HAIL HOLY QUEEN!!!!!

Today is the Feast of the Coronation of Mary as Queen of Heaven & Earth. This feast has a solid Biblical basis in the New Testament book of Revelation as well as in the Old Tetament promise of God to King David that he will have a descendant (Jesus) that will rule forever.

1st, lets look at what is found in Revelation to support my claim. We begin with Chapter 12 verse 1 where we read the description of a woman that has a "crown of twelve stars" on her head. This woman is clearly Mary as it talks about the woman giving birth to Jesus.

Later, in Revelation 12:5 we read: "She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod." This points back to the Prophecy of Nathan to David (2 Samuel 7) & shows that Jesus fullfills this promise.

So, what does this prove? It shows that Jesus is King, but it doesn't prove anything about Mary. Wrong! It does.

To see how it does we have to understand some things found in the Old Testament & how they foreshadow what will be in the Kingdom that Jesus will rule forever.

The Jewish kingship was a symbol of the Kingship of Jesus. & the trappings surrounding the kingship also had symbolic meaning. 1 of those was the role of the "Queen Mother" (gebirah).

Rather than try to explain it myself I will share with you some of what Scott Hahn has to say on the role of the Gebirah & how it applies to Mary (taken from Scott Hahn on Our Lady Read the entire article to get the full explanation.):

"I found in another book, The Graphic History of the Jewish Heritage, that the gebirah, the Queen Mother "occupied a unique and powerful position" throughout the history of ancient Israel's monarchy. He gives as an example Bathsheba, Solomon's mother, who was enthroned, which we will look at in just a moment."

"What's really interesting from Andreason's perspective is that even after the prophets are sent by God to purify the Jerusalem cult and the kingdom of all of these pagan encrustations, the institution of the gebirah continues with reforms by Hezekiah and Josiah. The fertility cults are suppressed and these ashora (sic) poles and so on are torn down, including sacred snakes, you know the nahushta and so on, but never the Queen Mother, that's allowed to remain. The central role for Andreason's research is that she was to be the king's wisdom counselor. Lady Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs is sort of like a personification of the Queen Mother, or visa versa. "

"But look at the beginning of the institution of the gebirah. It's something that continues. When the Queen Mother walks in, the king, because he is her son, pays filial homage to her and establishes her at his right hand, upon a throne as Queen Mother. If I am the father of the family of this kingdom, if I am the shepherd of this flock, that makes you the mother. Not only my mother but the grandmother of us all. That institution persisted down through the ages of the Judaite monarchy. There is no evidence of it ever being suppressed by the prophets or criticized by Yahweh or ever falling into hard times and being replaced because it was seen as something that was meaningless."

In those 3 paragraphs you have the what the Catholic Church teaches the role of Mary in the Church is & how its foundation is solidly based in Scripture. The Catholic doctrine of Mary is simply that of acknowledging her Biblically revealed/based role in God's plan of Salvation. Part of why Revelation 12 shows her with a crown is to acknowledge that she is fulfilling the role of gebirah & that we, as subjects in the Kingdom of God are to approach her the same way that the Jewish people approached the gebirah in the Old Testament.