08/22/2022
From Bishop Rake:
Today is the commemoration of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Teachings about the role of the Mother of Jesus Christ in God's salvific act are widely misunderstood by people both in and outside of the Catholic Church. This is because the role of Jesus Christ himself in the Christian faith is often misunderstood, misinterpreted, malformed, or misused.
Christianity is a revealed religions: those religions based upon a set revelation from the Divine to a person or group of people; as opposed to evolved religions, which are built upon the successive wisdom of many generations of believers. Christianity is unusual as a religion in a general sense because of its teaching regarding Deicide. Many beliefs over the millennia have involved the death of a god or gods as a part of cosmogony (myths regarding the creation of the universe) or as the result of marriage or wars among deities.
However, Christianity is unusual in that the death of its God was God's plan; not to create the cosmos or solve a problem, but to transform human beings and collect them into Himself. In other words, Christianity does not teach that we must die for love of our god, but that our god died for love of us. In religious anthropology, that's a unique notion.
However, Christianity is unusual in another way, as well. Its entire core is not based upon the sayings or deeds of a holy person. This is what most people don't understand. Our faith is based, not on the things Jesus did, but on WHO HE WAS. Our faith is grounded in the person of Jesus Christ, his identity, his essence. His teachings, sayings, morality, ideas, actions, biography, desires, wants, choices, death--none of that would be of any consequence but for the fact of who he constantly claimed to be and offered continuous proofs of: God Incarnate. Without his divine nature, entangled as it was with the Godhead, he would have been another prophet; a religious minority who was the victim of capital punishment.
When you lose the "who he was" script of the Christian narrative, then you lose the necessity of the Marian Dogmas (teachings about the Virgin Mary). The fact that Jesus Christ was God is what causes us to look at the woman who conceived him; carried him in her womb for 9 months; gave birth to him; breastfed him; changed his diapers; kept him safe and loved; taught him to speak; rocked him to sleep; carried him about; gave him his DNA, flesh, blood, brain, and bone.
God, as a helpless, speechless, fragile infant, handed himself over to one woman. This is why Mary is so important and why the teachings surrounding her are so vital to a cohesive belief in Christ. As Aquinas said, "To fall into heresy about Mary is to fall into heresy about Christ."
For example, if Jesus was a lamb without blemish and sinless in his entire person, then how could he take flesh from a sinful woman? The Immaculate Conception explains that God prepared Mary, using the future sacrifice of Jesus, to clothe the Son in flesh without sin. There is scriptural proof for this, but it is also a logical response to the question: if Jesus was God and conceived inside of a regular person, then wasn't he subject to sin and Satan while he was inside?
(There are more subtle arguments here, but I'm simplifying for nontheologians).
Of all of the doctrines regarding Mary, her Queenship is the easiest to explain and understand. The church did not crown Mary. People did not crown Mary. Christ did when, as King, he was born of her.
In Europe, the Queen is the King's wife. In the Ancient Near East, however, the Queen was the King's Mother. This is because the King often had hundreds of wives, all of them vying to have their sons crowned the successor so they could, in turn, become Queen Mother--just as Bathsheba managed to cunningly do with her son, Solomon, even though Solomon was not King David's oldest son.
The Queen had a great deal of authority in the Kingdom and tremendous sway with her son, the King. When in need of something from the King, people would go to the Queen (mother), who held court and listened to the problems of the people. She would judge what to bring to her son and what not to. She was their intercessor--often a kindly one, compared to the King--and her reign lasted until she or her son died. (c.f. 1 Kings 2:13).
The Queen was the "Mother of the Kingdom" and honored as such.
The Blessed Virgin Mary has a Son whose Kingdom has no end and who's Kingship is eternal. She hears the pleas of her children (Revelation 12:17) and she intercedes with us to her Son, who can be swayed by her request because of his love for her (John 2:1-11).
We do not worship her. She is not the Queen of Heaven because she is the power of heaven. She is Queen of Heaven because her Son is King of Heaven. She does not ask for us to pray TO her; we ask her to pray FOR us. She is the Mother of God (Luke 2:41-44). We call her Blessed because God called her Blessed (Luke 2:45).
Mary points us to Christ: "Whatever he says to you, do it." (John 2:5) As Queen of the Kingdom of Heaven, we owe her our respect and love. Think about it: if your best friend's beloved elderly mother lived alone and you visited her, called her, mowed her lawn, drove her to the store: would this hinder your relationship with your friend or enhance it?
Let's ask Our Lady, Our Mother, Our Queen to help us know her Son as well as she did and to aspire to love Him as much as she did.
Hail Mary, Full of Grace, Pray for us!
