LUKE 13:22-30 TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME KEY VERSE: "Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able" (v 24). Mass Entry: Today is the Octave of the Assumption BVM. 22nd August is the Queenship of Mary but it is Sunday in Ordinary Time. Today is a land mark date in the community calendar. On the 22nd August 1954 Cardinal Gordon Joseph Gray conducted the laying of the Foundation Stone of Sancta Maria Abbey. In the brightness this morning and the joy of Mary we can look more positively at the difficult Parables of the Gospel today. “Many are called, few are chosen.” “Many shall seek to enter the narrow gate and shall not be able to enter.” Henry Newman, who will be beatified in the Papal Visit, next month, has very serious thoughts on the elect being few. Earlier the Cantor questioned the suitability of the Newman Night Office Reading this morning. It seemed the passage was from the pre-Catholic period. Happily Newman’s words in this quotation echoes beautifully the Heart of Mary. He tells us that the doctrine does not lead us to any hard notions. He is the most loving Father still, though few are chosen. The doctrine, then, which is implied in the text, does not lead us to any hard notions of God. He is a most loving father still, though few are chosen. His mercy is over all his works, and to no one does the word of life come but with the intent that he may live. If the many remain in unbelief, they are not straightened in God's love, but they ‘are straitened in their own bowels.' Man will not be what by God's renewing and co-operating grace he might be. It is man’s doing, not God's will, that, while the visible Church is large, the Church invisible is small. (J.H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, V, 18) In our own thinking, it is no harm to catch us at those hard notions of the only few chosen, our mistake, - rather get our sound bearings, - rather feel with the Heart of Jesus and Mary, “His Father’s mercy is over all His works. |
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The feast is a logical follow-up to the Assumption and is now celebrated on the octave day of that feast. In his encyclical ‘To the Queen of Heaven’, Pius XII points out that Mary deserves the title because she is Mother of God, because she is closely associated as the New Eve with Jesus' redemptive work, because of her preeminent perfection and because of her intercessory power.
Sunday, 22 August 2010
The Queenship of Mary - Memorial
The Queenship of Mary - Memorial
THE QUEENSHIP OF MARY
Memorial
Memorial
According to ancient tradition and the sacred liturgy the main principle on which the royal dignity of Mary rests is without doubt her Divine Motherhood. In Holy Writ, concerning the Son whom Mary will conceive, We read this sentence: "He shall be called the Son of the most High, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father, and he shall reign in the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end,"[Lk I, 32, 33] and in addition Mary is called "Mother of the Lord"; from this it is easily concluded that she is a Queen, since she bore a son who, at the very moment of His conception, because of the hypostatic union of the human nature with the Word, was also as man King and Lord of all things. So with complete justice St. John Damascene could write: "When she became Mother of the Creator, she truly became Queen of every creature." Likewise, it can be said that the heavenly voice of the Archangel Gabriel was the first to proclaim Mary's royal office.