Daily Reflections

Isaiah 7:14; 8:10; Luke 1:30, 31

Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
– and His name shall be called  Emmanuel,
Because God is with us.

Fear not, Mary;
Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb,and shalt bring forth a son;.
– and His name shall be called  Emmanuel,
Because God is with us.

The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Feast of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Traditional)

Ss. Timotheus, Hippolytus, and Symphorian, Martyrs (Traditional)

Today is traditionally the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and though not many know it, the Church dedicates the entire month of August to Our Lady under this title. As we know from devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, honouring the Immaculate Heart is honouring of the love of Our Lady. We would like to give some small tribute to her, during this, her 30 Days, especially since in our current culture and society, even within the Catholic Church, she is misunderstood by so many – and even attacked and calumniated. How someone so good, so loved by Our LORD Jesus Christ, can be despised, is beyond comprehending!

“The Holy Virgin is, by her motherhood, queen of the whole universe. For, if she is a mother, she is naturally heiress of the entire patrimony of the Son” (Father Edouard Hugon, o.p.). Today’s feast reminds us that we can turn to Mary in every need, counting on her intercession and mediation. Saint Maximilian Kolbe wrote that Mary “has a right to be loved as Queen of all hearts so that through her, hearts would be cleansed and themselves become immaculate, similar and like unto her own heart, and so worthy of union with God”. 

QUEENSHIP OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Queenship of Mary invites us to love Christ by loving and serving His Mother.

Mary began her journey along the road to perfection at a height, to which of the scenes, arrived only at the end of a long life of saintliness. And all of the children of Adam original sin prevented the divine generosity from having a free course. But Mary was created immaculate, and therefore, the Grace of God streamed into her soul without check or hindrance. Her sinlessness, her heavenly purity, directed every action, every movement to God. Her heart was the pattern and model of all virtues, of all purity. “Blessed are the pure in heart!”

Devotion to Mary’s Heart always flourished in the Church, but its first official approval did not come till the beginning of the 19th century, when Pius VI approved, for certain religious organizations, a feast for the Host Pure Heart of Mary. The devotion was approved for the universal Church when Pius XII dedicated all mankind to the Heart of Mary in December, 1942, following this by the institution of the new Feast of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Venerable Pius XII established this feast in 1954. But Mary’s queenship has roots in Scripture. At the Annunciation, Gabriel announced that Mary’s Son would receive the throne of David and rule forever. At the Visitation, Elizabeth calls Mary “mother of my LORD.” As in all the mysteries of Mary’s life, Mary is closely associated with Jesus: Her queenship is a share in Jesus’ Kingship. We can also recall that in the Old Testament the mother of the king has great influence in court.

In the fourth century Saint Ephrem called Mary “Lady” and “Queen” and Church fathers and doctors continued to use the title. Hymns of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries address Mary as queen: “Hail, Holy Queen,” “Hail, Queen of Heaven,” “Queen of Heaven.” The Dominican rosary and the Franciscan crown as well as numerous invocations in Mary’s litany celebrate her Queenship.

The Feast is a logical follow-up to the Assumption and is now celebrated on the octave day of that feast. In his encyclical To the Queen of Heaven, Venerable Pius XII points out that Mary deserves the title because she is Mother of God, because she is closely associated as the New Eve with Jesus’ redemptive work, because of her preeminent perfection and because of her intercessory power.

From a homily by Saint Amadeus of Lausanne, Bishop
(Hom. 7: SC 72, 188, 190, 192, 200)

Queen of the World and of Peace

Observe how fitting it was that even before her Assumption the name of Mary shone forth wondrously throughout the world. Her fame spread everywhere even before she was raised above the heavens in her magnificence. Because of the honour due her Son, it was indeed fitting for the Virgin Mother to have first ruled upon earth and then be raised up to Heaven in glory. It was fitting that her fame be spread in this world below, so that she might enter the heights of Heaven on overwhelming blessedness. Just as she was borne from virtue to virtue by the Spirit of the LORD, she was transported from earthly renown to heavenly brightness.

So it was that she began to taste the fruits of her future reign while still in the flesh. At one moment she withdrew to God in ecstasy; at the next she would bend down to her neighbours with indescribable love. In Heaven angels served her, while here on earth she was venerated by the service of men. Gabriel and the angels waited upon her in Heaven. The virgin John, rejoicing that the Virgin Mother was entrusted to him at the Cross, cared for her with the other apostles here below. The angels rejoiced to see their queen; the apostles rejoiced to see their lady, and both obeyed her with loving devotion.

Dwelling in the loftiest citadel of virtue, like a sea of divine grace or an unfathomable source of love that has everywhere overflowed its banks, she poured forth her bountiful waters on trusting and thirsting souls. Able to preserve both flesh and spirit from death she bestowed health-giving salve on bodies and souls. Has anyone ever come away from her troubled or saddened or ignorant of the heavenly mysteries? Who has not returned to everyday life gladdened and joyful because his request had been granted by the Mother of God?

