REFLECTION FOR THE TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (YEAR C), Week beginning 28TH AUGUST 2022
The Queenship of Our Lady (August 22nd) is 7 days after the great solemn celebration of her Assumption, body and soul, into Heaven (August 15th). (They are the final two decades of the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary).
As their Queen, Mary is far higher than all the saints. She alone, in the history of humankind, was free from the mark of Original Sin passed down from Adam & Eve. She is the glory of all the saints rejoicing eternally in her presence.
She is also Queen to all the Angels – they who have never lived on earth but who are always in God’s Presence, and who equally venerate her as the highest honour of the human race.
Queen she is also to the whole of humankind in its history. In her Immaculate Conception, she was especially chosen by God to be the Mother of His Only Begotten Son. Thus, there came the greatest of all possible events – the Incarnation – God becoming human for our Salvation and Redemption. This would be the final and greatest of all the covenants given by God – that of the Precious Saving Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Through the Paschal Mystery (= His Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension), Jesus Christ is King – the great feast celebrated on the final Sunday of the Church’s year. It is by virtue of this, His triumph, that He has won from God the Father the right for His Mother to receive the title Queen. (Just as He is the Final ‘Adam’ – the Last Man or New Man, so she is the New Eve).
In the great prayer, the “Hail, Holy Queen” (the ‘Salve Regina’), we address her as Mother of Mercy, craving her intercession as children of Eve, living in exile for a while in a valley of tears. As the Handmaid of the Holy Spirit, she is best placed to show us how to engage with the Holy Spirit, as we journey onwards to God.
Good Shepherd Catholic Church 