On August 15 we commemorate Our Lady’s Assumption into heaven as the crowned Queen of Heaven and Earth. The feast of the
Queenship of Mary
follows seven days later. We think of her seated next to Christ the King; she shines forth as queen and intercedes for us as mother.
In the Little Consecration Prayer, we in Schoenstatt address her as “My Queen, My Mother.” We offer ourselves entirely to her as queen and mother, trusting in her loving care and omnipotence. We give everything we have and are; we hold nothing back. We long to trust her in all things great and small. She never stops caring, even when she seems very far away. She remains our queen.
Why may we address her as queen? Our father and founder, Father Joseph Kentenich, tells us:
She is queen by right of inheritance … Mary is queen! This title, and the content of this title, have been inherited from Christ and are safeguarded because the eternal, infinite God has planned it this way from all eternity.
She is also queen by right of conquest. If we fully take into account the position of Our Lady in the plan of salvation, we have to admit that she allowed our redemption to cost her dearly. We naturally have to ask ourselves at this point what price she paid for our redemption. Therefore, she also possesses the right to be recognized as queen – Queen of Christendom, Queen of Christians.
And finally, she is queen by right of election. Many of us chose Our Lady to be our queen and mother already in our childhood. Think of our own family! I wonder if there is any other religious family today which has chosen Our Lady so completely to be its “Dominam matrem advocatam, its queen, mother and advocate?” (May 31, 1966, in Our Marian Mission, p. 44)
On this feast may we once again in a special way reconsecrate ourselves to our queen and reflect on the ways she has shown herself to be our queen.