She is a bride, so gentle and affectionate, and the mother of the only true Bridegroom. In her abundant goodness she has channeled the spring of reason’s garden, the well of living and life-giving waters that pour forth in a rushing stream from divine Lebanon and flow down from Mount Zion until they surround the shores of every far-flung nation. With Divine assistance she has redirected these waters and made them into streams of peace and pools of grace. Therefore, when the Virgin of virgins was led forth by God and her Son, the King of kings, amid the company of exulting angels and rejoicing archangels, with the heavens ringing with praise, the prophecy of the Psalmist was fulfilled, in which he said to the LORD: At your Right Hand stands the queen, clothed in gold of Ophir.

DAILY MEDITATION 

The heart is described by our Blessed Saviour as the seat of our disorderly passions; and it is recognized by all as the symbol of our best and holiest feelings. If, then, we wish to purify it from all disorder, and offer it a pleasing sacrifice to God – if we are prepared to comply with the obligation which He has imposed on us, of giving Him our heart – we cannot do better than consecrate it to Mary, and endeavour to assimilate it to her Heart, which is so closely united with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

O Sacred and Immaculate Heart of Mary ever virgin!  Heart most holy, most pure, most noble, most august, and most perfect which the omnipotence of God has formed in a pure creature! Exhaustless source of goodness, in mildness, of mercy and of love! Model of all virtues; perfect image of the adorable Heart of Jesus! Heart, which didst always burned with the most ardent charity, which didst love God more than the seraphim – more than the angels and the saints! O Heart of the Mother of the Redeemer, which hast so lively a sense of our miseries, which didst suffer so much for our salvation, which hast loved us with such ardent love, and which claimest, by so many titles, the respect, love, and veneration of all creatures– vouchsafe to accept my unworthy homage. Prostrate before thee, Sacred Heart of Mary, I honour thee with the most profound respect of which I am capable. I thank thee for the sentiments of mercy and of love with which thou has been so often moved at the sight of my miseries. I return thee thanks for all the benefits which thy maternal bounty has procured for me. I unite myself with all pure souls, who find their delight in honouring, praising, and loving thee.

O most amiable heart! Thou shall be henceforward, after the Heart of Jesus, the object of my veneration, of my love, and of my devotion. By thee will I approach my Saviour; and by thee shall I receive His graces and mercies. Thou wilt be my refuge in affliction, my consolation in suffering, and my assistance in all my necessities. I will learn from thee purity, humidity, and obedience: and derive from thee love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, my LORD and Master. Amen.

Bishop Charles H Colton [died 1915] – American bishop of Buffalo, New York, and ardent devotee of our Lady.

Queen of Heaven

No matter how much the world talks about democracy, there is that in the human heart which loves the idea of royalty. We experience this as we reach out towards the lovely memorial of the Queenship of Our Lady, set so beautifully by Holy Church on the octave day of her Assumption into heaven. It is as though our great teacher, Holy Mother Church, is saying, “yes, we have had this great solemnity. She has been assumed into heaven, whose Queen she is, but she is still Queen on earth. Now let us celebrate her Queenship, still perduring, always to perdure upon the earth.” The Queen in heaven crowned by her Son, the Queen of the angels, is still the one who walked the homely paths of earth, the Queen of our lives, the Queen who understands all our needs, all our sufferings, all our labours, all our frustrations….

Who has ever exercised greater expansiveness of spirit? One called to be the Mother of God needs to break through the barriers of thought, of human consideration. This is much too big for any human being to absorb, to understand. How can a woman, a human creature, be the Mother of the Divine Son? She had to allow her mind to be expanded by God…. Allowing God to expand her spirit in love…she could reply with all tenderness, I am the handmaid of the Lord. After having allowed God to expand her spirit, she did not say, “Behold, here I am, willing to be the Mother of God.” Rather, she said, Behold, here I am, the handmaid, the one who is least and last, the one waiting on the next turn of the hand of God, the next wave of his divine hand, so to speak. He was to wave her down many avenues in her long and suffering life. We see in her the tender response of an expanded spirit flowing out of humility, whereas the proud mind is always constricted, and the proud heart is always harsh…. Our little spirits can become so closed in. We see what is before us, and it can seem impossible. Sometimes it can seem onerous or far too demanding. Yet love leads us to open ourselves to God’s divine action, to the expansion of spirit that he alone can accomplish within us.

Mother Mary Francis of Our Lady, p.c.c.

Mother Mary Francis († 2006) was abbess of the Poor Clare Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Roswell, New Mexico. [From Cause of Our Joy: Walking Day by Day with Our Lady.

STS. TIMOTHEUS, HIPPOLYTUS AND SYMPHORIAN, MARTYRS

St. Timotheus of Antioch was martyred at Rome under Maximian in the fourth century. He was buried in a special grave in the gardens of Theona, not far from the cemetery of Saint Paul. This was a recognition of the fact that she bore the same name as the great disciple of Saint Paul. 

Saint Hippolytus, Bishop, [not the rival of Pope Callixtus] was a martyr of Porto, . His history is wrapped in obscurity.

Saint Symphorian is a celebrated martyr of Autun, beheaded under the reign of Aurelian about 180. When he was being led to martyrdom his pious mother called to him: “My son, my son, look up to Heaven, and behold Him who reigns there. You are not being led to death, but to a better life.“

Revelation 12:1; Psalm 45:10b

A great sign appeared in the heavens:
a woman clothed with the sun,
with the moon under her feet,
– and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.

The queen, clothed in cloth of gold, stood on Your right hand.
– And upon her head a crown of twelve stars.