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Catholic Bible Study
Glorious Mysteries: Coronation of Mary
00:17:06
Have you ever wanted to grow in your understanding and devotion to the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary? Join Dr. Ben Akers and professors from the Augustine Institute Graduate School as they walk through these Biblical mysteries and seek to grow in understanding and love for Christ through them.
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- [00:00]
A
Hi and welcome to form. Now we are in the fifth part of a five part series on the glorious mysteries of the Rosary. Today we are covering the coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And with me is Dr. Elizabeth Klein, who is a professor at the Graduate School. I just want to take a quick second to thank all of our Mission Circle members. Mission Circle is our small monthly giving society and it enables us here at the Augusta Institute, informed in the Graduate School to do so much. So we just thank you for your support and please consider if these conversations are benefiting you to give to the Mission Circle, it greatly helps us. So thanks for being on, Dr. Klein.
- [00:31]
B
Thanks for having me.
- [00:32]
A
I thought a good place to start is, could you just walk us through what is the belief of this fifth mystery? The coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
- [00:38]
B
Right. So the church teaches that Mary, after her assumption, is crowned as Queen of Heaven and earth. And I thought it was interesting that you titled this series of Bible study on the mysteries of the Rosary since the coronation of the Virgin isn't explicitly mentioned in Scripture. So I thought that maybe we would start with talking about the scriptural basis of the doctrine of the kingship of Mary.
- [01:01]
A
Yes, I think that is a good idea. And as we mentioned in the last one when we covered the assumption that, yes, these last two mysteries in a particular way are difficult to find explicitly. And so we rely, as so much of the Catholic tradition has on typology, just the belief that there's Old Testament prefigurements that can help bring us to a deeper understanding of what is going on.
- [01:24]
B
Right. And I think with this mystery too, I think it's just important to see how conceptually it comes from Scripture, even if sort of the event, if it can be called an event, isn't explicitly there. And so one thing that we really do draw some scripture, I think it's helpful to mention with regards to this mystery is why would Mary be the queen in the first place? Because we tend to think of the queen as the wife of the king. So if Jesus is the king and Mary is Jesus's mother, then why, what's going on with her being the queen? So something that a number of biblical scholars have talked about is that in sort of the ancient, ancient Near Eastern worldview and the Old Testament, the mother of the king is typically understood to be the queen. The queen mother. And one of the reasons for this is of course that ancient kings practice polygamy. So if there's too many queens and lots of queens, too many queens, if.
- [02:14]
A
The wife is divided kingdom, if the.
- [02:15]
B
Wife is the queen, and actually the mother of the new king would be especially important because often she would have a role in making that person become the king. And so she had a kind of place in the court and was considered a powerful figure, an intercessor in that sort of ancient Near Eastern worldview. And so one place you can find that in the Old Testament that might be helpful is in First Kings, chapter 2. And this has to do with Bathsheba. So people who know the story of David will know that Bathsheba is one of David's wives and that her son Solomon became the king. And so she really isn't afforded a sort of special authority role until Solomon becomes the king. And then she, as mother of the king, has this kind of special role. So you can find. So, so the passage I'm looking at is 2 Kings, chapter 2, verse 19. So in this passage, Bathsheba has been asked to intercede on behalf of one of David's other sons.
- [03:13]
A
Yes, so it says.
- [03:14]
B
So Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him on behalf of Adinijah. 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. So this is just one example of that sort of queenship role of the mother.
- [03:40]
A
And I think that it's almost. It's important not to kind of understate what is happening here, that the change with Bathsheba from when David was king to when Solomon is king, it's drastic something. Her role in the kingdom has very much shifted and that this is the principal place where we come to understand the Gebi ra, the idea of the queen mother, which is going to inform us as Catholics of what's going on.
- [04:05]
B
And also inform us as to why the tradition would arise. So sometimes when you're talking to non Catholics about Mary, there's this idea that the tradition sort of came up out of nowhere. All this Marian stuff, it's just sort of mythological stuff that accrued over a long period of time. But actually, to a Jewish reader of the New Testament, it would have been obvious to them that if Jesus is the king, then Mary has this special queenship role. And this is really evident in the visitation in Luke's Gospel where Elizabeth greets Mary as the mother of my Lord, which would have been recognized as a title of the mother of the Queen. This kind of, this royal greeting.
- [04:44]
A
And I'm also thinking about the central content of Jesus preaching is the Kingdom of Heaven, Kingdom of God. And that term that he's using wouldn't have just come out of a vacuum and meant something entirely new, that it was largely based on the Davidic kingdom. And that then it's good for us to look at the Davidic kingdom and see what the roles were and how things were moving and what was going on. And that that serves as this pre figurement of what is gonna become the kingdom of Heaven. It's obviously gonna be transformed and it's gonna be changed. But that like the central content of Jesus preaching was about a kingdom and that for a Jew, there was the Davidic kingdom that forms that entire concept for them. And there we see the Queen Mother.
