Feast day: August 22
The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Kept a week after the Assumption, this feast honors Mary as Queen of heaven and earth — crowned, by ancient belief, at the side of her risen Son.
The Queenship of Mary, celebrated on August 22, honors the Blessed Virgin Mary as Queen of heaven and earth — crowned, by the Church's ancient belief, at the side of her risen and ascended Son, the King of all creation. It is one of the oldest intuitions of Christian devotion: that she who is the Mother of the King is, by that very motherhood, a queen.
The belief is woven deep into the prayer and art of the Church. From early centuries Christians hailed Mary as queen in their hymns and antiphons — the 'Salve Regina,' 'Hail, Holy Queen,' and the 'Regina Caeli,' 'Queen of Heaven' — and the crowning of Mary became one of the great themes of Christian painting, depicting her enthroned beside Christ in glory.
It rests not on power or domination but on her unique nearness to Christ. As the Church understands it, Mary reigns because she served most perfectly: the lowly handmaid who said 'let it be done to me' is exalted above all the saints and angels, her queenship the crown of her humility and her perfect union with her Son.
The feast was given its place in the calendar by Pope Pius XII in 1954 and was deliberately set on August 22, eight days after the Assumption — so that the two feasts form a single movement: she who was taken up, body and soul, into heaven is honored a week later as its queen. It is a celebration of hope, for in Mary the Church sees the destiny promised to all who follow her Son.
Placed deliberately eight days after the Assumption, it completes that feast: she who was taken up body and soul is honored now as queen beside Christ the King.
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