Our Lady the Queen is Our Lady Queen of Hearts
Why Our Lady Queen of Hearts?
The great champion of Mary, Saint Louis de Montfort (1673-1716), in his inspired work "The Treatise on True Devotion to Mary," said:
"Mary is Queen of Heaven and Earth by grace, as Jesus is King by nature and conquest.
"Since the kingdom of Jesus Christ is mainly in the heart of interior of man, according to scripture "the kingdom of God is among you" (Luke: 17,21), the kingdom of Our Lady is mainly inside man, which means his soul, and it is mainly in souls that She is glorified, as is Her Son, and so with the saints we can call Her Queen of hearts."
The word "heart," in this case, means the soul and, more properly, the mentality of the person which is his way of being, thinking and acting.
Taking this thought one step further, we can say that as the public opinion of a country is an expression of the mentality of its people, Our Lady Queen of Hearts can be understood as meaning Queen of public opinion.
Put all of our work under Our Lady's care
Our Lady's protection is the key to success for any apostolate.
This is seen again and again in the Church: when a religious association is in decline, when our apostolate goes no where, or when a holy mission fails to awaken interest or find roots among the people, the solution and the path to resolve all these difficulties is to place the work under the care of Our Lady.
The most startling example of this is the Crusade preached against the Albigensians. These heretics lived in Albi, Southern France, and they were so hardened that no means were found to change them.
Our Lady revealed to Saint Dominic a devotion to Herself that would make the heretics bend: the Holy Rosary. In fact, with the spreading of the devotion to the Holy Rosary, the Albigensian heresy, which was deeply entrenched in French soil, started to weaken.
A most beautiful invocation of Our Lady
Take the case of devotion to Our Lady in Brazil, the largest Catholic country in the world.
Because of devotion to Our Lady, the Marian Congregations flourished all across the country. In Brazil, in the 20s and 30s, before this accursed combat against devotion to Our Lady, Catholic life was reaching a very high point. All it takes for Catholic life to start to decay is for one form of devotion to Our Lady to decline -- immediately, everything starts to decline.
Where there is devotion to Our Lady, everything flourishes; once this devotion dies, everything declines. Restore devotion to Mary and everything starts to flourish again.
Behind these comments are deep theological reasons. Saint Louis de Montfort shows that since Our Lady has great influence in the spiritual generation of members of the Mystical Body of Christ, She implicitly has great power over souls; She could not work the spiritual generation of a member of the Mystical Body without this power.
Devotion to Mary Most Holy works in souls in a very powerful manner. That is why this devotion produces the most profound conversion, the most surprising changes of soul, and the most signal spiritual graces.
Therefore, Our Lady should be called the Queen of Hearts. It is one of Her most beautiful invocations.
I encourage you to always pray the invocation Our Lady Queen of Hearts before and after every work or mission to gain this special protection from Mary Most Holy.
Our Lady Queen of Hearts, pray for us!
sounds good
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