August 22
Queenship of Mary, Catholic Church
The queenship of Mary, mother of the King of Kings, is a concept with both spiritual and political meaning. "Especially in time of crisis," as Pius XII wrote, believers take comfort in the faith that Mary "reigns with a mother's solicitude over the entire world." And intermittently throughout the Christian era, leaders have claimed an alliance with the Queen of Heaven to bolster their spiritual or secular power.
As early as the 500s, a fresco in the Roman church of Santa Maria Antiqua (right) depicted Mary as a crowned Byzantine ruler. During his brief papacy from 705-707, John VII added several images of Maria Regina to Roman churches. By the 1000s, devotion to Mary as Queen had spread through Europe. The hymn "Salve Regina," attributed to Bl. Hermann of Reichenau (d. 1054), became the anthem of the Crusaders and is still sung often in Catholic services:
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness, our hope.
In the 1100s, images of the coronation of Mary in heaven
began to appear in Catholic churches and manuscripts. On the portal of
Senlis cathedral (left), Mary is seated at Christ's right, already
crowned. Echoing ancient devotions to pagan Queens of Heaven, popular
devotion to the Virgin as Queen strengthened in Europe as feudal fiefdoms
ceded to royal realms with the rise of European monarchy, persisting
through the Reformation and the decline of monarchy. 
In 1636, the Vatican
began to authorize canonical coronation of Marian images such as the
painting of the Madonna of Miracles in Rome (right), crowned in 1646.
Inspired by the dramatic cure of a tubucular Roman woman, Maria Morbidelli, at Lourdes during the Holy Year of 1933, Servite priest Gabriele Roschini spearheaded a movement to urge the Church to establish a liturgical feast of Mary the Queen, as it had for Christ the King during the Holy Year of 1925. The group Pro Regalitate Mariae (For Mary's Queenship) spread from Rome through Italy and around the world, pushing especially for Vatican action in the Jubilee Year of 1950. In 1954, which he declared a Marian Year, Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical "Ad Coeli Reginam," authorizing the feast of the Queenship of Mary on May 31. After Vatican II, in 1969, Pope Paul VI changed the feast to an optional memorial on August 22 to improve the liturgical order of Marian feast days. The Feast of the Visitation moved from July 2 to May 31, closer to the Annunciation, while the Feast of Mary's Queenship moved to the octave of the Assumption, consonant with the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary, in which the final mystery, Mary's crowning, follows that of her rising to heaven.
Sources include:
 | Pius XII, "Ad Caeli Reginam," Encyclicals of Pius XII - The Holy See - The Holy Father, www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_11101954_ad-caeli-reginam_en.html |
| Department of the History of Art, University of Indiana, www.dlib.indiana.edu (picture of Santa Maria Antiqua fresco) |
| Architecture Religieuse en Occident, architecture.relig.free.fr/images/senlis/ext_tympan_couronnement.jpg (photo of Senlis portal) |
| "Santa Maria dei Miracoli e Santa Maria di Montesanto, Roma dipinto altare," photo taken Feb. 27, 2011 and posted by uominipersi to Flickr - Photo Sharing! www.flickr.com/photos/uominipersi/5532997070/ (Madonna dei Miracoli) |
| Il Nomade, "Di paese in paese," Bollettino - L'amore a Gesù Crocifisso, May-June 1950, www.unionecatechisti.it |
| The Mary Page, University of Dayton, www.udayton.edu/mary |
| Kenneth B. Moore, O.Carm., "The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin in the Liturgy of the Church," Marian Studies 3, 1952 |
Also commemorated this date:
| St. Mary's Feast, Coptic Orthodox Church, the apparition of her body to the Apostles (Mesori 16) |
| Mother of God of the Lakes, Braslaw, Braslaw, Vitsebsk, Belarus. Icon crowned, 2009. |
| Notre-Dame-de-la-Délivrande, Douvres-la-Délivrande, Calvados, Normandy, France. Statue crowned, 1872; church dedicated, 1895. |
| Notre-Dame de Bonheur, Ollioules, Var, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France (Our Lady of Happiness). Fête. |
| All-Holy One of Haros, Leipsoi, Kalymnos, South Aegean, Greece. Procession. Since 1943, lilies left from the Annunciation (March 25) revive and rebloom. |
| Kyra Panagia, Aperi, Karpathos, South Aegean, Greece (All-Holy Lady). Liturgy, food, dancing. |
| Panagia Politissa, Livadia, Tilos, Rhodes, South Aegean, Greece (All-Holy One from Constantinople). Festival with food, music, dancing on eve of Feast of the Dormition. |
| Madonna Dormiente, Varallo, Vercelli, Piedmont, Italy (Sleeping Madonna). Miracle of healing, 1498. Festa August 15. |
| Nostra Signora di Lourdes, Giaveno, Torino, Piedmont, Italy, Selvaggio district. First church consecrated, 1909; new Sanctuary opened for worship, 1926. |
| Madonna di Canneto, Settefrati, Frosinone, Latium, Italy. Solemn pontifical mass at shrine; nocturnal procession to town, fireworks. |
| Madonna Incoronata, Cerro al Volturno, Isernia, Molise, Italy, Foci district (Crowned Madonna). Festa. |
| Madonna delle Stelle, Sant'Angelo Limosano, Campobasso, Molise, Italy (Madonna of the Stars). Solemnity celebrated with masses, processions, concert, fireworks. |
| Madonna del Carmelo, Chiaromonte, Potenza, Basilicata, Italy, Sagittario district. Festa, procession. |
| Madonna del Gonfalone, Tricase, Lecce, Apulia, Italy, Sant'Eufemia district. Livestock and produce fair; festa with procession, mass, concert. |
| Madonna dell'Annunziata, Oppido Mamertina, Reggio Calabria, Calabria, Italy. Town's patronal festa, procession (also March 25). |
| Madonna della Provvidenza, Antillo, Messina, Sicily, Italy. Town patron. Festa: procession, fireworks. |
| Inmaculado Corazón de María, Panama City, Panama (Immaculate Heart of Mary). First stone of sanctuary placed, 1947; annual fiesta, mass, nocturnal procession. |
| Virgen de La Cama, Escalante, Trasmiera, Cantabria, Spain (Virgin of the Bed). Romería, procession. |
| Virgen del Mar, Marrón, Ampuero, Asón-Agüera, Cantabria, Spain (Virgin of the Sea). Fiesta. |
| Virgen del Molino, Santa Eulalia del Campo, Teruel, Aragon, Spain (Virgin of the Mill). Fiesta. |
| Virgen del Rosario, Jayena, Granada, Andalucia, Spain. Patronal town fiestas end with procession & fireworks August 22 or Sunday after. |
| Our Lady of La Vang, Hai Phu, Hai Lang, Quảng Trị, Vietnam. Shrine consecrated August 22, 1928 replaced 1901 building; Pope John XXIII elevated the Church of Our Lady of La Vang to the rank of a minor basilica August 22, 1961; church destroyed by North Vietnamese bombardment in 1972; new church begun in 1998, 200 years after an apparition there in 1798. |