Rooted in Sacred Scripture and professed in prayers and hymns, the Catholic Church considers the Blessed Virgin Mary to be the Queen of Heaven and Earth.
The angel Gabriel announced that Jesus would reign on the throne of David forever and Elizabeth addressed Mary as the mother of the Lord. The Old Testament kings made their mothers the queen, instead of their wives. King Solomon’s mother even had a throne at his right hand and wore a crown. The mother of our Savior should be honored at least that much.
She is highly honored in a special way, more than any other saint, but although she is our queen, Mary is never the subject of our worship or adoration.
Mary’s coronation as Queen of Heaven and Earth is meditated on as the Fifth Glorious Mystery of the Rosary.
Although the Catholic Church has acknowledged Mary’s queenship as a share of her Son’s kingship since its earliest days, Pope Pius XII proclaimed the Queenship of Mary and established a feast in 1954.
The Church celebrates the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary each year on August 22, on the Octave of her Assumption into Heaven.
Mary is Queen of Heaven and Earth:
Exercising her queenship through obedience to God:
A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
Revelation 12: 1
A woman in Heaven wearing a crown of twelve stars:
The queen mother in the midst of a great battle:
“Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death.” The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 966
Scripture mentions the queen mother along with the king:
The queen mother as advocate and intercessor:
The queen is the mother of the king:
But the Blessed Virgin Mary should be called Queen, not only because of her Divine Motherhood, but also because God has willed her to have an exceptional role in the work of our eternal salvation. “What more joyful, what sweeter thought can we have” – as Our Predecessor of happy memory, Pius XI wrote – “than that Christ is our King not only by natural right, but also by an acquired right: that which He won by the redemption? Would that all men, now forgetful of how much we cost Our Savior, might recall to mind the words, ‘You were redeemed, not with gold or silver which perishes, . . . but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb spotless and undefiled. We belong not to ourselves now, since Christ has bought us ‘at a great price’.” Now, in the accomplishing of this work of redemption, the Blessed Virgin Mary was most closely associated with Christ; and so it is fitting to sing in the sacred liturgy: “Near the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ there stood, sorrowful, the Blessed Mary, Queen of Heaven and Queen of the World.”
Pope Pius XII, Ad Caeli Reginam, 11 October 1954
Mary, full of grace, also exerts a fullness of royal power:
The mother of Jesus must play a role:
A unique role in salvation history:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Living like the pope:
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