Mary is Queen by right of conquest

 

 

“Jesus is King throughout all eternity by nature and by right of conquest:

through Him, with Him, and subordinate to Him, Mary is Queen by grace,

by divine relationship, by right of conquest, and by singular election”.

 

Pope Pius XII

 

 

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Co-redemption and Queenship in Ad Caeli Reginam

 

[American Ecclesiastical Review 133 (September 1955) 171-82.

(Also published as "De corredemptione et regalitate in epistula encyclica 

Ad Caeli Reginam", in Marianum, 1955.]

 

The brilliant light of a new Marian Encyclical, the Ad Caeli Reginam, illumined the closing days of the Marian Year [1954]. This Encyclical is important because it proclaims the new liturgical feast of the Queenship of Mary. But it also has special doctrinal significance, for in it, in the course of his explanation of the titles on which Mary's Queenship rests, the Pope has devoted several lengthy paragraphs to the subject of Mary's Co-redemption. This is the first time that a Pope has treated that subject at such length.

 

By way of providing a setting for our consideration of the present Encyclical, it will be helpful to review briefly an earlier Queenship message of the present Holy Father, the Bendito seja.¹ 

 

On May 13, 1946, the Pope made a broadcast over the Vatican Radio to Fatima, in which he also brought Mary's Co-redemption into relation with her Queenship. In the Ad Caeli Reginam, the Holy Father takes great pleasure in recalling that earlier message: "... it is especially pleasing to recall to memory the radio-message which we transmitted to the people of Portugal, when the wonderful image of the Virgin Mary, which is honored at Fatima, was crowned with a golden diadem ..."

 

The central portion of the Pope's words on Queenship in the Bendito seja reads as follows: "Jesus is King throughout all eternity by nature and by right of conquest: through Him, with Him, and subordinate to Him, Mary is Queen by grace, by divine relationship, by right of conquest, and by singular election."² We note especially that the Holy Father says that Christ is King "by right of conquest." These words are perfectly clear when applied to Christ: they refer to the fact that by the great sacrifice of Calvary, He reconquered mankind from the captivity of the devil, by paying the price of our redemption.

 

But the Holy Father likewise says that one of the titles by virtue of which Mary is Queen is also "by right of conquest"! Now it is a general principle

of the interpretation of language, that when the same speaker, in the same context, uses the same words, he ought, unless he makes some qualification, to mean them in the same sense. The Holy Father did insert a qualification, saying that Mary is Queen only "through Him, with Him, and subordinate to Him." But since he added no other restriction, we should not presume to add any other. Hence, to apply our principle, the words "by right of conquest" must mean that Mary, in subordination to Christ, shared in the reconquest, in the very payment of the price of our redemption in the sacrifice of Calvary!

 

In the Ad Caeli Reginam, the Pope restates this same truth with fresh emphasis and in many different ways. First of all, the very setting and context in which he places the paragraphs on Mary's co-operation in the redemption are quite illuminating. Before taking up her share in the redemption, he says:

 

"... the most Blessed Virgin Mary is to be called Queen not only because of her Divine Motherhood, but also because she, by the will of God, had an outstanding part in the work of our eternal salvation."³ Here the Holy Father clearly distinguishes Mary's Divine Motherhood from her "outstanding part" in the work of redemption. Thus he makes clear that he has in mind more than just a remote, more than just a slight share in the redemption, for this role of hers is "outstanding" and is something different from, and therefore extending beyond Bethlehem.

 

After describing at length Mary's co-operation, the Holy Father again sums up the two grounds on which her Queenly title rests, and draws a conclusion:

 

... Mary ... as the Mother of Christ ... the associate in the work of the Divine Redeemer, and in His struggle with the enemy and in His victory gained over all, shares in the royal dignity ... from this association with Christ arises her royal power, by which she is able to dispense the treasures of the Kingdom of the Divine Redeemer....⁴

 

Thus we see that her "outstanding part" in the work of redemption is distinct not only from the Divine Motherhood,⁵ but that it is also distinct from her role as Mediatrix of all graces. It remains that the Pope must be speaking of an "outstanding part" taken by Mary on Calvary.

 

But let us turn now to the paragraphs in which the Holy Father explains more directly and explicitly what he means by this "outstanding part" that Mary played.

 

Immediately after the wards which we have already quoted, in which the Pope draws a distinction between Mary's Divine Motherhood, and her co-operation in the work of salvation, he quotes a passage from Pope Pius XI: "What is more pleasant ... to think of ... than that Christ rules over us not only by natural right, but also by an acquired right, that is, the right of redemption.... Christ has bought us 'with a great price'." By means of this sentence the Pope sets the scene, and shows us that he has in mind the very center of the redemption, the payment of the "great price" of the blood of Christ. In the very next sentence he continues: "Now in accomplishing this work of redemption, the most blessed Virgin Mary was certainly intimately associated with Christ...." We note the way the word "this" helps to place Mary's co-operation in the context of Calvary: for "this," being a demonstrative, points back to the previous sentence, which spoke of the death of Christ by which we were bought "with a great price."

