Mary’s love for mankind was so great that Venerable Pope Pius XII did not hesitate to link her love in as intimate a manner as possible with that of the Son of God. “By the will of God,” he wrote, “the most blessed Virgin Mary was inseparably joined with Christ in accomplishing the work of man’s redemption, so that salvation flows from the love of Jesus Christ and His sufferings, intimately united with the love and sorrows of His Mother.”

Mary’s love is the most perfect reflection of the love of the God-Man possible in a human being. So perfect is the union of these two hearts that we now use the expression, the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. If one is deeply moved by the love of the Son, one cannot fail also to be moved by that of the Mother. One must respond with gratitude to the one as to the other.

This is why the same Pontiff wrote: “It is, then, highly fitting that after due homage has been paid to the most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Christian people who have obtained divine life from Christ through Mary manifest similar piety and the love of their grateful souls for the most loving Heart of our heavenly Mother.”

+ Fr. Bertrand Weaver, C.P.

The post Jesus and Mary: Love for One brings Love for the Other first appeared on AirMaria.com.

From the earliest ages of the Catholic Church a Christian people, whether in time of triumph or more especially in time of crisis, has addressed prayers of petition and hymns of praise and veneration to the Queen of Heaven. And never has that hope wavered which they placed in the Mother of the Divine King, Jesus Christ; nor has that faith ever failed by which we are taught that Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, reigns with a mother’s solicitude over the entire world, just as she is crowned in heavenly blessedness with the glory of a Queen…

But the Blessed Virgin Mary should be called Queen, not only because of her Divine Motherhood, but also because God has willed her to have an exceptional role in the work of our eternal salvation… Now, in the accomplishing of this work of redemption, the Blessed Virgin Mary was most closely associated with Christ; and so it is fitting to sing in the sacred liturgy: “Near the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ there stood, sorrowful, the Blessed Mary, Queen of Heaven and Queen of the World.”…

For “just as Christ, because He redeemed us, is our Lord and king by a special title, so the Blessed Virgin also (is our queen), on account of the unique manner in which she assisted in our redemption, by giving of her own substance, by freely offering Him for us, by her singular desire and petition for, and active interest in, our salvation…

All, according to their state, should strive to bring alive the wondrous virtues of our heavenly Queen and most loving Mother through constant effort of mind and manner. Thus will it come about that all Christians, in honoring and imitating their sublime Queen and Mother, will realize they are truly brothers.

AD CAELI REGINAM:  Excerpts from the Encyclical of Ven. Pope Pius XII
On Proclaiming the Queenship of Mary (October 11, 1954)

The post On the Queenship of Mary first appeared on AirMaria.com.