Jesus crowns Mary Queen of Heaven
Today marks the 3rd anniversary of my consecration to Mary – something I would never have undertaken on my own. Since I was closer to Jesus than to Mary, I never thought that I would need devotion to Mary. After all, I already know her Son, and wasn’t that the whole point? Yet undertake the journey to consecration I did, and only because it was clear to me that it was Jesus himself who wanted me to do so.
I had peppered him with questions before agreeing to it. “Why do I need Mary when I already love you?” I had rather petulantly shot at him during prayer. The answer came back immediately, “I love you both so much. It would bring me such great joy to have you both know and love each other as I love you.” And, at another time, he had replied, “There will come a time when you cannot see the Sun, and the Moon will give you comfort.” Yet on another day, I had a vision in my mind’s eye of Mary as I had never seen her before – a battle maiden, glorious, strong, beautiful, tender yet fierce. She was leading an inestimable-sized army under the banner of her Son. And I knew then, that I wanted to join that army. So I consented to the consecration, but at the time, it was not with all my heart. I took that step as a commitment to come to know her so that I may love her.
Since that time, I have come to feel very differently about Mary. For which human person can possibly love Christ more than she? Was I so arrogant that I thought I have nothing to learn about loving Jesus from her? And who could possibly love Mary more than Jesus? If I loved Christ as much as I thought I did, would my heart not long to love whomever He loved? In the person of this maiden from Nazareth is revealed God’s love and glory as never seen before or could ever be seen again in another human being – for this was the person who was most intimately loved by God when He walked on this earth as one of us.
The path of discipleship is one of increasing humility. That comes partially from recognising how much of faith is mystery, and what hubris it is to expect the intellect to comprehend the things of God. Faith may seek understanding, but genuine faith knows that the intellect can only wait to receive what light God chooses to give it, and that love always precedes and transcends understanding.
It has been three years in coming, but today I find that I am finally able to whole-heartedly give myself into Mary’s keeping so that she may apprentice me in loving and serving God with complete generosity. From this day forth, she is the patroness of my apostolate to bring souls to her Son. More importantly for me, I know that she will do everything in her power to raise me up as a true child of God in just the same way she raised Jesus. As I take her hand today, I know my beloved Lord is beaming with pride and joy, for finally, I have accepted his mother to be queen of my heart as she is in his.
On the Feast of Our Lady, Mother and Queen
Journey of the Heart 
“Woman behold your son, then he said to the disciple, behold your mother” It is Jesus Himself who told that she is our Mother because He knew that we all need a mother to help us and guide us like His mother to “stand under the cross and bear it all.” Thank you for reminding us to keep her in our heart. :)