THE WORD AND THE FEAST
Judges 6: 11-24; Matthew 19: 23-30
Today's Word and the Feast are full of contrasts - the rich and the poor; the haves and the have-nots, the strong and the weak, the first and the last... it all boils down to one binary according to Christ: those who are worthy of the Reign and those that are not!
We have some beautiful icons presented today. Gideon the weakling chosen amidst the strong ones; the young man who possessed abundance of wealth but failed to inherit the Kingdom, Mary the simple and ordinary girl who is crowned the Queen of heaven and earth, a feast we celebrate exactly a week after the Assumption. These are evidential proofs of the criteria of the Reign!
Mary's queenship is absolutely logical. Christ is the King and we have no doubt about it. If Christ were the king, the crown prince of the World, his mother Mary is logically the Queen - that is why Pius XII instituted this feast in 1954 to let us understand that we have a great mediatrix in this simple woman of Nazareth.
Mary is the mediatrix in more than a few ways: one, by her intercession; secondly by her example; and thirdly by her challenging witness that tells us that it is possible to live as people of the Reign, the children of the Reign, worthy subjects of our one and only King, Christ our Lord. The Queenship, apart from being one of the glories of Mary that we celebrate, is a reminder to us, to remain Reign-worthy.