- [05:25]
B
And it's really interesting. This is a perfect segue to what I was hoping to talk about next, which is that as we had this fulfillment of the Davidic kingdom and yet in a way that wasn't expected, in a way that exceeds the expectations. And so likewise the kingship of Jesus and so the queenship of Mary doesn't necessarily look the way you would expect. And so yeah, we can recognize from the scriptures, okay, why is Mary the queen instead of historical basis? But then we'd want to ask like, but what does that mean?
- [05:51]
A
Yeah, why does it matter?
- [05:52]
B
I mean, if you're contemplating the rosary, you don't want to be like, yep, she's the queen.
- [05:57]
A
What are you going to be doing right now?
- [05:57]
B
Thinking about, so what does it mean? And so we get a hint of that in the scriptures from the book of Revelation, which is read on Marian feast days often the opening of Revelation 12, the woman and the dragon. So there you have a great sign appeared in heaven. A woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and her head, a crown of 12 stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. So this obviously Catholics associate with Mary, but also at the same time with the church. And this is really perfect for how we understand Mary and her queenship. So she has the crown of 12 stars representing the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles. And so this really is a wonderful image for how Catholics see Mary. She's both the actual historical mother of the Savior while also being a type of the church. And this is exactly what you have going on in Revelation. It's both an actual woman who's giving birth to the Savior, but at the same time, it's clearly associated with the Church, with the twelve tribes and the twelve apostles of the Church in a very sort of straightforward way. You know, if the Church is the body of Christ and Mary is the mother of the body of Christ, then she's the mother of the Church, the queen of the Church.
- [07:08]
A
And then this is even made explicit if you jump down in chapter 12 of Revelation there a little bit further to verse 17. So this is after the great battle has taken place. And it says then the dragon became furious with the woman who was crowned with 12 stars and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.
- [07:28]
B
Right.
- [07:29]
A
So there we see that it's not. Mary's role is not just limited to Christ the head, but also to the members to the body, and that those who hold to the testimony of Jesus, who keep the commandments, they're her offspring. And then. So for us today, this obviously has significant.
- [07:46]
B
And so for me as, especially as a convert, I remember first seeing the images over the coronation of the Virgin, and it's like the Trinity and they're putting a crown on her head. And it's really weirded me out. Like, what is she the fourth person of the Trinity? Or like, why is she so important? And what could this possibly mean? But you bringing up the fact that it's not just that she's the mother of Jesus, but the mother of the Church. And so she receives the crown as the, as the first member of the Church and really as the down payment for all of us. And so that initial reaction of is she the fourth person of the Trinity? Of course she's not, but she's truly welcomed into the life of the Trinity and so are we all right? And that the beautiful, the beauty of the rosary is that really when you're, when you're praying the rosary, you're really taking on a sort of Marian mind and understanding that these mysteries are, are about Mary, but also about you as her offspring, as a member of the body of Christ, that that crown is part of your inheritance, your royal priesthood, what you also will get. But the reason why it's important that we specifically meditate on her coronation now is that we understand not only is this a future hope, but it's a reality that's true now that she's already received the crown, that Christ has already won the victory. And so this part of this beautiful Marian aspect of the Church is helping us to understand that Christ as our redeemer truly has redeemed the human race. And we know that it's true because of Mary, because Mary has already received the fruits of that redemption as being free from sin, from the mode of her conception, and that she's already run the race and gotten the reward. And so we see in her what is truly possible.
- [09:36]
A
If you feel what we all are hoping for, what we're all hoping for.
- [09:38]
B
And what we're going to obtain.
- [09:39]
A
And I think it's worthwhile noting too, because I grew up in America, I know you're Canadian, but never had a king or a queen. And so I think that there's a kind of negative sense about when you even hear of Christ's kingship. And it's important to call ourselves back to it's not a tyrannical kingship, but it's one of love and justice and peace. And the same thing of Mary, that it's not like she's up there and she's like ruling over our lives, but that her queenship is exercised through kind of a pouring out of herself, just as was true for Christ. And I think that one of the most beautiful things that we can see, where we can see that is in connection back again with first kings, where we see Bathsheba interced. And so how does Mary exercise her queenship? But she's interceding for her children, that's us.
- [10:19]
B
And also, I mean as mentioned briefly, that her queenship is tied to Jesus kingship. Because just as you're saying, we expect what power looks like in the world is. I tell people what to do, I can control everything. But what Jesus's kingship looked like was the crown of thorns. Jesus's kingship is one that's entertained from the cross. Right. Augustine likes to call the cross his throne or is like a judgment seat. And so it really is helping us understand what true kingship and true power actually looks like. It's exercised in complete self emptying and love. And we know, we know love is more powerful than tyranny. I mean, but we don't act like that.
- [10:59]
A
No.
- [11:00]
B
And so Jesus shows us that that's actually more powerful. That's actually what causes conversion. That's actually what is the means of our salvation. And so likewise, Mary's queenship shows us that humility actually is the crowning of humanity. Being lowly, being God's servant, saying yes to God's will, that's actually what it, that's actually the path of power. That's actually the Royalty that we all have. And we don't think about that. We think of it as being, I.
