(Excerpts from an interview with Fr. Don Anton Saman Hettiarachchi, St. Anthony’s Bible Academy, SABA)
The four ancient Marian antiphons of the Liturgy of the Hours, Ave Regina Caelorum, Salve Regina, Alma Redemptoris Mater and Regina Caeli, sing of the queenship of Mary, which we celebrate on August 22. We venerate on the octave of the Assumption, the Mother of Jesus as Regina Caeli, the Queen of Heaven. We thus believe that Mary, at the end of her earthly life, was bodily and spiritually assumed into heaven and that she is there crowned as Queen.
The title, Queen of Heaven, with which we venerate Mary has long been a Catholic tradition, included in prayers and devotional literature, and seen in Western art on the subject of the Coronation of the Virgin, from the High Middle Ages, long before it was given a formal definition status by the Church.
Going back to basics, in the fourth century St. Ephrem the Syrian called Mary “Lady” and “Queen”. Later Church Fathers continued to use the title. A text probably coming from Origen (died c. 254) gives her the title Domina, the feminine form of Latin Dominus, Lord. That same title also appears in many other early writers like Jerome and Peter Chrysologus. Hymns of the 11th to 13th centuries address Mary as queen: “Hail, Holy Queen,” “Hail, Queen of Heaven,” “Queen of Heaven”, etc.
The earliest known Roman depiction of Santa Maria Regina depicting Mary as a queen dates to the 6th century and is found in the modest church of Santa Maria Antiqua built in the 5th century in the Forum Romanum. Here Mary is unequivocally depicted as an empress. She carries her divine Son in her hands, or holds Him. After He ascended into heaven, He reigns in divine glory. Mary, His mother, assumed into heaven by her Son, participates in His heavenly glory.
It was then high time for the theological definition of what has been the sensus fidei fidelium (sense of faith of the faithful). The first Mariological definition and basis for the title of Mary Queen of Heaven developed at the Council of Ephesus, where Mary was defined to be the Mother of God. The Council Fathers specifically approved this version against the opinion, that Mary is “only” the mother of Jesus. Nobody had participated in the life of her Son more, than Mary, who gave birth to the Son of God. The Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Church referred then to Mary as the Queen of the Universe: “Mary was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen of the universe, that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son” (Lumen Gentium, 59).
Why is Mary honoured thus? What is the Theological basis of this Catholic faith? In his 1954 encyclical Ad caeli reginam (“To the Queen of Heaven”), Pope Pius XII asserted that Mary deserves the title because she is the Mother of God, because she is closely associated as the New Eve with Jesus’ redemptive work, because of her preeminent perfection and because of her intercessory power. With complete justice St. John Damascene could write: “When she became Mother of the Creator, she truly became Queen of every creature.”
What is then the Biblical basis of this Catholic faith? Let us scrutinize the Judeo-Biblical Tradition. The Davidic Tradition of Israel recognized the mother of the king as the Queen Mother of Israel. In the Hebrew Bible, under some Davidic kings, gevirah, the “Great Lady”, usually the title and office bestowed upon the mother of the king, held great power as advocate with and confidante of the king. Though the kings of Judah had many wives, no single wife of the king had the influence that his mother (the one and only mother) enjoyed as the chief confidant of her son.
According to scholars, the queen mothers of the ruling House of David were crowned, occupied a throne next to their sons, and both state and religious functions required their presence and attention. She is the most important and influential woman in the royal court. We do know from Scripture that these women exercised their influence from the time their sons ascended the throne and sometimes even into the reign of their grandsons as in the case of Maacah in 1 Kings 15 during the reign of her grandson Asa. There is evidence from other kingdoms in antiquity that the queen mother was the most highly placed person in the kingdom next to the king, for example in Egypt and in the Hittite Empire.
It is significant that every mother of a Davidic king is listed along with her son in Sacred Scripture. The name of each Davidic Queen Mother is given in the introduction to each reign of the Davidic Kings of Judah. For example, “Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah, daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath” (2 Kings 22,1). When a king was deported, the invading army made sure that the queen mother was also sent out with him.
Let us now view a palace scene which depicts the kind of honour held by the Queen Mother and her unique role as counselor and intercessor to the king. “Then Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah, and the king stood up to meet her and paid her homage. Then he sat down upon his throne, and a throne was provided for the king’s mother, who sat at his right. “There is one small favor I would ask of you,” she said. “Do not refuse me.” “Ask it, my mother,” the king said to her, “for I will not refuse you” (1 Kings 2,19-20). Mariologists see here a sort of type of Mary. Hence it is apt, as stated by the papal encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam, that we honour Mother Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the King of Israel and of the universe, as the Queen Mother of heaven and earth.
In the New Testament, the title has several biblical sources. At the Annunciation, for example, the archangel Gabriel announces that [Jesus] “… will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David. He will rule over the house of Jacob forever and his reign will be without end.”(Luke 1,32). The biblical precedent in ancient Israel is, as aforementioned, that the mother of the king becomes the queen mother. Hence Mary’s queenship is a share in Jesus’ kingship.
This Queenship of Mary is celebrated in many ways other than the Memorial on August 22. It is commemorated in the last of the Glorious Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, the Coronation of the Virgin as Queen of Heaven and Earth. People often process and crown an image of Mary with flowers. Thus we take a lot of chances to reflect on Mary’s unique role in the history of salvation.
