By Susan Fox
“So Bathshe’ba went to
King Solomon, to speak to him on behalf of Adoni’jah. And the king rose to meet
her, and bowed down to her, then he sat on his throne, and had a seat brought
for the king’s mother; and she sat on his right. Then she said, “I have one
small request to make of you; do not refuse me.” And the king said to her ‘Make
your request, my mother; for I will not refuse you.’” (1 Kings 2:19-20)
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| Pope Saint John Paul II says grace before our meal |
The pasta is delicious, the red wine -- Italy’s best. But you look up and think, “Totus Tuus?” Why that means “totally yours” in Latin. Why did he pick that motto?
The longer version is “I am all yours,
my Queen and my Mother, and all that I have is yours.” And
you can almost imagine yourself even further back in time with another queen
mother --- Bathshe’ba – who is requesting a favor from her son, King Solomon.
And he responds: “Make your request, my
mother; for I will not refuse you.”
With fork in hand, the pope very casually explains that
passage from the Old Testament, and points out simply that since God entrusted
Himself to the little virgin from Nazareth, why should we ourselves fear to do
so?
The pope understands that belonging totally to the Queen of
Heaven, means belonging totally to its King. And isn’t that the point of our
Baptism in Christ? To belong to God? For Mary never withholds any gift from Her
Beloved Son. And if a flawed human being, such as King Solomon, would not
refuse his own mother’s request, what would the King of Heaven do, faced with a
request from his mother, Mary?
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| So passionate about the religious life, St. Bernard of Clairvaux drew 30 of his friends and relatives into the monastery with him, including his widowed father, uncles and brothers. |
If we recognize
the Mellifluous (honey-tongued) Saint Bernard of
Clairvaux (1090-1153) as a guest at our dinner table, we will be told: “Just as Mary surpassed in grace all others on earth, so
also in heaven is her glory unique. If eye has not seen or ear heard or the
human heart conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor 2:9),
who can express what He has prepared for the woman who gave Him birth and who
loved Him, as everyone knows, more than anyone else?"
As the
conversation goes on, Bernard, the sweet-talking Cistercian monk, tells us
about relying on the Queen of Heaven: “God has wanted that we obtain nothing if not through the hands of Mary.”
Whoops, over there at the end of the table, Saint Philip Neri wants to
say something: “Believe me, there is no more powerful means to obtain God’s grace than
to employ the intercessions of the Holy Virgin.” Pretty
strong testimony, yes? Many others throughout the centuries have said the same.
Actually, in his personal life and his pontificate, Pope
John Paul II profoundly understood that entering a deep relationship with Mary
is the Key to a deeper relationship with each Person in the Community of
Persons known as the Holy
If we invite the 17th century priest, St. Louis
Marie de Montfort, to dinner -- and I know that Pope John Paul II would like
that -- he would tell us Mary had a
profound and unique relationship with God Himself! She was Daughter of the
Father, Mother of the Son, and Bride of the Holy Spirit.
In that context, the Coronation of Mary as Queen of Heaven
was perhaps not such a formal affair. It was more like a Family Picnic. After
all, one usually has a very comfortable relationship with one’s father, son and
husband. Entering into relationship with
Mary allows us to develop and understand our own unique relationship with each
Person of the Blessed Trinity. And someday, hopefully, when God crowns us with
glory, we will feel the same sense of intimacy with Him.
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| Author of True Devotion to Mary: St. Louis Marie de Montfort |
Working in a chemical factory in Poland in his youth, Karol
Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) read and studied, True Devotion to Mary written
by the priest baptized in Montfort. The French priest Father Louis Marie coined
the phrase the pope so loved, “Totus Tuus.” The pope’s copy of that spiritual classic had
worn pages stained with chemicals, but it remained by his bedside during his
lifetime.
I know that some think of Mary as a female incubator --
something to be discarded after she gave birth to Jesus Christ, perhaps
remembered briefly in a Nativity Scene at Christmas. But let me ask this
question, “Which God ordered us to ‘Honor your father and
your mother?’” Was it a Hindu god? Did Baal order
us to honor our mothers? Did one of the 886 gods of Shintoism order us to honor
our mothers?
No, it was the Judeo-Christian God who ordered such. And He
so loved the world that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world -- not to
condemn it, but to save it.
And God actually chose, created and designed the mother that
He would honor, the Mother of His Son, Jesus. He had it in His mind to create her from the
very beginning. Proverbs foreshadows her coming: “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made
anything from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of old before the
earth was made.”(Proverbs 8: 22-23)
Eight centuries before the Birth
of Jesus, Isaiah prophesized: “The virgin shall be with Child.” And the Child’s name would be Emmanuel. It means “God is with us.”
Mary, a human being herself, became God’s sole entry point
into human history. “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us”
could never be said, if Mary had not agreed: “Be it
done to me according to thy word.” Why? Because that is
the way God wanted it.
God passionately wanted to dwell with humankind. That is the
message of the Old Testament. “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” (Lev. 26:12, Gen. 17:8, Exodus 6:7, Exodus
29:45, Jeremiah 7:23, Joel 2:27, Rev. 21:7)
He wanted to get close to us. How close? Very close. With
the Israelites, the best He could achieve was to wall Himself up into a golden
box to be carried around with them in the desert. Bumpy ride. There was resistance.
