Our Mother and Queen was honored with the title “Queen of Merciful Hearts” when she was offered her beautiful crown filled with hearts with the names of her loving children.
The coronation was held at the two covenant Masses, the May 15 Third Sunday Covenant Mass, celebrated by Fr. Hector Vega and the May 18 Covenant Day Mass celebrated by Fr. Patricio Rodriguez. Arnie & Sonia Salinas felt very blessed to have the privilege of offering the crown in the Mass on May 15. Lisa Perez had the honor and privilege of offering the crown to our Queen in the Mass on May 18.
I am sharing an excerpt from a reflection by Cardinal Wuerl that helps us to understand that Marian feasts, devotions and traditions are celebrations of Jesus Christ. Through them we learn how to stay close to him in prayer and through the practice of charity, with confidence that our prayers will be answered.
Pilar Huerta, Family Federation
Communications Editor
[Excerpt: Cardinal Wuerl’s Blog, May 24, 2016]
… (Marian) feasts highlight not only the strength we find in asking Mary’s intercession, joining our prayers to her intercession, but also the confidence that God continues to act in the world. God hears the cry of those who suffer and God responds.
The third Marian feast for May is the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin on May 31. We remember how Mary journeyed to the home of her kinswoman Elizabeth to care for her as the birth of her son, John the Baptist, drew near. In the greeting that is so beautifully recounted in the first chapter of Luke, Mary first announces the arrival of the Messiah to the people of Israel as she prays what is known as the Magnificat. “My soul magnifies the Lord and my Spirit rejoices in God, my Savior” (Luke 1:46). This is a prayer of joy and of confidence that, in staying close to Christ, we are never alone.
To rejoice in Mary is to celebrate God’s greatest creation – the vessel he fashioned to be his own mother, the woman who would bear him into the world. In the life of the “handmaid of the Lord,” we learn what it means to say “yes” to life in the Lord and to discover in him the meaning of life.
With maternal love for us, Mary wants what is best for us – she wants Jesus for us, so she urges us, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). Then she helps us as we lead others to know and love her Son too. Her feasts not only empower us to turn to her in prayer, but also to love Jesus and others with a greater love.