is the response to question in today’s Psalm, “Who is like the Lord, our God, who is enthroned on high and looks upon the heavens and the earth below?” She is the foremost image of God, filled with God from the first moment of her conception. And as we prayed a week ago on the Assumption, the Queen stands at his right hand arrayed in gold. She is, as Revelation attests, the “woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.”
• But her maternity is only the first way she has been conformed to her Son, Christ the King, assumed into have and crowned. The second is her share in Jesus’ ongoing mission and work. Christ came into the world not to be served but to serve. For him to reign is to serve. And so Mary, as ancilla Domini or handmaid of the Lord, now shares in that reign through service. Her maternal service to him and to us is the glory of her royal exaltation, as she cooperates in the birth and growth of divine life in all those whom, reigning on Calvary, her Son entrusted to her as her children. To be Queen is not just a title or honor, but an office, sharing in her Son’s love and responsibility for the world.
• For us to venerate her aright on this feast, which we ponder in the fifth glorious mystery every Sunday and Wednesday, is to allow her to live out for us her queenship, seeking to serve us, to love us, to help us in our needs. We turn to her in prayer under the title of queen, which is a vocative of trust, joy and love. In the Salve Regina, we hail her as our Holy Queen, mother of mercy, life, sweetness and hope, asking her to hear our sighs, to turn her merciful eyes toward us, and to show us her Son. We praise her in the Ave, Regina Caelorum, as queen of angels, as the root and gate from whom Christ the light of the world entered the human race, and to pray for us to Christ. In the Easter chant of Regina Caeli, we rejoice with her at the resurrection of the Son she merited to bear and ask God the Father through her prayers to obtain the joy of everlasting life. We turn to her because we know she is simultaneously close to her Son, seated on his throne, but also close to us. Her coronation is, Pope Pius XII said when he established this feast, the “climax” to all our filial devotions to Mary. But Pius XII wanted us likewise on this feast to make a commitment to her, as she lives from heaven her regal commitment to us. In his encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam at the end of the Marian year of 1954, celebrating the centenary of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, he wanted the Church on her Coronation to renew its consecration to her, to respond to her maternal intercession with filial entrustment, so that she could help us, in turn, be fully conformed to her Son in this world and forever, to allow our whole life, like hers, to develop according to God’s word. We renew — or make for the first time — that entrustment today.
• What Mary is praying for is ultimately for us to live a truly Eucharistic life in conformity to her Son. Just as she was umbilically connected to the Blessed Fruit of her womb, she wants to help us to unite everything we are and have to Jesus. She wants to help us become like her Son, the Lord, our God, who is enthroned on high and looks upon the heavens and the earth below. Her Annunciation is in a sense recapitulated at every Mass when the incarnation that happened in her womb is perpetuated on this altar and we receive within us the same King she bore in her womb and seated on her lap. At every Mass, she participates as Queen, praying that through our Holy Communion, we may become united with all our mind, heart, soul and strength to her Son, who humbly desires to take up his throne within us. Her child born for us, who is called holy, the Son of God, who brings light to all in darkness, desires — as does his mother — that we will allow him to help make us holy from the inside, so that, with Mary, we, too, may one day be exalted to share with Mary his eternal kingdom and reign of love. That’s what we celebrate on the feast of the Coronation. That’s what Mary, as our mother and the handmaid of the Lord, is praying be accomplished in us. That’s why we entrust ourselves to her with confidence anew today. This is what we hope to celebrate with all the saints forever in heaven. Hail Holy Queen, enthroned above, pray for us!

The readings for this Mass were: 

Reading 1

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