While women could inherit queenship by birth in a few of the northern European nations like Britain, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, the Mediterrean and Eastern European nations tended to view queenship as a duty derived from a relationship rather than an honor inherited by birth. For most of the Christian world, a woman derived her royal title, not from any birth right, but from her relationship with her husband, the king, or from her relationship with her son, who might claim a kingship through birth, through victory in war or through popular acclaim. It is in this latter spirit that the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the memorial of the Queenship of Mary each liturgical year. Mary is queen of heaven and earth, not in her own right, but because she is mother of a king, Jesus Christ, the king of heaven and earth through his Divine Sonship and through his victory over Satan.
Although the queenship of Mary had been observed and celebrated as a popular devotion in much of the Catholic world, it was Pius XII who in 1954 in the decree Ad Caeli Reginam raised the devotion to a memorial to be observed by the universal Church each year on the last day of May, a month piously devoted to Mary throughout the Church. Pope Paul VI (who ironically eliminated most liturgical octaves) transferred the feast to its present date, August 22, the octave day of the Solemnity of the Assumption, emphasizing that Mary is indeed a heavenly queen reigning from a celestial throne, secured by her Son, the King of the Universe.
Pope Pius XII in his formal institution of the memorial devoted most of his documentation to an extensive list of fathers of the Church, theologians throughout the centuries and pious souls everywhere who explicitly acknowledged Mary’s queenship. Pius quotes St. Elizabeth, the kinswoman of Mary, who greets her cousin with the regal words, “Whence does the mother of my Lord come to me?” Mary’s noble eminence and exalted station were clearly derived from the royal dignity of her Son, the Lord Jesus. Ancient doctors of the Church like St. Ephraim the Syrian accords Mary a royal title: “Majestic and Heavenly Maid, Lady, Queen, protect and keep me under your wing lest Satan the sower of destruction glory over me, lest my wicked foe be victorious against me.” Pius also quotes phrases from more recent theologians, for example, St. Alphonsus Ligouri: “Because the virgin Mary was raised to such a lofty dignity as to be the mother of the King of kings, it is deservedly and by every right that the Church has honored her with the title of ‘Queen’.”
While Pope Pius rightfully devotes much of his papal decree reviewing the Christian world’s appreciation of Mary as queen throughout the ages, he powerfully teaches as well that Mary fulfills a special role in the devotional life of Christians in every era. Because Mary shared so intimately in the life of Christ here on earth (his birth, his public life, his crucifixion and death, the early Church assemblies), it is fitting that she share now Christ’s heavenly work as Redeemer King. Pius pointedly teaches “Certainly, in the full and strict meaning of the term, only Jesus Christ, the God-Man, is King; but Mary, too, as Mother of the divine Christ, as His associate in the redemption, in his struggle with His enemies and His final victory over them, has a share, though in a limited and analogous way, in His royal dignity. For from her union with Christ she attains a radiant eminence transcending that of any other creature; from her union with Christ she receives the royal right to dispose of the treasures of the Divine Redeemer’s Kingdom; from her union with Christ finally is derived the inexhaustible efficacy of her maternal intercession before the Son and His Father (para.39).”
With great courage but with strong Catholic practice in his favor, Pius clearly taught that Mary “…receives the royal right to dispose of the treasures of the Divine Redeemer’s Kingdom.” And he writes joyfully of “the inexhaustible efficacy of her maternal intercession before the Son and His Father.” So all those rosaries, litanies, novenas and Marian invocations were not idle or in vain. Mary is indeed queen, with ready access to the King, and her power as intercessor in heaven should be acknowledged and availed by all the faithful as integral to God’s plan of salvation. Mary’s queenship is not an idle honor; her queenship is a maternal responsibility. As mother of the King of Kings, Mary has a grave responsibility to continue to assist her Son in his work of redemption. Mary is indeed the believing world’s “most gracious advocate,” and no one “who fled to her protection, implored her help, or sought her intercession, was left unaided.” Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth, pray for us!
