August 22, exactly a week after celebrating the Assumption of Mary, we celebrate her Queenship.

In 2011, I spent a summer in Honduras and stayed in a mountain village where I lived life with the people for some time.

As I watched the work of some of the women of the village (who did all by hand, as there was no electricity there) as they cooked on their wood-burning stove tops, as they washed and scrubbed laundry by hand and swept, I was struck by the realization that the rhythm of life they were living was not so very different from that of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Just as they lived this humble quiet rhythm of cooking, cleaning, caring for their families, and prayer (each evening they gathered for a listening of the Word of God, prayer and catechesis), so too did that young peasant woman named Mary … this young peasant woman, this humble wife and mother, named Mary. Whom God chose to be intimately involved in His redeeming work not only in choosing her as His mother, but then made her Queen of Heaven and Earth, the Queen of all Angels and Saints. It was this humble peasant woman, this humble wife and mother, who also would defend and protect nations from malicious invading armies, as she did at the Battle of Lepanto; who would end the dark tyranny of an empire built on human sacrifice, as she did at Guadalupe; who would call the world to peace in the face of horrific World Wars and the violence of communist nations, as she did at Fatima.

That in Mary, who lived humbly and faithfully her vocation as wife and mother, and as a follower of God, that it was her that God chose to exalt.

We see in Mary the fulfillment of her own prophetic words she spoke when she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth:

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord … from this day all generations will call me blessed, for the Almighty has done great things for me and holy is His name…He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and as lifted up the lowly …” (See Lk 1:46-56).

As Christ says: “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (See Mat 23:12).

By her Queenship we are reminded that authentic humility is one of the most important virtues of the spiritual life. We are also reminded about the importance of day-to-day faithfulness; that our holiness is worked out in the daily grind of life. That it is not so much about doing great and extraordinary things, but about doing ordinary things with extraordinary love.

Peace,

– Fr. Kevin