XII Mystery - Coronation of Mary as queen of heaven and earth

A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.  Revelation 12:1

In his Apostolic Exhortation "Marialis Cultus", Pope Paul VI wrote that the Solemnity of the Assumption is joyfully prolonged in the celebration of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which occurs seven days later. A mother of a king is a queen, the queen mother. It was not an inherited kingship as the son of a king is a king, it was a hard-won queenship, a queenship that hurts.

It was a crown of glory preceded by a crown of thorns, or the prophetic sword of much suffering referred to by old Simeon that Mary had to go through for the sake of her son. Mary's queenship is therefore a queenship by merit, something akin to a Nobel Prize for her good service to humanity.

St. Paul, in one of his letters, talks about athletes who sacrifice themselves with strict diet and exercise only to win a crown that withers. If this happens to them, how much more will it happen to us if we want to win, like Mary, an eternal crown of glory. We must accept and endure the sufferings that come our way.

Mary and the Empress St. Helena
In thinking about what is said in this text, because there is no historical basis for the things we understand to happen in Heaven, I thought of another woman who, like Mary, achieved great heights despite starting very low, and who also like Mary, lived 100% at the service of her son. This is empress St. Helena who lived at the service of her son.

Saint Helena was not born to any noble family in Rome, she was born in Asia Minor and, as her name implies, she was not Roman, but Greek. She married the Roman emperor Constantius Chlorus who went on a military campaign in Asia Minor. Her son is Constantine I who became Roman emperor in York, England, in 306. He conferred on his mother the title of empress. Later, she converted to Christianity, as did her son because of the great influence she had on him.

In her last years of life, she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. At that time Jerusalem was still called Aelia Capitolina, after the troops of Emperor Titus destroyed it. In place of the Holy Sepulchre and Golgotha, they had built a temple to the goddess Venus.

Helena had this temple destroyed and, in its place, built the great Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on the very site where she found the true Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Helena built many other churches, which were later destroyed by the Muslim occupation. The only two that remain standing, and which were the main ones, are the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Many images of St. Helena represent her embracing the cross, the same cross at the foot of which Mary wept for the death of her Son. As Mary rejoiced at the Resurrection of her Son and the end of her suffering, Helena represents the end of the suffering of her son's disciples who, until her and her son Constantine made Christianity the state religion, had suffered Roman persecution and the martyrdom of being eaten by beasts in Roman arenas. Helena is the first Christian empress or queen; Mary is the Queen of queens, the Queen of heaven and earth.

Queen Mother
Salve rainha, Salve rainha, Senhora minha mãe de Jesus (Portuguese Marian Canticle)

Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae, vita dulcedo et spes nostra salve. Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevae.
Ad te suspiramus gementes et flentes, in hac lacrimarum valle. Eja ergo advocata nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte. Et Jesum benedictum fructum ventris tui nobis post hoc exsilium ostende. O clemens, o pia, o dulcis Virgo Maria. (Hail Holy Queen in Latin)

In my student days in England, the Queen Mother of the late Queen Elizabeth II was still living. The Queen Mother was a person much loved by the people. She too was a queen, not because she reigned, but because her husband had been a king. She had the title of queen consort and, at that time, Queen Mother of Elizabeth II.

Mary is the Queen Mother because she is the mother of Christ who is the King of the Universe. The Mother of Christ, head of the Church which is his mystical body, is seated at the right of her Son as the queen adorned in gold of Ophir from Psalm 45:9.

Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae (Hail Queen, Mother of Mercy) – Mary is queen because she is the mother of Jesus, and our queen because she is our spiritual mother, a merciful mother like God the Father. A mother who because she is the flesh of our flesh, totally human, is a bridge to her Son. A "Pontifex maximus" to access her Son because she, like Empress Helena, knows how to access the heart of her Son and obtain from Him, for us, all the graces we need, just as she already did at Cana apparently with his initial opposition.

Queen of angels, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, all the saints, and of peace, as the litany says in her praise. Mary is above all the queen of our hearts where she reigns with her beloved Son.

The Queen Mother in Israel
…at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.  Psalms 45:9

In the biblical episode about King Solomon’s ascension to the throne, we notice the king's reverence for his mother Bathsheba, when she went to visit him as the 1st book of Kings, chapter 2, verse 19, says:

So Bathsheba went to King Solomon, to speak to him on behalf of Adonijah. The king rose to meet her, and bowed down to her; then he sat on his throne, and had a throne brought for the king’s mother, and she sat on his right. 1 Kings 2:19

This attitude of Solomon immediately refers to Psalm 45 quoted above. The Hebrews kept this tradition until the Babylonian exile, when they no longer had kings. From that time onward, one begins to expect the coming of David’s new son, the Messiah. According to tradition, Mary is also from the tribe of Judah, like Joseph, that is, she also belongs by birth to the royal family.

