The Rosary: A Problem I Have with the Last Glorious Mystery

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When I pray the rosary, I have a hard time with the last of the Glorious Mysteries…when Mary is Crowned as Queen of Heaven and Earth. I’ve seen many paintings of Mary, sitting on a throne, with God and Jesus placing a crown upon her head. When I’m mediating on this mystery, I have a difficult time picturing this in my mind without “figuratively” rolling my eyes.

While I have absolute belief in Mary’s queenship, my view is that Mary became queen after the Assumption without the coronation ceremony. I know I’m making a mountain out a molehill but when praying the rosary, I do make the disclaimer, “This didn’t happen this way” when the coronation image enters my head.
 
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You already accept the Queenship of Mary, which logically flows from the fact that she is the Mother of the true and final Davidic King, Jesus himself. The artistic representation of her Queenship is just that, an artistic representation. Her Assumption into Heaven would have as its logical conclusion that she assumes her role as Queen, and the art representing that helps us to think about it more. I think you’re right that you’re making more of it than it is. No need to unnecessarily kick up a stumbling block for yourself. Meditate on Mary’s Queenship in that mystery in whatever way helps you.

-Fr ACEGC
 
poiboy1964 said:
…I’ve seen many paintings of Mary, sitting on a throne, with God and Jesus placing a crown upon her head. When I’m mediating on this mystery, I have a difficult time picturing this in my mind without “figuratively” rolling my eyes.

While I have absolute belief in Mary’s queenship, my view is that Mary became queen after the Assumption without the coronation ceremony…“This didn’t happen this way” when the coronation image enters my head.
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I’m not sure if this will help or not. But we can gain an understanding of the Jesus’ Kingdom by reading the old testament.
1 Kings 2:19
19 So Bathshe′ba went to King Solomon, to speak to him on behalf of Adoni′jah. And the king rose to meet her, and bowed down to her; then he sat on his throne, and had a seat brought for the king’s mother; and she sat on his right.
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We can see here when the Queen Mother came to the King, the King rose up to her, not the other way around. He bowed to her, He sat her on a throne at his right.

Now use this imagery from the OT and imagine the Assumption just occurred. Mary just entered the throne room of heaven and what happens?

Jesus gets up to meet His mother. We welcomes her with honor by bowing before her. The angle Gabriel brings in a throne and places it at the right hand of Jesus for her to sit upon. Then Jesus the King (but also the One True God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit) crown her the Queen Mother of Heaven and Earth.

With a little insight of how the Davidic Kingdom functioned in the OT. It’s not to hard to imagine what it might be like in Jesus’ Heavenly Kingdom.

No eye rolling needed 😉

Hope this helps,

God Bles
 
poiboy1964 said:
While I have absolute belief in Mary’s queenship, my view is that Mary became queen after the Assumption without the coronation ceremony. I know I’m making a mountain out a molehill but when praying the rosary, I do make the disclaimer, “This didn’t happen this way” when the coronation image enters my head.
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It’s a symbolic ceremony. Obviously she didn’t need it to become Queen, but I personally would have liked to see it. I’m sure it made the English queen’s ceremony look small and cheap by comparison, and everybody in Heaven had a good seat to watch without having to stand up in a crowd for 8 hours.

If you want to picture it some other way, then feel free. The Rosary is a private devotion. I really don’t care what you picture as long as it’s reverent. I would also expect you to not go around making a fuss about how artists or other people choose to envision it.
 
Try reading Psalm 45 while praying this mystery, I think it’s a beautiful precursor to the Coronation of Our Lady.
 
Revelation 12. Among varying and diverse meanings, It is entirely acceptable to see the “woman” as Mary. After all, she bore a male child who was to rule the nations with a rod of iron. See Psalm 2, a messianic psalm for clarification. That child was caught up (ascended) to God at His throne. OK so far?

The “woman” wears a crown of 12 stars. Someone crowned her! It might have appeared instantly atop her head. Her Son may have placed it, the Holy Spirit may have placed it, or the entire Godhead may have placed it.

If this still plagues you, switch to the divine mercy chaplet and pray before the Blessed Sacrament (you do go to adoration, right?) for illumination regarding the coronation.
 
As stated above, it was not a physical coronation. ‘Crowning’ in this sense is representative of Mary’s entering into the glory of her queenship. She was Queen of Heaven and Earth from her ‘yes’ at the Annunciation when she became Christ’s mother, just as Bathsheba was the Queen from the initial moment of Solomon’s kingship.
 
poiboy1964 said:
While I have absolute belief in Mary’s queenship, my view is that Mary became queen after the Assumption without the coronation ceremony.
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So picture her on the throne without the coronation ceremony…

The artistic representation is just a representation. These are based on our Earthly (European) understandings of monarchy. If the queen of England has a coronation surely the queen of heaven has one that is even greater and so on and so forth.
 
Last week I asked this same question myself, then I remembers passages like the ones below in the Bible. Then I realized that Mary wasn’t the only person said to have a crown, but Christians more generally are given crowns too, and that the coronation of the Virgin Mary is a symbolic statement of her status, which we can have (though in lesser degree.)

Revelation 4:4, 10. Around the throne are twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones are twenty-four elders, dressed in white robes, with golden crowns on their heads… 10 the twenty-four elders fall before the one who is seated on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and ever; they cast their crowns before the throne,

Revelation 3:11. I am coming soon; hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.

1 Peter 5:4. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will win the crown of glory that never fades away.
 
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God the Father isn’t incarnate as an old man with grey hair and a beard. Art is not meant to be taken literally. It is always, in some way, a figure of a reality. Even photographs are in a sense manipulations, because they are taken from an idealized perspective that cuts out part of the visual field and the details that are “really” there. Art is an unreal depiction meant to lead to a greater and fuller reality that it points to…

The last Glorious Mystery is an opportunity to meditate on the reality, which you obviously accept: Our Lady has been granted a unique place for intercession in the Kingdom of Heaven. If some icon or other is more distracting than helpful as you reflect on the reality of her place in Heaven, then feel free to meditate without it.
 
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Thanks to everyone for the further clarification of this mystery.

This mystery has always been a bit of a mystery to me.
 
and because she is the mother of the King her request are always answered!
 
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