Amen.
From Bishop Rake:
Today is the commemoration of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Teachings about the role of the Mother of Jesus Christ in God's salvific act are widely misunderstood by people both in and outside of the Catholic Church. This is because the role of Jesus Christ himself in the Christian faith is often misunderstood, misinterpreted, malformed, or misused.
Christianity is a revealed religions: those religions based upon a set revelation from the Divine to a person or group of people; as opposed to evolved religions, which are built upon the successive wisdom of many generations of believers. Christianity is unusual as a religion in a general sense because of its teaching regarding Deicide. Many beliefs over the millennia have involved the death of a god or gods as a part of cosmogony (myths regarding the creation of the universe) or as the result of marriage or wars among deities.
However, Christianity is unusual in that the death of its God was God's plan; not to create the cosmos or solve a problem, but to transform human beings and collect them into Himself. In other words, Christianity does not teach that we must die for love of our god, but that our god died for love of us. In religious anthropology, that's a unique notion.
However, Christianity is unusual in another way, as well. Its entire core is not based upon the sayings or deeds of a holy person. This is what most people don't understand. Our faith is based, not on the things Jesus did, but on WHO HE WAS. Our faith is grounded in the person of Jesus Christ, his identity, his essence. His teachings, sayings, morality, ideas, actions, biography, desires, wants, choices, death--none of that would be of any consequence but for the fact of who he constantly claimed to be and offered continuous proofs of: God Incarnate. Without his divine nature, entangled as it was with the Godhead, he would have been another prophet; a religious minority who was the victim of capital punishment.
When you lose the "who he was" script of the Christian narrative, then you lose the necessity of the Marian Dogmas (teachings about the Virgin Mary). The fact that Jesus Christ was God is what causes us to look at the woman who conceived him; carried him in her womb for 9 months; gave birth to him; breastfed him; changed his diapers; kept him safe and loved; taught him to speak; rocked him to sleep; carried him about; gave him his DNA, flesh, blood, brain, and bone.
God, as a helpless, speechless, fragile infant, handed himself over to one woman. This is why Mary is so important and why the teachings surrounding her are so vital to a cohesive belief in Christ. As Aquinas said, "To fall into heresy about Mary is to fall into heresy about Christ."
For example, if Jesus was a lamb without blemish and sinless in his entire person, then how could he take flesh from a sinful woman? The Immaculate Conception explains that God prepared Mary, using the future sacrifice of Jesus, to clothe the Son in flesh without sin. There is scriptural proof for this, but it is also a logical response to the question: if Jesus was God and conceived inside of a regular person, then wasn't he subject to sin and Satan while he was inside?
(There are more subtle arguments here, but I'm simplifying for nontheologians).
Of all of the doctrines regarding Mary, her Queenship is the easiest to explain and understand. The church did not crown Mary. People did not crown Mary. Christ did when, as King, he was born of her.
In Europe, the Queen is the King's wife. In the Ancient Near East, however, the Queen was the King's Mother. This is because the King often had hundreds of wives, all of them vying to have their sons crowned the successor so they could, in turn, become Queen Mother--just as Bathsheba managed to cunningly do with her son, Solomon, even though Solomon was not King David's oldest son.
The Queen had a great deal of authority in the Kingdom and tremendous sway with her son, the King. When in need of something from the King, people would go to the Queen (mother), who held court and listened to the problems of the people. She would judge what to bring to her son and what not to. She was their intercessor--often a kindly one, compared to the King--and her reign lasted until she or her son died. (c.f. 1 Kings 2:13).
The Queen was the "Mother of the Kingdom" and honored as such.
The Blessed Virgin Mary has a Son whose Kingdom has no end and who's Kingship is eternal. She hears the pleas of her children (Revelation 12:17) and she intercedes with us to her Son, who can be swayed by her request because of his love for her (John 2:1-11).
We do not worship her. She is not the Queen of Heaven because she is the power of heaven. She is Queen of Heaven because her Son is King of Heaven. She does not ask for us to pray TO her; we ask her to pray FOR us. She is the Mother of God (Luke 2:41-44). We call her Blessed because God called her Blessed (Luke 2:45).
Mary points us to Christ: "Whatever he says to you, do it." (John 2:5) As Queen of the Kingdom of Heaven, we owe her our respect and love. Think about it: if your best friend's beloved elderly mother lived alone and you visited her, called her, mowed her lawn, drove her to the store: would this hinder your relationship with your friend or enhance it?
Let's ask Our Lady, Our Mother, Our Queen to help us know her Son as well as she did and to aspire to love Him as much as she did.
Hail Mary, Full of Grace, Pray for us!
Amen.
