Do you ask Mother Mary for help when you are in need or do you also thank her for continuously serving you? - Daily Reflections August 22, 2016

MARY: A HUMBLE QUEEN WHO SERVES

 

I have been asked quite often whether the Queenship of Mary or the title of Queen given to the Blessed Virgin, has a biblical basis. Most people think that there is no biblical basis at all. But there is.

       The Bible is completely silent about Mary’s last years on earth, about her death and her Assumption. We do not find anything about Mary being crowned as Queen. The only biblical basis we find is what Elizabeth said when she greeted her cousin Mary as “the mother of my Lord” (Luke 1:43).

       Ancient Israel had no queens. In the Kingdom of Judah, however, there was an official female rank at the royal court, the “gebira” or Great Lady or “the mother of my lord.” In England, we find an equivalent title, “Queen Mother.” The gebira was second only to the king in power and authority. She even sat at the right hand of the king and the king would stand up when she entered a room (2 Kings 2:19).

       How did a woman become gebira? When the king chose from the many sons of his many wives who would succeed him, the mother of the new crown prince became the Great Lady, or the gebira (2 Chronicles 11:21-22). And as soon as the crown prince ascended the throne and became king, the Great Lady could be called “the mother of my lord.” If she outlived her son, she would remain the Great Lady until her death.

       Elizabeth was aware that Mary is pregnant with the future Messiah-king, and quite logically, she gives Mary the royal title which, as Queen Mother, she is entitled to — that of gebira or “Mother of my Lord.” And indeed, Mary is more truly a queen than any other woman in human history, but a queen who humbly serves, who had called herself the “handmaid of the Lord.”

      And she, the gebira, the Great Lady, the mother of the Lord, continues to serve us day after day with her maternal intercession. Fr. Rudy Horst, SVD

 

REFLECTION QUESTION: Do you ask Mother Mary for help when you are in need or do you also thank her for continuously serving you?

 

Lord, thank You for giving me Your beloved Mother as my heavenly Mother to whom I can run to whenever I am in need. Help me to learn from her how to serve others faithfully. Amen.