In fact, Angel Gabriel already greeted Mary with the salutation of ‘Hail’, a greeting used for the emperors of Rome. She was destined to be the queen of heaven and earth, so she was already queen of heaven and earth when she accepted to be the mother of God’s only begotten Son, the King of the Universe.

At that very moment, when she conceived the king, she became queen. On the other hand, by being conceived without original sin, Mary was already born predestined to be queen. Mary's immaculate conception makes the blue blood of humanity, created by God without original sin, to flow through her veins. By being conceived without original sin she was already conceived as queen.

‘You are the glory of Jerusalem… you are the great pride of our nation!... you have done great good to Israel, and God is well pleased with it. May the Almighty Lord bless you for ever!’  Judith 15:10

Conclusion – Mary is Queen of Heaven and Earth because she is the mother of Christ, King of the Universe. Her coronation is something akin to a Nobel Prize for her services rendered for the salvation of mankind.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

XI Mystery: The Dormition and Assumption of Mary

"My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generation will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name…’  Luke 1:47-55

Just as Mary initiated Jesus into this world and took him everywhere when he was small and launched him into public life before his time at the wedding in Cana, so now it is Jesus who takes her to Heaven in a glorious body like His own and introduces her to His world where He is Lord of the Universe.

The exaltation of the humble servant of Zion
All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.  Matthew 23:12 – The Assumption of Mary is the exaltation of the humble that the gospel speaks of, and in this case, it is of a humble servant of Zion whom the Lord had already set his eyes on before her birth, thus making her conception immaculate.

With humility she endured the vexation of finding herself pregnant without being able to explain the origin of her pregnancy; with humility she endured her son's sufferings when he began to encounter opposition from the leaders of Israel; with humility and abasement she endured his death; now, by merit she is exalted and ascends to Heaven to be always with the One she begot, the firstborn Son of God.

Assumption and Dormition are the same thing. The East celebrates it more as Dormition, while the West more as Assumption. In my homeland, it is celebrated more as Dormition. Since I was a child, my village has celebrated Dormition with a skiff or coffin where Our Lady is found lying inside. On August 15th, this skiff is placed where the coffin of the dead is usually placed for the funeral Mass. Thus, the Mass of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven is like a funeral Mass with the body present.

History of the dogma of the Assumption
By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, 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.  Munificentissimus Deus, Pius XII November 1, 1950

The declaration of the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body, and soul, into Heaven is quite recent. However, this and all other dogmas have a long history of almost 2000 years of theological reflection, popular piety, and spirituality, and in some cases, even heavenly confirmation, as with the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in the Lourdes apparitions.

The first allusion to Mary's passage from this world into Heaven took place in the 4th century; in 377, Epiphanius of Salamis stated that no one knew whether Mary had died. The oldest account is the so-called "The Book of Mary's Rest", of which there is only an Ethiopic Coptic translation, understood to be from the 4th century, although it may well have been from the 3rd century.

Our Lady’s Assumption into Heaven also appears in the book "De Transitu Virginis", a work attributed to St. Melito of Sardis in late 5th century. This book tells us that the Apostles came carried on white clouds, each from the city where he was at the time, to watch the Dormition of Mary. This story is continued centuries later, with an appendix according to which Thomas, as usual, did not attend this funeral of Our Lady, and when he arrived later, they had the tomb opened, which they found was empty.

Where this Assumption or Dormition took place is not known, some say in Jerusalem, others say in Ephesus where, according to tradition, Mary lived the last years of her life with St. John, in the well-known "House of Mary" that is still there today and is open to visitors.

With her Assumption into Heaven, Mary fulfills what St. Irenaeus said: God became man so that man might become God. This is how the dream of Eve, who wanted to be God, is fulfilled. Mary became like God by being a mother. Through obedience, being part of God's intimate family is open to all of us: "my mother and my brothers are those who hear my Word and put it into practice".

Assumption as union with God
"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you," St. Augustine.

We are in the world, but we are not of the world. This subtle difference in the meaning of the verb to be is expressed in Portuguese by two different verbs. We are (estar) in the world, but we are (ser) from Heaven, we are from God, from where we came and to where we will return. The best way to be in the world then is to live detached, and we only achieve this way of being in the world if we set our priorities right, that is, if God is the one we love the most, both in theory and in practice.

I will always remember my experience of crossing the fast-flowing rivers in Ethiopia: one should not look at the water that is flowing very fast, but rather look at the riverbank that is not moving. The first time I had to cross one of these great rivers, I started looking at the water and started becoming nauseous, dazed and in danger of being swept away by the current. Upon seeing this, the young men accompanying me shouted, "Abba, don't look at the water, but look at the riverbank."

