13/08/2026
Weekend & Weekday Masses at Mansfield Catholic Parish
Saturday 15th August 9.15am Mass of the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary at St Francis Xavier's Mansfield.
Saturday 15th August 6pm Mass at Mansfield
6.30pm Mount Buller
Sunday 16th August-Masses-9am Mansfield & 5pm Bonnie Doon
4pm High Country Vineyard Church Service - Mansfield
Monday: 8.45am Rosary/Chaplet 9.15am St Mary’s School Mass
Assumption of Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary
Davidic Kingdom
In the Davidic monarchy, the queen-mother, or gevirah (“lady” feminine form of gevir “lord”) played an important role. This was the kings' way of fulfilling the Commandment to honour their mothers. This tradition is consistent with God's command “Honour you father and mother” (Ex 20:12). The king was obliged to keep all the commandments as an example to the people (Dt 17:18-20). This included the one on honouring one's parents. He could not honour his father, who was dead, so he honoured his mother by enthroning her next to him and giving her a share in his reign.
Each time the Bible records a king of Judah, it mentions his mother because she was the gevirah, and so had a special place in his court. The prophet Jeremiah sends a warning to both the king and his mother (Jer 13:18), and the Babylonians took both King Jeconiah and his mother away into captivity (2 Kings 24:15; Jer 29:2). In the Davidic kingdom, it was the mother of the king who ruled as queen, not the king’s wife. Mary’s Assumption and Queenship has been expressed in the Church’s Tradition and magisterial pronouncements throughout the centuries. Early Church Father Origen viewed Elizabeth’s greeting Mary with words “mother of my Lord” as honouring her with royal dignity.
Gospel of Matthew
Matthew mentions “the child and his mother” (Matthew 1:18; 2:11, 13, 14, 20, 21) five times in chapter two alone. This constant mentioning could draw attention to Mary’s association with her royal son that recalls the Old Testament queen mother tradition. “The child and his mother” recurrence has “a Davidic resonance” that brings to mind the way the Book of Kings repeatedly introduces each new Davidic king alongside the queen mother.
Jesus is the Son of David, the rightful heir to King David's throne. He has exalted the Davidic dynasty into heaven itself, thus making it a truly everlasting kingdom (Ps 89:35-37). And, like His earthly forefathers, He has enthroned His Mother, Mary, at His right hand as the gevirah of the Kingdom of heaven. The Bible says that if we suffer for Jesus' sake, we will reign with Him (2 Timothy 2:12). As she watched her dear Son dying, Mary surely suffered a great deal (John 19:25) and she reigns with Him now in heaven.
Mary’s Assumption
In 1950 1st of November through the apostolic constitution Munificenttisimus Deus, declared the Assumption of Mary which was traditionally believed: “Hence the revered Mother of God, from all eternity joined in a hidden way with Jesus Christ……immaculate in her conception, a most perfect virgin in her divine motherhood, the noble associate of the divine Redeemer who has won a complete triumph over sin and its consequences, finally obtained, as the supreme culmination of her privileges, that she should be preserved free from the corruption of the tomb and that, like her own Son, having overcome death, she might be taken up body and soul to the glory of heaven where, as Queen, she sits in splendour at the right hand of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages…….We pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”
Fr George Feliciouz