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| The Annunciation |
But with Mary, Daughter of Zion, God found no resistance.
“Word” in the phrase, “Be it done to me according
to Thy Word,” is better translated as “Voice.” When the Angel Gabriel spoke to
the virgin from Nazareth and asked her to become the Mother of the Most High,
Mary recognized the “Voice”
so profoundly that God’s Own Voice was received and bore fruit in her human
body. Aha! God had found a means to enter the world and dwell with mankind. “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”
(John 1:14)
Now let us include as the pope’s dinner guest a friend of
mine from Seattle. I’ll call her “Ruth.” (She has a sensitive job.) We are both
61-year-old Catholics, so, of course, over cocktails and oysters, we entered a deep
conversation on the Woman of Genesis 3:15.
As if she was giving me a deep dark secret, Ruth said with
lowered voice that she had discovered that if we think of God as an Artist, Mary
was His greatest masterpiece. Mary is the greatest Masterpiece of God’s
Creation.
Not only that, but she said in a deep whisper that I had to
believe her because Bishop Saint Irenaeus of Lyons said the same thing. Saint
Irenaeus is a follower of St. Polycarp, a disciple of the Apostle John the
Evangelist himself.
So let’s get St. Irenaeus, third generation Christian, to be
present at our dinner, shall we? Speak up Irenaeus! “Even
though Eve had Adam for a husband, she was still a virgin... By disobeying, Eve
became the cause of death for herself and for the whole human race. In the same
way Mary, though she had a husband, was still a virgin, and by obeying, she
became the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race.”
Forget
superstars. Who cares about Guardians of the Galaxy, or radioactive Spiderman,
or Captain America? We got the Mother of
God in our human family, and she saved the whole human race by one act of
obedience and humility, her fiat: “I am the handmaid of the
Lord. Be it done to me according to thy VOICE.”
That’s why
the Catholic Church calls Mary the New Eve. Adam and Eve’s original sin of disobedience plunged the
whole human race – their children – into death, sickness, and a very real weakness
for sin.
It was a
very dark moment in human history. But when the consequences of their actions
were spelled out, in Genesis 3:15, God suddenly offered hope. Speaking to the
serpent He said: “And I will put enmity
between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush
your head, and you will strike his heel."
With Genesis
3:15, the New Eve and the New Adam enter the stage of human history: Mary, The
Woman, and Jesus, Her Offspring. Together they cooperated in the redemption of
mankind. Together, they crushed the serpent’s head – all resistance to God. Though
redemption is won solely through the divine action of Jesus Christ’s death on
the cross, Mary – as a human being – cooperated in our redemption. Kneeling at
the foot of the cross, she received all mankind as her children when her Son
pointed to St. John, and said, “Behold, your son.” Her obedience paved the way for Christ’s
Incarnation, Death and Resurrection – God’s dwelling with His people.
The old prophet
Simeon alludes to this at Christ’s circumcision in the temple: “And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary His mother,
‘Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and
for a sign to be opposed -- and a sword will pierce even your own soul -- to
the end that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.’” (Luke 2:34-35)
That
prophesy was fulfilled when the New Adam – a sign to be opposed -- hung on the cross and died, while Mary, the
New Eve – heart pierced with sorrow – watched.
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| Jesus' Mother & St. John the Evangelist at the foot of the Cross |
No, she
didn’t just watch, she agreed to it. She cooperated. This relationship is further
foreshadowed in the Old Testament. When the Israelites confessed their sins,
they brought an animal sacrifice to the temple. They literally explained what
they did wrong based on what they brought to be killed. The male unblemished
lamb was sacrificed for public sin. The female ewe lamb was sacrificed for
private sin – so that the (private) thoughts of many might be revealed.
Mary’s
husband, affectionately known as St. Joseph, is dining with us tonight on the
Feast of her Queenship. He is a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her.
So when he recognized she was with child, he thought to divorce her secretly.
(If he had fathered her child that never would have entered his mind.) But when he had thought about this plan, an
angel appeared to him in a dream, and said, “Joseph,
son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has
been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. "She will bear a Son; and you
shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins." (Matt 1: 20-21)
What’s that
you say, Joseph? You want me to the tell the people not to be afraid to take
Mary into their homes? Or sorry, that was St. John the Beloved Disciple. He
received Mary as his Mother at the foot of the cross. “Then He (Jesus) said to the disciple, "Behold, your
mother!" From that hour the disciple took her into his own household. (John 19:27)
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| Mary, Queen of Angels |
Father
Louis Marie wants to say something as well: "Mary
has the authority over the angels and the blessed in heaven. As a reward for
her great humility, God gave her the power and mission of assigning to saints
the thrones made vacant by the apostate angels who fell away through pride.
Such is the will of the almighty God who exalts the humble, that the powers of
heaven, earth and hell, willingly or unwillingly, must obey the commands of the
humble Virgin Mary. For God has made her queen of heaven and earth, leader of
his armies, keeper of his treasure, dispenser of his graces, mediatrix on
behalf of men, destroyer of his enemies, and faithful associate in his great
works and triumphs."
What an
interesting dinner conversation. I wish we could do this every night. But
tonight is special, the Feast of the Queenship of Mary.
