Mary Crowned as Queen of Heaven and Earth
Written by: Bro. Rey V. Entila
CFD - Diocese of Bacolod (Written: June 2005)
Mary is Queen of Heaven and Earth. Since Mary gave birth to Jesus her son who is the King of heaven and earth, Mary is also honored by the Church as the Queen of heaven and earth.
I. The Teaching of the Church
Lumen Gentium 59, Vatican II states: “She was exalted by the Lord as Queen of all in order that she might be more thoroughly conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords (cf. Apoc.19:16) and the conqueror of sin and death.” Elsewhere, the Council calls Mary “Queen of the Apostles”. (Abbott, p. 90).
Pope Pius XII: “The Blessed Virgin has not only been given the highest degree of excellence and perfection after Christ, but also she shares in the power which her Son and our Redeemer exercises over the minds and wills of men. For if the Word of God, through the human nature assumed by him, works miracles and gives grace, if he uses the Sacraments and uses his saints as instruments for the salvation of souls, why should he not use his Blessed Mother’s office and activity to bring us the fruits of the Redemption” (O’Carroll, p.302).
II. Old Testament Prefigurement
The crowning
The Old Testament describes the destiny of the faithful who lived exemplary lives for God’s glory. God Himself will given them a glorious crown. “Therefore they will receive a glorious crown and a beautiful diadem from the hand of the Lord, because with his right hand he will cover them, and with his arm he will shield them” (Wis. 5:16).
They will eternally shine like stars in the heavens. “And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever” (Dan.12:3). Mary, in her bodily assumption to heaven has been crowned and glorified among God’s elect.
Queenship
The inspired writer of Psalms describes the important role of the Queen in the Kingdom. Mary as Queen stands at the right hand of of Jesus the King. “daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor; at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir” (Psalm 45:9).
“And he said, "Pray ask King Solomon--he will not refuse you--to give me Abishag the Shunammite as my wife." Bathsheba said, "Very well; I will speak for you to the king." So Bathsheba went to King Solomon, to speak to him on behalf of Adonijah. 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 2:17-20). In the great tradition of Israel, it is the King’s mother who is the Queen, not one of his wives, so that his subjects will not be confused who is the real queen. She is called in Hebrew as “Gebirah” (great lady). In the case of King Solomon, the Queen was not one of his 1000 wives, but his mother Bathsheba. Solomon honored her by bowing in her presence as she sits enthroned beside his throne. Note King Solomon’s twice repeated words to his mother “he (the King) will not refuse you.” The Queen’s intercession is powerful to move the King.
The following verses show that the King’s mother is the Queen of the Kingdom. “He also removed Maacah his mother from being queen mother because she had an abominable image made for Asherah; and Asa cut down her image and burned it at the brook Kidron” (1 Kings 15:13).
She is not just a weak symbolic figure, but she shows might and strength. “Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal family of house of Judah” (2 Chron. 22:10).
The king sent the royal queen and asks for her return, of which she gives him the allotted time, signifying the respect and consultation of the king to his queen. “And the king said to me, "How long will you be gone, and when will you return?" So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time” (Neh. 2:6).
III. New Testament Fulfillment
a. John
Jesus promised the crown of life to his faithful disciples. Note that his condition in giving the crown is “faithfulness until death” which is a day-to-day obedience to God’s holy will and not a kind of popular evangelistic crusade of once-and-for-all acceptance of Jesus as personal Lord and Savior. “Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev. 2:10).
The beloved Apostle John was given the privilege to behold “a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Rev. 12:1). Combining the Old Testament imagery of crown (Wis.5:16) and stars (Dan.12:3), the singular woman is portrayed as the heavenly Queen whose brilliance is not caused by precious stones and diadems but by the heavenly luminaries. That is the Virgin Mary who gave birth to Jesus her only Son.
Queenly Mother of the New Davidic Kingdom
Jesus the King of the New Israel of God gave his queenly mother to his beloved disciple to be the spiritual mother and queen. The beloved disciple represents all of us Christians as beloved disciples. Therefore, in the new dispensation, mary is both our mother and queen. “When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son!" (John 19:26).
The dragon Satan, has enmity (war) against the woman who is Mary. But not only that, Satan is also angry with the rest of the woman’s spiritual offsprings who are the Christians. “Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea” (Rev. 12:17).
