A couple of years ago
a new faculty colleague at Loyola,
who came from a background
of non-denominational Christianity,
commented that he and his wife
had noticed the Cathedral here on Charles Street
and were wondering about the name:
Mary Our Queen.
They wondered, he said,
to whom it referred,
which Queen Mary.
They thought it might be Mary, Queen of Scots,
the Catholic monarch of a Protestant nation
whom Queen Elizabeth I had executed,
lest she usurp Elizabeth
as rightful queen of Great Britan.
I found this somewhat strange and amusing,
and I helpfully explained
that the “Mary” in question
was the mother of Jesus,
not the 16th-century Scottish queen.
a new faculty colleague at Loyola,
who came from a background
of non-denominational Christianity,
commented that he and his wife
had noticed the Cathedral here on Charles Street
and were wondering about the name:
Mary Our Queen.
They wondered, he said,
to whom it referred,
which Queen Mary.
They thought it might be Mary, Queen of Scots,
the Catholic monarch of a Protestant nation
whom Queen Elizabeth I had executed,
lest she usurp Elizabeth
as rightful queen of Great Britan.
I found this somewhat strange and amusing,
and I helpfully explained
that the “Mary” in question
was the mother of Jesus,
not the 16th-century Scottish queen.
Of course, in defense of this colleague,
I would note that this
would not be entirely off-brand for us:
after all, King Louis IX of France
is among our saints,
as is good king Wenceslaus,
and we name churches after them,
so maybe Mary Queen of Scots
is not too much of a stretch.
after all, King Louis IX of France
is among our saints,
as is good king Wenceslaus,
and we name churches after them,
so maybe Mary Queen of Scots
is not too much of a stretch.
And if you think about human history,
it’s not all that strange to dedicate
a massive building like this one
to an earthly monarch or ruler:
the great pyramids of Egypt
are mausoleums to the Pharaohs,
and we American’s have plastered
sixty-foot-tall sculptures of the faces
of four of our presidents on Mt. Rushmore.
So a cathedral named after a Scottish queen
might not be strange at all.
it’s not all that strange to dedicate
a massive building like this one
to an earthly monarch or ruler:
the great pyramids of Egypt
are mausoleums to the Pharaohs,
and we American’s have plastered
sixty-foot-tall sculptures of the faces
of four of our presidents on Mt. Rushmore.
So a cathedral named after a Scottish queen
might not be strange at all.
What really is strange
is to dedicate such
is to dedicate such
an impressive edifice
to a nobody Jewish girl
from a nowhere village
in an out of the way corner
of the Roman Empire.
What’s really strange
is to celebrate someone
whose only seeming achievement
was to give birth to someone
who ended up nailed to a Roman cross
as a failed revolutionary.
What’s really strange
is to acclaim such a person as “queen”—
not just of Scotland or Great Britan,
but of the entire universe.
But we Catholics
really are just that strange
and, at our best,
we swim strongly against the tide
of the sane and the sensible.
to a nobody Jewish girl
from a nowhere village
in an out of the way corner
of the Roman Empire.
What’s really strange
is to celebrate someone
whose only seeming achievement
was to give birth to someone
who ended up nailed to a Roman cross
as a failed revolutionary.
What’s really strange
is to acclaim such a person as “queen”—
not just of Scotland or Great Britan,
but of the entire universe.
But we Catholics
really are just that strange
and, at our best,
we swim strongly against the tide
of the sane and the sensible.
We’re strange because the world
thinks that it is only sensible
that greatness is found in having servants,
whereas we honor Mary for declaring herself
“the handmaid of the Lord.”
We’re strange because the world thinks
that power is being able to point to yourself
and say, “do whatever I tell you,”
whereas we honor Mary because she points to Jesus
and says, “do whatever he tells you.”
We’re strange because the world thinks
that the goal of life is security through strength,
whereas we honor Mary because she took the risk
of saying yes to God,
of being humble and weak,
of exposing herself to shame and ridicule,
of believing that God would cast the mighty
from their thrones
and lift up those
who are lowly.
Mary’s queenship places her in conflict
with the powers of a world that has
a very different idea of greatness:
one rooted in burdensome yokes,
and boots that tramp in battle,
and cloaks rolled in blood.
The Book of Revelation speaks
of a woman clothed with the sun
who is hunted by a monstrous red dragon,
with seven heads and ten horns,
who represents the powers of this world.
The dragon hunts her because she bears a child
whose very being threatens that power—
a child who is “destined to rule
all the nations with an iron rod”—
and so she flees with her child
and takes refuge in the desert,
in a place of lowliness and humility.
We who in Christ have not only
become children of the Father
but also have been given
Mary as our Mother,
are called to join her there in the desert,
in the place of lowliness and humility
and total dependence upon God.
In a world of conflict and division
God calls us to imitate her
in bearing Christ to the world,
he whose dominion is vast
and forever peaceful.
We are called to fight in the army
of the Queen of Peace
with the weapons of our witness,
through lives that lift yokes of burden
place upon those who are oppressed,
lives that reject
the boots that tramp in battle
and the cloak rolled in blood,
lives that are lived in faith
that the dragon has been defeated
by the blood of the Lamb,
and that even now
the Queen of Peace
reigns with the Lamb in heaven.
We who acclaim
the handmaid of Nazareth
as Queen of Heaven
are just strange enough,
just weird enough,
to believe in the peace of Christ
that passes all human understanding,
and, in the face of seemingly ceaseless war—
war in Ukraine,
war in Gaza,
war in Myanmar,
war in Sudan—
to hope and pray and work for peace,
embracing the truth of the angel’s words to Mary:
“nothing will be impossible for God.”
Mary our Queen,
Queen of Heaven,
Queen of Peace,
pray for us your children
that we too might believe
that the Prince of Peace is with us,
and that God in his mercy
might have mercy on us all.