This can be a metaphor for our life. Let our eyes be fixed not on what moves which is temporal and fleeting, but on what does not move, that is, on God who does not change and is eternal, so that we are not carried away by the current of the present, so that we will not let ourselves be inebriated by current pleasure nor despair by current pain. We will only cross the river of life well if we keep our eyes fixed on God in Heaven. If not, we will be swept away by the current, whatever the trend, fashion, power, wealth, the things of the world.

In search of his own identity, a salt doll traveled thousands of kilometers across a desert, until he finally reached the sea. Fascinated by the strange, moving mass, completely different from anything he had ever seen, he asked:
-Who are you?
 With a smile, the sea replied:
-I am the sea.
-But what is the sea? asked the doll.
-Come, touch me and you will find out.
The salt doll put his foot in the water and immediately it disappeared.
-What did you do? he asked, startled.
-To know me, you must give yourself to me, replied to the sea.
Then the salt doll went deeper into the sea and, before a wave completely covered him, he said with a sigh:
-I finally know who I am. Tony De Mello

If we want to get to know God already here in this life, we must get involved. We cannot know God without getting involved. It cannot be a cold knowledge in which we do not get ourselves involved, as if we were doing that oxygen experiment with algae and sun where we with our knowledge are only observing and recording.

In this case, we are not directly involved, but with God, if we are to know Him, we must love Him. The same thing happens when we begin to know a person who is a stranger to us: little by little we begin to like that person not least because knowledge between people and about people is affective; and so, it is with God. Only affective knowledge is effective, that is, it is real and has effect.

Assumption as Levitation
An interesting experience to have in New York, if we visit the NASA museum, is the experience of weightlessness: it is like flying, over there even French fries and water droplets can fly. Flying has always been the dream of every human being; in fact, it seems to be a frequent recurring dream of many of us. I personally dream often that I am flying.

The Assumption is a spiritual experience that is felt by those who detach themselves from the things and affections of this world. The saints levitated because their ties to this earth were few. Saint Teresa of Avila said, "I live without living in me, and I expect a life so high, that I die because I do not die..." Assumption is like levitation, when we let go of what binds us to this world, the affections for temporal goods and even for people.

The mystery of the Incarnation and the emancipation of women
If a particular rat poison is potent, that is, if its effect, the death of the rat is too close to the cause, that is, the ingestion of the poison, then other rats easily associate the death of a mate with the poison and the poison is never touched again. Hence the best poison for mice is an anticoagulant, death only happens if the mouse is wounded in an accident or fights another mate; in this way, the cause is far from the effect so the mouse cannot make the association.  

In the early days of humanity, when our intelligence did not surpass that of a mouse today, men still did not know where babies came from, because the effect, that is, birth was separated from the cause, that is, the sexual act, for too long, nine months.

At this time the woman, and only she, was the future and hope of the human species, she brought forth new beings into the world. As the result, the first deity to be worshipped was a goddess: the goddess of earth and female fertility. Earth is still today a feminine term in almost all languages. It was also the woman who invented agriculture. Because the woman was regarded as the origin of life, god was conceived in feminine form at that time.

When the connection between coitus and the birth of a baby was established, the woman gradually lost all social prestige. To the principle of the female deity was added the male consort. Over time, the male consort expelled the goddess from heaven, and he was left to rule alone. The woman is now only the ground that the man works on and dominates, God sends the rain like the man sows the semen, the whole new being is contained in the man’s semen, the woman is only the receptacle.

In this new concept of God, Yahweh is the king and the lord, and the kings at that time did not have a queen, but a harem of concubines. The woman was then treated like the earth in agriculture, "Be fruitful and multiply, rule the earth...” and the woman disappeared from the social scene and from the heaven inhabited by a king, almighty and loner God. The woman was the last to be created and the first to sin.

Christianity is an emancipating factor for women. Let us see, in non-Christian societies women are debased and mistreated. Even today, in Africa, the woman is the one who works, the man does nothing; the woman is sold, forced to marry at the age of 15 to middle-aged men. In Japan, she serves as a dish in restaurants, even today. In Asia, it is in the Philippines that women are most emancipated. Muslims circumcise the woman so that she never has sexual pleasure.

The Annunciation was the beginning of this emancipation of women. God, to come into the world, needed a woman, not a man. And it was not only the womb that He used; it was also the ovum. With Mary's life, the woman returned to Heaven in Assumption, as the mother of God’s only begotten Son.

No man was born without original sin, only her; God did not need the man's sperm, but the woman's egg. Mary points to the feminine face of God, just as Jesus of Nazareth, her Son, points to the masculine face of God.

Conclusion – The Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven is the logical outcome of Mary’s life on earth. Conceived without original sin, she gave birth to the author of life, becoming the mother of God. Mary brings Jesus into the world, and Jesus brings his mother into Heaven.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC