Mary, Mother and Queen

He alone who could understand Mary’s holiness could appreciate her glory.... ​In Mary, God is more glorified, better known, more loved than in all the rest of the universe. On this ground alone, according to the order of creative Providence, which subordinates the less to the more perfect, Mary is entitled to be Queen of earth and heaven....

​Let us hail our Queen, let us sing her mighty deeds; let us be docile to her; above all, let us love her and trust in her love. Let us not fear that, amidst the great interests of the spreading of God’s Kingdom, she will forget our littleness or our miseries. She knows all that takes place in the obscurest corners, in the furthest limits of her immense domain.

From her title of universal cause under the Lord, is rightly deduced the universality of her providence; and the masters of doctrine show us Mary in glory sharing in the science called of vision, whereby all that is, has been, or is to be, is present before God. On the other hand, we must believe that her charity could not possibly be defective: as her love of God surpasses the love of all the elect, so the tenderness of all mothers united, centered upon an only child, is nothing to the love wherewith Mary surrounds the least, the most forgotten, the most neglected of all the children of God, who are her children too. She forestalls them in her solicitude, listens at all times to their humble prayers, pursues them in their guilty flights, sustains their weakness, compassionates their ills, whether of body or of soul, sheds upon all men the heavenly favors whereof she is the treasury.

Let us then say to her in the words of one of her great servants: “O most holy Mother of God, who hast beautified heaven and earth, in leaving this world thou hast not abandoned man. Here below thou didst live in heaven; from heaven thou conversest with us. Thrice happy those who contemplated thee and lived with the Mother of life! But in the same way as thou didst dwell in the flesh with them of the first age, thou now dwellest with us spiritually. We hear thy voice; and all our voices reach thine ear; and thy continual protection over us makes thy presence evident. Thou dost visit us; thine eye is upon us all; and although our eyes cannot see thee, O most holy One, yet thou art in the midst of us, showing thyself in various ways to whosoever is worthy. Thy immaculate body, come forth from the tomb, hinders not the immaterial power, the most pure activity of that spirit of thine, which, being inseparable from the Holy Ghost, breathes also where it wills. O Mother of God, receive the grateful homage of our joy, and speak for thy children to him who has glorified thee: whatsoever thou askest of him, he will accomplish it by his divine power; may he be blessed for ever!” (German. Constantinop. In Dormit. B.M. Oratio I)

Dom Gueranger, Octave of the Assumption