Vigils Reading – Queenship of the BVM

THE QUEENSHIP OF MARY

From the writing of Thomas Merton

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Mary alone, of all the saints, is, in everything, incomparable. She has the

sanctity of them all and yet resembles none of them. And still, we can talk of

being like her. This likeness to her is not only something to desire – it is one

human quality most worthy of our desire: but the reason for that is that she, of

all creatures, most perfectly recovered the likeness to God that God willed to

find, in varying degrees, in us all…

It is most fitting to talk about her as a Queen… But this should not make

anyone forget that her highest privilege is her poverty and her greatest glory is

that she is most hidden, and the source of all her power is that she is as nothing

in the presence of Christ, of God.

This is often forgotten by Catholics themselves, and therefore it is not

surprising that those who are not Catholic often have a completely wrong

conception of Catholic devotion to the Mother of God. They imagine, and

sometimes we can understand their reasons for doing so, that Catholics treat

the Blessed Virgin as an almost divine being in her own right, as if she had some

glory, some power, some majesty of her own that placed her on a level with

Christ himself. They regard the Assumption of Mary into heaven as a kind of

apotheosis and her Queenship as a strict divination.

Hence her place in the Redemption would seem to be equal to that of her

Son. But this is all completely contrary to the true mind of the Catholic Church.

It forgets that Mary’s chief glory is her nothingness, in the fact of being the

“Handmaid of the Lord,” as one who in becoming the Mother of God acted

simply in loving submission to his command, in the pure obedience of faith. She

is blessed…in all her human and womanly limitations as one who has believed.

It is the faith and the fidelity of this humble handmaid, “full of grace” that

enables her to be the perfect instrument of God, and nothing else but his

instrument. The work that was done in her was purely the work of God. “He that

is mighty has done great things in me.” The glory of Mary is purely and simply

the glory of God in her, and she, like anyone else, can say that she has nothing

that she has not received from him through Christ…

This is precisely her greatest glory: that having nothing of her own,

retaining nothing of a “self” that could glory in anything for her own sake, she

placed no obstacle to the mercy of God and in no way resisted his love and his

will. Hence, she received more from him than any other saint. He was able to

accomplish his will perfectly in her, and his liberty was in no way hindered or

turned from its purpose… She was then a freedom that obeyed him perfectly

and, in this obedience, found the fulfillment of perfect love.