The Queenship of Mary

“Since the great Virgin Mary was raised to the dignity of Mother of the King of Kings, the Church justly honors her, and wishes that she be honored with the glorious title of Queen,” writes St. Alphonsus de Liguori.

Blessed Pope Pius IX said of Mary: “Turning her maternal Heart toward us and dealing with the affair of our salvation, she is concerned with the whole human race. Constituted by the Lord Queen of Heaven and earth, and exalted above all choirs of Angels and the ranks of Saints in Heaven, standing at the right hand of Her only-begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, she petitions most powerfully with Her maternal prayers, and she obtains what she seeks.”

In his 1954 encyclical, Ad Coeli Reginam, Pope Pius XII established the feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the Universal Church. In so doing, the Holy Father was officially giving sanction to a devotion that had existed from the earliest centuries of the Church to the sovereign Mother and Queen of heaven and earth and Mediatrix of all graces. Because of her eminence, the Blessed Virgin Mary is entitled to the highest honor that can be bestowed upon any creature, for she is the glorious Queen of the universe.
“We commend that on the festival there be renewed the consecration of the human race to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Upon this there is founded a great hope that there may arise an era of happiness that will rejoice in the triumph of religion and in Christian peace,” the Holy Father writes.

“Therefore, let all approach with greater confidence more than before, to the throne of mercy and grace of our Queen and Mother to beg help in difficulty, light in darkness and solace in trouble and sorrow…

“…Whoever, therefore, honors the lady ruler of the Angels and of men—and let no one think themselves exempt from the payment of that tribute of a grateful and loving soul—let them call upon her as most truly Queen and as the Queen who brings the blessings of peace, that She may show us all, after this exile, Jesus, who will be our enduring peace and joy.”