Queen of the world and of peace

Treasures of Our Faith with Deacon Richard Vehige

Today, August 22, as our Church celebrates the Memorial of the Queenship of Mary we are invited to reflect on a passage from the letter of the apostle Paul to the Galatians (3:22 – – 4:7), entitled “Through faith we are the sons and heirs of God”. Our treasure, which follows, is from a homily by Saint Amadeus of Lausanne, Bishop.

Pope Pius XII established this feast in 1954. Having declared the dogma of the Assumption, that “the Immaculate Mother of God . . . was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory,” he then established the feast of her Queenship. Eventually, the date for this feast was set for the octave (8th day) after the Solemnity of the Assumption, that is, August 22nd each year. Though this dogma of the Church was established relatively recently, Mary’s Queenship has its roots in sacred Scripture. At the Annunciation, in the very moment Mary became a mother as she was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, she also became a queen. The Archangel Gabriel tells Mary that her Son will sit on “the throne of his ancestor David” and that “He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Lk 1:32-33). Since Jesus is a king, and since He is conceived in the womb of Mary, and since in Israel the mother of a king was always a queen, Mary truly became a queen at the first joyful mystery of the rosary, the Annunciation.

Bishop and prominent official in the court of Savoy and Burgundy. Amadeus was a member of the royal family of Franconia, the son of Blessed Amadeus of Clermont, born in the castle of Chatte, Dauphine, France. He was educated at Bonnevaux and then at Cluny, where his father had become a monk. While serving in the household of King Henry V, Amadeus entered Clairvaux in 1124, becoming a Cistercian. He became abbot of Ilautecombe Savoy in 1139, and the bishop of Lausanne in 1144. He is best remembered for his Eight Homilies in the Praise of Mary.

The Galatians to whom the letter is addressed were Paul’s converts, most likely among the descendants of Celts who had invaded western and central Asia Minor in the third century B.C. and had settled in the territory around Ancyra (modern Ankara, Turkey). Paul had passed through this area on his second missionary journey and again on his third.