The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary

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Here we are, starting Catholic Marriage Prep's blog! Each member of our team will participate. Today I, Christine, get to be first! We decided to start on the feast of the Queenship of Mary to entrust this blog to her.

The feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary is dear to my heart especially because it triggers a fond memory: the anniversary of our second daughter's first Communion, Jehanne.

It was in 1987, she was just 6 and literally "full of grace!" Our conversion was still pretty new, 82 for me, 84 for Christian, and we were spending a few days in a monastery during the summer. Jehanne would come to adoration and stare at the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance; she would approach Him very close and talk to Him, telling Him aloud how much she loved him. She was in love! I was a bit embarrassed as we were not alone in the chapel, but she was so innocent and luminous!
We had prepared her first Communion at home and she was ready now to receive Jesus for the first time. August 22nd was the big day. We had brought a pretty white dress and the Community helped us braid a crown of wild flowers.

--> Everything was beautiful, with a great sense of the sacred: icons, incense, candles, flowers, the liturgy. Mary's icon was honored on the side of the altar, reminding us of her Queenship over Jesus' heart and our hearts. Everything was about beauty, prayer, and reverence.... a window open on heaven!
    

--> Saint Maximilian Kolbe, one of our Patron Saints, wrote that Mary "has a right to be loved as Queen of all hearts so that, through her, hearts would be cleansed and themselves become immaculate, similar and like unto her own heart, and so worthy of union with God."

Jehanne is now the happy mother of five children, in Burgundy, France. I miss her and her beautiful family very much....