A Note From Fr. Brady
Brothers and sisters,
As Catholics, we have the blessing of such a rich Faith that allows us the opportunity to be immersed in the life of God’s grace from feast days to fast days, from how we dress to how we speak, from a sacramental life to a personal prayer life, from how we’ve been loved by God to how we love Him in return. One great blessing of our Catholic Faith is the Blessed Virgin Mary. Too often, though, our Lady’s place in our Faith is misunderstood by non-Catholic neighbors. We are oftentimes characterized as worshipping Mary and believing that she is equal to God. Of course, this is not true and the truth of what we truly believe can be seen in the two feast days between which today’s 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time falls: the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Our Lady, Mother and Queen. For, every Marian feast points to Christ who in turn points to his mother as deserving of the highest honor of anyone after himself.
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body and soul, into Heaven at the end of her earthly life, while most certainly emphasizing the highest dignity that Mary holds in our Faith, also points to the great power of Christ in preserving his (and our) immaculate mother from the corruption of the grave. The Assumption was an act of God in bringing His highest and most noble creature immediately to heavenly glory at the end of her earthly life.
The feast of Our Lady, Mother and Queen naturally follows from the Blessed Virgin Mary’s presence in Heaven beside her son, the Son of God. Mary is our mother only because she was first Christ’s mother. Mary is our queen only because Christ is first our king. We see, then, that there is no adoration of Mary. There’s no claim that Mary is equal to God. However, there is much being said that God has so highly exalted Mary as to place her higher than any other creature, human or angelic. Because of Mary’s perfect obedience to the will of God in allowing herself to be the chosen handmaid of the Lord, bringing God incarnate into this world, and cooperating with his grace every step of the way, our Catholic Faith bids us to see in Mary the perfect and exemplar Christian whom we should strive to imitate in all we do so that we may imitate Christ her son in all we do.
What a blessing we have in our Blessed Mother Mary!
Through the powerful intercession of Mary,
Fr. Brady Keller