- [11:29]
A
Get what I want. I can't tell people what to do. No, it's so important. And then as you're bringing up Augustine, talking about Christ being on the cross, that's his throne. And then you just think of our lady of Sorrows at the foot of the cross and it's that. That's a really great image of what. What does that look like? It's a willingness to suffer with others. It's a willingness to stand by Christ when it's difficult. It's a. It's a willingness to stand with him when. When no one else will. And it's like that, that, that worldly shame in a way that being brought low, that humility is what leads to the glorification of Christ. And it's also what leads to Mary being glorified. Not, not so to speak, by her own merit, but by the grace of God is she elevated. And that, that too is a challenging path for us to walk.
- [12:08]
B
Yeah, that reminds me of another quotation from Augustine where he says, what God will crown is not so much your own sort of your own works, but his own merits. And so what that crown really represents is the grace of God to unite us to himself, which Mary, right received. The catechism puts up Mary as a model of faith because what is faith? Faith is in a nutshell. Faith is saying yes to God. It's not necessary. It doesn't always feel good, it doesn't always look good, it doesn't always get you what you should like in this world. But to that, what the coronation kind of adds to that, which I'm sure our viewers know, the yes to Mary, and she's a model of faith. But what the coronation adds is that's actually glory that we have to train ourselves to see. That's the crown. The love of God is our crown. Being with him is our crown. And I mean, we act like it's not all the time. We act like our crown is getting a promotion or having some worldly success. And so it does take, I think, meditating on this mystery can be that time where we meditate on what are the true crowns in my life? What is God trying to give the crown? God is trying to give me. He gave Jesus the crown of thorns and that led to the resurrection. So what is it really? That's my glory in life.
- [13:28]
A
And you just start thinking now more kind of holistically about Mary's life. And it was A life of poverty, we know it was a life of humility. It was a life of difficulty. You know, spent some years in Egypt, lost him in the temple. And then she had to watch her son go through his ministry, and then ultimately his death. And then she had to take kind of under her maternal care the apostles and the other disciples. And her son's gone. And you can imagine how much she would have missed him. And that her. It's such a good reminder during these mysteries to pray with that, to really think about what was the path that Mary walked, that Joseph walked, that Christ walked, because that is our path. And then this crown that we're talking about and that Paul references in his letters, it's real. It's not like Mary is interceding for us as queen of heaven and earth. Right now, we can't see it, but it's real. And that when we pray to her, we are practicing that faith. We are practicing that faith, that something that I cannot see, Lord, I believe this is true, and I am acting on that belief. And that, I think, will strengthen our hope.
- [14:31]
B
And like many mothers, you know, a lot of her story is hidden. And we can find lots about Mary in the Scriptures as we're paying attention. But just like in our real lives, right, Our mother's ever present, and she's often doing wonderful things, but we do have to take that time, that meditation, that time to notice her. And so, likewise with Mary, I often have students ask me, you know, if Mary was so wonderful and sinless and so humble, you know, why don't. Why does no one seem to really notice her? And you're like, well, it turns out that being holy isn't really always that exciting all the time. And people don't necessarily notice it all the time. And so the crown, contemplating Mary's crown, is taking time to notice it, for one thing.
- [15:11]
A
Yeah. And it makes me think a lot. It's the year of St. Joseph, and St. Joseph was very humble and silent. And I always. I like to reflect on the hidden years of Mary and Joseph, the holy family in Nazareth. And, you know, we see kind of the highlights, both positive and negative, of what's going on in the. In Jesus's ministry and before, but that there's just a long period of time of just a kind of humility and silence. And I really like following kind of this devotional path of Mary as Queen of Heaven. A really kind of spiritually fruitful meditation of that is, is how can we attend to, like, our daily duties and the small things and attend to our family as Mary did, and friends, and the visitation, trusting that that is the path to holiness, that that is the path to sanctity, and that that's the path that Mary walked, and she is the exemplar of the Church.
- [16:01]
B
That's a great point.
- [16:02]
A
Yes. So, any other parting thoughts?
- [16:05]
B
No. I mean, I love how you ended on the Hidden Life. I think that that's a beautiful thing to reflect on as you're meditating on this mystery about what really constitutes the crown of glory and where you find it and in your everyday life. Because that's. That's really what Mary did and that's how she won the crown. Yeah.
- [16:23]
A
No, it's beautiful. And just you can pray with Revelation 12 and this woman that appears with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of 12 stars, and that our Mother is alive and that she is crowned Queen of Heaven and Earth. And she is interceding for us, just as Bathsheba was, but in a far more perfect way. And she is helping us to live a faithful life to her son. So thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. We pray that these discussions were fruitful. This concludes our series on the glorious mysteries of the Rosary will cover the mysteries that we have not covered yet. So. So don't worry about that. Please give us feedback in the comments below. We thank you so much for joining us. God bless you.