On this fifteenth Tuesday in the series of 15 Tuesdays in honor of our Holy Father St. Dominic, our reflection considers the Salve Regina and Our Lady’s Queenship over the Order of Preachers. Next week we will conclude this series with a reflection on the feast of St. Dominic.
If you are joining us now at the last of the 15 Tuesdays, don’t worry! These fifteen weeks have been a delightful opportunity for us to share our reflections, which you can read at any point to grow in love of God and devotion to St. Dominic.
Salve, Regina: The Queenship of Mary and the Dominican Order
Salve, Regína!
Salve, Regína! The Dominican Order’s famous love for this Marian antiphon bespeaks a special devotion to the Queenship of her whom it honors. Although the Order’s two ancient customs concerning the Salve, of solemnly chanting it during a Community procession at the end of Compline (Night Prayer) and of chanting it also at the bedside of a dying Dominican, were not instituted until after Saint Dominic’s death, he certainly would have known and loved this antiphon. The Order’s medieval origins and knightly character partially explain its deep devotion to Our Lady as Queen. More importantly, the early friars and nuns of the Order were convinced, by daily experience as well as by miraculous revelations, of Mary’s constant intervention on behalf of the Order. They gloried in her special patronage and attributed her with founding, clothing, and protecting the Order.
Virgo Prædicánda
There is a deeper reason why the mystery of Our Lady’s Coronation and Queenship should resonate with Dominicans. Mary personifies all the favorite themes of Dominican life, study, and preaching. Who could better initiate a Dominican soul into the secrets of the Incarnate Word than the woman whose interior life consisted in “pondering in her heart” all the words and deeds of Jesus? From whom will the preacher learn how to “contemplate, and give to others the things contemplated,” if not from her who bore Jesus in Her womb, so that the world might receive its Savior through her? The Order itself takes its motto, “To praise, to bless, and to preach” the Triune God, from the Preface of Our Lady, finding the inspiration of its life and mission in contemplating the mighty works of God in Mary. In Mary, the life of virtue, the efficacy of grace, and union with Christ are exemplified more gloriously than in anyone else. All these themes of Dominican life, study, and preaching converge on the goal of beatitude: the happiness which all men desire, achieved at last by the grace of God Who alone can satisfy man’s heart. It is precisely in Our Lady’s Coronation that grace and glory find, literally, their crown. Every dignity of nature and grace which was hers, is here revealed in its final breathtaking splendor. The full transformation, body and soul, for which every human person is created, is accomplished in Mary to the highest degree possible.
For the Order of Preachers, then, Mary is eminently the Virgo Praedicánda, not merely the Virgin “most renowned,” but “to be preached.” She is the glorious Virgin Mother whose glory, mercy, and beauty deserve to be extolled with all the eloquence that devoted hearts and tongues can muster. And Mary is not at all an inert object, held up primarily for admiration. She reinforces her Preachers’ efforts for the salvation of souls with her efficacious mediation, the power and universal scope of which abundantly justify her title of Queen. It is the privilege of every Dominican, then, to experience with particular intensity what the entire Church recognizes: “Mary, because she has entered intimately into the history of salvation, in a certain sense gathers up in her own person the great truths of the faith and awakens their resonance when she is the object of preaching and veneration; she summons the faithful to her Son, to his sacrifice and to the Father’s love” (Lumen Gentium, 65).
Under Her Mantle
There is a final reason why Dominicans should love to ponder the mystery of Our Lady’s Coronation. It is that they hope to share her glory themselves. St. Louis de Montfort tells us that the true devotee of Our Lady will share in her own virtues and graces because of the mutual generosity between them. A Dominican spiritual writer similarly observes that deep, childlike dependence on Our Lady enables us to share in her own contemplative life. If heavenly glory is the flowering of the life of grace, then the Dominican who lives in intimate relations with his Queen here below can rightly hope to enjoy a continuation of that relationship in heaven.
This was symbolically shown to Saint Dominic in his famous vision of heaven, in which he saw religious of every other Order but his own. When at Jesus’ invitation our Holy Father asked to see his own brethren, Our Lord said, “I have given your Order to My Mother’s care.” Then Our Lady drew back her mantle, which seemed large enough to enclose almost all of heaven, and showed him a great host of his brethren beneath it.
Every Dominican hopes, under Our Lady’s patronage, to obtain the eternal life Jesus promised to those who leave everything to follow Him. May all of us, too, hope to obtain through her the salvation Jesus promised. “Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, pray for us, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.” Amen.
Additional Prayers
If you would like to observe this day with additional devotions, we have posted the following prayers in the past: