The memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary places today’s readings in a luminous frame: Ruth’s uncalculated fidelity (Ruth 1:16), the Psalm’s litany of God’s steadfast care for the vulnerable (Ps 146:6-9), and Jesus’ distillation of the whole Law into love of God and neighbor (Mt 22:37-40). Mary’s crown is not the emblem of domination, but the flowering of perfect love. Her royal dignity flows from her Son—promised the throne of David (Lk 1:32-33)—and from her maternal cooperation with the Incarnate Word. This is the kind of sovereignty the Gospel proposes: love that stoops low, embraces the stranger, and stays when others leave.
A Queen Whose Power Is Love
When Jesus names the great commandments—“Love the Lord your God with all your heart… and your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:37-39)—He gives not two tasks but one life. Mary’s queenship clarifies how the two hang together. She loves God with a whole-hearted fiat (Lk 1:38), and therefore she becomes a mother to all who belong to her Son (Jn 19:26-27). Her “rule” is intercession (Jn 2:1-11) and service; her crown, like the woman clothed with the sun, signifies a victory won through faith (Rev 12:1). In a world fascinated by power, her way is an antidote: adore God entirely; love the person right in front of you concretely; trust that God raises the lowly (Lk 1:52).
Ruth’s Courage and the Shape of Fidelity
Ruth’s choice is breathtaking: “Wherever you go, I will go… your people shall be my people, and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16). She embraces Naomi’s poverty, foreignness, and grief. It is a love that takes on another’s future as one’s own. Psalm 146 sings the same melody: the Lord feeds the hungry, frees captives, sustains the widow, and protects the stranger (Ps 146:7-9). Ruth is all of these at once: a migrant, a widow, a stranger. And God’s providence meets her fidelity in Bethlehem—at harvest time (Ruth 1:22).
Many today stand at similar thresholds: adult children rearranging careers to care for aging parents, immigrants choosing an uncertain road for their children’s sake, spouses enduring seasons of loss. The Gospel’s commandment is not a sentiment; it is the shape of a life that stays, shares risk, and allows another’s need to redirect one’s plans.
St. Polycarp, a disciple of the Apostle John, treasured this apostolic simplicity: keep the faith whole and practice works of mercy. His exhortations insist that sound doctrine flowers in concrete righteousness—generosity, truthfulness, courage under pressure. His martyrdom shows love’s final measure: fidelity that does not bargain with fear. In an age of career anxieties and social polarization, Polycarp’s steady line helps: keep the deposit of faith, and let your budget, schedule, and speech prove it.
Athanasius: The Incarnation Makes Love Possible
St. Athanasius argued that if Christ were not truly God, He could not save. The Word became flesh to make us partakers of divine life—the astonishing claim that “He became man that we might become God.” If love of God and neighbor is the summit of the Law, Athanasius helps us see why it is also a gift: only the Lord who made us can remake the heart to love like this.
Mary’s queenship is thus profoundly Christological. Because the Son she bears is consubstantial with the Father, her motherhood touches the mystery at the heart of salvation; the Church has long called her Theotokos—God-bearer—precisely to safeguard who Jesus is. In biblical Israel the queen was not the wife but the mother of the king, who interceded for the people (1 Kgs 2:19). Mary’s intercession springs from her proximity to the Incarnate Love; her royalty is the radiance of God’s humility in her.
For weary hearts, this matters. The command to love can feel like one more impossible burden. Athanasius answers: the One who commands also indwells. The Eucharist, prayer, and the Church’s life are not accessories but the wellspring by which divine charity is poured into our hearts (cf. Rom 5:5).
Gregory of Nyssa: Love Without Ceilings
St. Gregory of Nyssa taught that our journey into God is an epektasis—an endless stretching forward. God is infinite; therefore love can always grow. The two commandments are not boxes to check but a horizon that keeps opening. Mary embodies this unending receptivity. From Nazareth to Bethlehem, from Cana to Calvary, she keeps saying yes—trust widening with every step (Lk 1:38; Jn 2:5; Jn 19:25-27).
This vision rescues spiritual life from complacency and despair alike. If love can always deepen, there is no ceiling over a marriage strained by miscommunication, no fixed limit to patience with a difficult colleague, no terminal point to hope in a struggling parish or neighborhood. Progress may be slow—a few kind words where sarcasm used to live, five minutes of silent prayer before the day begins—but for Gregory, every genuine step expands the soul’s capacity for God.
Royal Works of Mercy for Ordinary Days
Psalm 146 sketches the “royal agenda” of the Lord: justice for the oppressed, food for the hungry, freedom for captives, sight for the blind, protection for strangers, care for orphans and widows (Ps 146:6-9). To honor Mary’s queenship is to apprentice ourselves to her Son in these very works.
- Choose one neighbor to love specifically this week: a call to the isolated, a meal for a family in transition, a listening hour with someone who talks too much because no one else has time.
- Welcome the stranger nearby: learn a newcomer’s name; support a local immigrant service; advocate for just policies while refusing contempt for those who disagree (Lev 19:34; Ps 146:9).
- Practice the first commandment with your calendar: set a daily time for prayer—heart, soul, mind (Mt 22:37)—and guard it like an appointment you cannot miss.
- Conduct an evening examen by the two loves: Where did I love God today? Where did I love my neighbor? Where did I refuse both?
These are not heroic add-ons; they are the ordinary coronation rites of Christian life, where Christ’s kingship becomes visible in us.
At Cana and Today: The Queen Mother Intercedes
At Cana, Mary notices a quiet embarrassment before anyone else does: “They have no wine” (Jn 2:3). Her maternal attention is practical and tender. Many have “no wine” today—no emotional bandwidth, no job security, no friends nearby, no confidence that God has not forgotten them. Bringing such lacks to Mary is not a detour from Jesus; it is the Gospel’s own path. As Queen Mother she does what she has always done: point to Him—“Do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5)—and ask on our behalf.
Ruth walked back into Bethlehem at harvest (Ruth 1:22). On this memorial, the Church believes there is a harvest of grace where Mary walks with us. The command to love God and neighbor is still the greatest, and for many it still feels costly. But the Lord who keeps faith forever (Ps 146:6) has given us more than a command: He has given us His own life, a Mother who models it, and a communion of witnesses—Athanasius, Polycarp, Gregory—who remind us that divine love is both possible and inexhaustible.
Mother and Queen, teach hearts today to love God first and neighbors well. And when love feels beyond our strength, lead us again to your Son, who is both the command and the power to fulfill it (Mt 22:40).