 

The relation to Calvary is further indicated in the remainder of the above sentence, for the complete sentence reads:

 

Now in accomplishing this work of redemption, the most Blessed Virgin Mary was certainly intimately associated with Christ; rightly therefore do we sing in the Sacred Liturgy: "Holy Mary, the Queen ... stood sorrowful by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."⁶

 

Let us suppose for a moment that in this passage the Holy Father really meant to limit Mary's association in the redemption to a remote co-operation, extending only to Bethlehem, not also to Calvary. Would it not be, to say the least, misleading language to say that "therefore" (because of a remote co-operation that would not extend to Calvary) "rightly" does the Liturgy sing of her on Calvary!

 

The passage that follows makes the extent of Mary's association entirely clear. After dwelling briefly in a general way on this intimate association of Mary, the Holy Father enters in the next paragraph on a closely knit chain of reasoning:

 

... if Mary, in obtaining spiritual salvation, was ... associated with Jesus Christ, the principle of salvation itself, and in a way quite similar to that in which Eve was associated with Adam, the principle of death, so that it can be said that the work of our salvation was done according to a certain "recapitulation" ... and if she really was the one "who ... always most intimately united with her Son, as the New Eve, offered Him on Golgotha, together with the holocaust of her maternal rights and love ..." then, without a doubt, we can conclude that just as Christ, the New Adam, should be called King not only because He is the Son of God, but also because He is our Redeemer, so, by a certain kind of analogy, the most Blessed Virgin is Queen not only because she is the Mother of God, but also because as the New Eve she was associated with the New Adam.⁷

 

Here the Holy Father teaches the truth of Mary's co-operation by the classic patristic comparison and antithesis Mary-Eve, Christ-Adam He says that Mary's position was similar to that of Eve. Now Adam was the head of the human race: if he alone had fallen, it would have been enough to involve us in ruin, while if Eve alone had sinned, it would have had a bad example, but no original sin. Yet, in the actual event, it was not Adam alone nor Eve alone who sinned-both co-operated, though on different levels. Only Adam could ruin mankind-but Eve did what she could, and in her inferior way shared in the fall.⁸

 

Now Eve, as we see, was involved in original sin, not just in some remote way, but in the very act of sin itself. Hence, if Mary's position is similar to that of Eve, she must have been involved with equal immediacy in the very act by which we were restored.

 

Some theologians have wondered whether we could confidently press the New Eve parallel so far as to include an immediate co-operation by Mary, that is, one extending even to Calvary. Were we left merely to the resources of our own deductions, such a doubt would be understandable. However, the Holy Father, whose place it is to interpret authentically for us the meaning of Scripture and Tradition, continues, and tells us as plainly as possible, in the words of his own Encyclical, Mystici Corporis,⁹ that Mary's co-operation with Christ did not begin with being His Mother, and then break off-rather, she was "always most intimately united with her Son" and she "as the New Eve, offered Him on Golgotha, together with the holocaust of her maternal rights and love...." Surely, no more plain words could be found to say that the comparison of Mary to Eve extends even to Golgotha, where Mary "offered Him" and included in that offering "the holocaust of her maternal rights and love...."

 

But there is more: the Pope says that the reasons for Mary's Queenship form "a certain kind of analogy"¹⁰ with the reasons for Christ's Kingship. Now Christ is King, as the Holy Father had said earlier "not only by natural right ... but also by an acquired right ... Christ bought us 'with a great price'" - that is, He is King - "not only because He is the Son of God, but also because He is our Redeemer."

 

The conclusion is obvious: Mary, by analogy, must have shared in the work of that Redeemer, in the payment of that price. Were we to deny her such a sharing the second half of the analogy would be destroyed.

 

Finally, as we have seen above, the Holy Father sums up his own thought, saying:

 

... Mary ... as the Mother of Christ ... the associate in the work of the Divine Redeemer, and in His struggle with the enemy and in His victory gained over all, shares in the royal dignity ... from this association with Christ arises her royal power, by which she is able to dispense the treasures of the Kingdom of the Divine Redeemer....

 

What is this "struggle" in which Mary is the associate or "ally" (socia) of Christ? Surely it is none other than that "struggle which was common to the Blessed Virgin and her Son''¹¹ of which the same Holy Father wrote in the constitution defining the Assumption-the struggle which resulted in "that most complete victory over sin and death" of which "the resurrection of Christ was an essential part and final sign" and which, for Mary "had to be closed by the 'glorification' of her virginal body." In other words, it was the terrible struggle of Calvary, in which the "great price" was paid for our redemption: the struggle that was "common to the Blessed Virgin and her Son," in which she was His "associate" (socia).

 

To sum up, then, Mary is "intimately associated with Christ"-not only by virtue of the Divine Motherhood, not only by the "power by which she is able to dispense the treasures of the Kingdom"-but also by virtue of the fact that she "as the New Eve, offered Him on Golgotha"; so that the titles on which her Queenship rests are parallel to those on which the Kingship of Christ rests: both have royalty "by right of redemption," by victory in the "struggle,"¹² as well as by the fact that the One is God and the other, the Mother of God. ….