Queen Of Apostles
Country : Egypt
Year :
Mary merited the title Queen of Apostles by years of exile in foreign countries among pagans. She saw mission life in all its phases.
In Egypt, with St. Joseph, Mary was obliged to hide the “secret of the King”. Like a missioner in times of persecution, she could not risk endangering her Divine Son by public profession of faith. At times, she too, found herself the only believer in a town of pagans. She was in daily contact with worshippers of heathen gods, and if pagan vice and idolatry are heavy loads on every missioner’s heart, Mary must have suffered a grief beyond the ken of fallen man.
But great must have been her zeal and joy when she could preach Christ crucified, living in herself, as she abode, during the years in pagan Ephesus with the Beloved Disciple. Her Son was no longer a hidden God, but One on High; risen from the dead. Mary perhaps converted many by her spotless life, where the virtues of a Christian shone the more gloriously because set in a pagan land.
It will strengthen all who are interested in spreading the Faith, to reflect that Mary spent so many of her days on earth among the heathen.
A feast of Mary under the title Queen of Apostles is observed in Pallottine Redemptorist churches and other churches. It has a proper Mass; the collect refers to the coming of the Holy Spirit upon Our Lady and the Apostles, and asks Almighty God that, under Mary’s protection, “we may be enabled faithfully to serve Thy majesty, and by word and example to spread abroad the glory of Thy Name”.
