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Our Remarkable Queen in Heaven

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by Monsignor Charles M. Mangan
©Catholic Online 2004

The great Dominican theologian Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, in his valuable treatise entitled "The Mother of The Savior and Our Interior Life (Dublin: Golden Eagle Books Limited, 1948), tackled the alluring subject of Blessed Mary's Queenship. In what way, he asked, is Our Lady Queen?

Jesus Christ is King of all human persons and all creatures, including the Angels (both good and fallen) because: A.) His Sacred Humanity is joined to the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity; B.) He has the fullness of grace in His soul; C.) He won victory over Satan, sin and death.

Thanks to Jesus and Mary's stunning cooperation with Him here on earth, Mary possesses authority and power and, hence, is Queen. Father Garrigou-Lagrange, whose most famous pupil was a brilliant and prayerful young Polish priest named Karol Josef Wojtyla (we know him best as Pope John Paul II), wrote that Mary's Queenship may be seen in part as follows.

1. As the Mother of God, Our Lady shares in the dignity of her Divine Son. She would not be the Mother of the Lord without Him. As Jesus is the King, Mary is the Queen who shares in Christ's universal Kingship. "Our Blessed Lord owes it to Himself to recognize His Mother's title in gratitude." (page 235)

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2. Jesus is the King of the Universe "by His fullness of grace and by the victory which He won over Satan and sin by His Humanity and His obedience unto death . . . But Mary was associated with His victory over Satan, sin, and death by her union with Him in His humiliations and sufferings. She is therefore really associated with Him in His Kingship." (ibid.)

Since Jesus is our true and only King, He has many powers: to establish the New Law that is a fulfillment of the Old Law; to propose revealed truths; to grant sanctifying grace and the virtues to souls; to judge the living and the dead.

Due to her Queenship, Mary has various roles: to distribute the graces that Christ won for us by His salvific Death on Calvary; to give good example of the living out of the virtues.

Father Garrigou-Lagrange asserted: "Mary has a radical right to universal Queenship by the fact of her Divine Motherhood, but the divine plan was that she should merit it also by her union with her suffering Son, and that she should not exercise it fully before being crowned Queen of all creation in Heaven. Her royalty is spiritual and supernatural rather than temporal and natural, though it extends in a secondary way to temporal affairs considered in their relation to salvation and sanctification." (page 236)

Our Lady as Queen has a specific relationship to each "division" of the Church--the Church Triumphant in Paradise, the Church Militant on earth, and the Church Suffering in Purgatory. In fact, the Madonna's Queenship "extends to the demons too who are obliged to recognize her power, for she can make their temptation (power to tempt human persons) cease, can save souls from their snares, and can repulse their attacks." (page 237)

It is clear to us that the Queenship of Mary the Mother of God is universal for, as Father Garrigou-Lagrange contended: "There is no region to which it does not extend in some way." (ibid.)

O Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth, Possessor of the Universal Queenship for the Eternal Glory of God and the Everlasting Salvation of Souls, pray for us!