Jewish traditions tell us that the good visitors will be the one who will serve the hosts of the house and other visitors too. Mary, who had the heart of the servant and sensitive to the needs of humanity, pleaded to Jesus for help. “When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine" (John 2:3).
Jesus, like King Solomon who could not refuse his beloved queen mother, responded as an obedient son. “Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim” (John 2:7). Even though it was not yet time for Jesus to reveal His glory, because of His mother’s intercession, he in His all-knowing nature, hastened to reveal His hour of the revelation of His identity and mission.
b. Paul, James and Peter
Consistent with the Old Testament and Gospel accounts, the pillars of the Apostles Peter and James (and also John, cf.Gal.2:9) and Paul reiterated the crowning of Christians as their just rewards after their life on earth is over. Paul describes the Crown of righteousness, James, the crown of life, and Peter, the crown of glory. “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing” (2 Tim 4:8).
“Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him” (James 1:12).
“And when the chief Shepherd is manifested you will obtain the unfading crown of glory” (1 Peter 5:4). Just as “eternal life”, “life”, “fullness of life”, and “life everlasting” do not describe quantities of life but the quality of life, these crowns do not necessarily mean that there will be different crowns, as fundamentalists today assert, but these are descriptions of honor and glory that a Christian will obtain in heaven during the judgment day.
IV. Fundamentalist Objections Vs. the Queenship of Mary
“And the title, ‘Queen of Heaven,’ is equally false, or even worse. Heaven has no ‘queen’. The only references in Scriptures to prayers to the ‘queen of heaven’ are found in Jeremiah 7:18; 44:17-19,25, where it is severely condemned as a heathen custom practiced by some apostate Jews. This so-called ‘queen of heaven’ was a Canaanitish goddess of fertility, Astarte, (plural, Ashtaroth) (Judges 2:13). How shameful to impose a heathen title on Mary, and then to venerate her as another deity!” (Boettner, p.142.)
The direct answer to the abovementioned objection is that the title of Mary as “Queen of Heaven” necessarily follows the title given to Jesus her Son as King of kings. As one cannot deny that Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev.19:16; Jn.18:36-37), one cannot also deny the fact that the theocratic kingdom of Israel proclaims as Queen the mother of the King. In Rev.12:1-2, the woman who gave birth to the child who was destined to be king, was crowned with twelve stars, thus a royal queen.
If there are pagan queens in the Bible like Astarte, and pagan queens in the neighboring countries of Israel, there are also real queens in the kingdom, like for example, Bathsheba the queen mother of Solomon, and queen Athaliah. To deduce that since ancient pagans have similarities with the true and Catholic religion, then Catholicism must be pagan, is a non-sequitor argument or it does not follow. Hindus have the trinity called Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu but this does not make the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity pagan and false. In the same way, the Roman god Mithra resurrected from the dead, does not mean that Christ’s resurrection is a pagan myth. The fact is, Mary is portrayed by the Bible as Queen and the whole history of Christianity attests to this apostolic tradition since the first century onwards. In fact, the opposite is true: Nowhere in the Bible can one find a verse that explicitly or implicitly states that Mary is not Queen and never can be queen. In the same vein, nowhere in the whole of Christian antiquity does any Church Father deny the queenship of Mary.
V. The Testimony of the Early Church Fathers
John Damascene or John of Damascus(ca.675-749/753) was the last and one of the greatest Church Father of the East. He did scholarly work on the Incarnation and was the champion of the church against the Iconoclast heresy. He also wrote about the Blessed Virgin Mary in his wonderful work De Fide Orthodoxa.
“And it can likewise be said that the first one who with heavenly voice announced Mary’s royal office was Gabriel the Archangel himself” (St. John of Damascus).
The angelic greeting “Hail!” to Mary is used to address royalties as in “Hail, Caesar!” “Hail! King of the Jews”, the angel thereby had shown that Mary is of the royal family of God. The archangel Gabriel who is above all other angels, just as angels are above human beings (Ps.8:5), saluted Mary, instead of she saluting her. In Joshua 5:24, Joshua the successor of Moses bowed down to the ground when he was face to face with the archangel, but in the case of Mary, it was the reverse. This shows the royal dignity of Mary, above all men and angels of God. Truthfully, she is called in the whole Christian history as “Queen of heaven and earth”, “Queen of the Apostles”.
