St. Louis-Marie de Montfort gives Our Lady the title: “Regina cordium — Queen of all hearts”, and thus describes how Mary must rule in us.
First it is a rule over our interior life. Indeed, we feel that we are in charge of our interior life. No one may penetrate into the secrets of our heart without our permission: it is the seat of our freedom, of our intimacy, and we alone determine our thoughts, our inclinations, our decisions.
In principle we want to submit this interior life to Christ the King, and yet this is extremely difficult for us in our daily routine. In order to make this submission to His will easier for us, He sends us the Immaculata, the Queen who rules in us as a most loving Mother.
In the measure that we submit our heart and the movements of our heart to her, and abide by her decisions and yield to her will, she becomes Queen of our hearts.
Besides, our interior life is often a riddle even to us. Ignorance, delusion and distractions prevent us from recognizing clearly the truth about our interior state. This results in uncertainty, doubt, unease, inner discord and many storms, which often make us lose our sense of direction and even more often paralyze us on the way to God.
Mary’s queenship in us gives us that security that a soldier has when he allows himself to be led by an experienced, reliable officer. Or better: the security of a child who relies entirely on its mother’s care.
Mary’s queenship is a queenship of love. God has given her power over all creatures; without restriction she is their mistress, “terrible as an army set in battle array”.
Whatever she asks of Him is granted to her. She is “the all-powerful intercessor”. Yet this omnipotence is utterly and completely in the service of her love: love for God and for her children. In this kingdom there is nothing that does not derive from this love and lead back to this love.
“In her we see nothing imperious, nothing that would bend us down to the dust. Jesus Christ, the God-King, must be worshipped; one must fall prostrate before him in profound humiliation; He is entitled to demand this of His creatures and must do so.
“Before Mary, however, we stand and kneel in profound reverence, indeed, yet we know that she has been placed by God on our human level so as to perform maternal services for us. She bridges the great distance between her and us by her immense goodness and kindly condescension.
“She uses her royal power by commanding the powers of nature to serve her, as when she answers prayers, or bids the angels of the spirit world to come to our rescue. Her intercessory omnipotence finds its expression in her mediation of grace. Her thoroughly royal appearance of majesty and splendor serves to capture the very depths of our souls and to draw them aloft to the ideal.” (Fr. Sträter, S.J.)
The best acknowledgment of Mary’s queenship is the imitation of her own “being the handmaid of the Lord”, the repetition from morning to evening of her fiat in all the vicissitudes of our life.
We can understand the Angelus prayer in this sense as a daily threefold renewal of our consecration to Mary, of our reliance on her will, a declaration of loyalty and submission to her queenship.
