| The Joy of Mary Reflected in the Joy of Creation The month of May begins with the feast of St. Joseph the Worker and ends with the Feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary (traditional calendar). Within the month, we also celebrate the feasts of Our Lady Queen of Apostles, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament, the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary Mother of the Church, and Our Lady Help of Christians. We have so many titles for Our Lady that it speaks to her role and the honor due to her because of what Christ has accomplished through her. In writing about the greatness of the power of Our Lady, St. Alphonsus Liguori gives us a remarkable insight into her power in The Glories of Mary, “Not only is the most Blessed Virgin Queen of heaven and of all Saints, but she is also Queen of hell and of all evil spirits; for she overcame them valiantly by her virtues. From the very beginning, God foretold the victory and empire that our Queen would one day obtain over the serpent when He announced that a woman should come into the world to conquer him: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman—she shall crush thy head…Saint Bruno says, ‘that Eve was the cause of death,’ by allowing herself to be overcome by the serpent; ‘but that Mary,’ by conquering the devil, ‘restored life to us.’ And she bound him in such a way that this enemy cannot stir so as to do the least injury to any of her clients.” Her Queenship, which we celebrate liturgically with her crowning, should remind us of her power over demons and the Devil. Her Queenship carries over Heaven, Earth, and even the powers of Hell. Satan hates our Lady because she is the height of humanity that he originally protested against. She was exalted above the Angels and so they rebelled. St. Bonaventure writes, “O, how fearful is Mary to the devils!” St. Alphonsus continues and points to our cooperation with the work of Mary, “Our Blessed Lady herself revealed to St. Bridget that the enemy flies even from the most abandoned sinners, and who consequently are the furthest from God, and fully possessed by the devil, if they only invoke her most powerful name with a true purpose of amendment. ‘All devils, on hearing this name of Mary, filled with terror, leave the soul.’ But at the same time our Blessed Lady added, ‘that if the soul does not amend and obliterate its sins by sorrow, the devils almost immediately return and continue to possess it.’” The month of May should be a time when we turn to Our Lady’s Queenship over the sin in our lives and ask for her intercession to defeat those demons who tempt us and draw us into sin. Her name is feared because it was hallowed by our Lord. She is the instrument by which our Lord has crushed the head of Satan. It is easy to remember Our Lady as the Queen of angels and saints, of patriarchs and prophets, of apostles and martyrs, of confessors and virgins, and proclaim her as the Glorious Queen of Heaven and Earth, but never forget her power over hell and Satan. Call upon her constantly! Our Lady, Queen of Heaven and Earth, ora pro nobis! |
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