My dear parishioners,
Peace! On the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, 7 October, 2019, Pope Francis established the feast of Our Lady of Loreto, to be observed each year on the 10th of December. At the same time Pope Francis proclaimed a Lauretan Jubilee Holy Year to run from 8 December, 2019 through 10 December, 2020. There are fifty-one invocations in the Litany of Loreto. The following is a reflection on the forty-fourth invocation: Queen of Martyrs, pray for us.
There are thirteen various forms of Our Lady’s Queenship considered in the Litany of Loreto. Here we consider specifically what it means to say that Saint Mary, the Blessed Virgin Mother of God is the “Queen of Martyrs.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§ 2473) addresses martyrdom when considering the eighth commandment of God, to not bear false witness: “Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith; it means bearing witness even unto death. The martyr bears witness to Christ who died and rose, to whom he is united by charity. He bears witness to the truth of the faith and of Christian doctrine. He endures death through an act of fortitude.”
Who are the Martyrs? There have always been martyrs from Saint Stephen (Acts 7:57-60) in the beginning down to our own day. Robert Royal made a fine study entitled The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century: A Comprehensive World History (New York: Herder and Herder, 2006) serves as a complement to the study done by Augustine J. O’Reilly The Martyrs of the Coliseum (London: Burns, Oates and Co., 1871). Saint Alphonsus Liguori (+1787) has also made a contribution with his Victories of the Martyrs. There are many martyrs we could consider: North American Martyrs (+1642-1649), Ugandan Martyrs (+1885 -1887), Martyrs of Nagasaki (+1597), Cristero Martyrs (+1926-1929). When I was sixteen Father Jerzy Popieluszko was martyred in Poland by the Polish equivalent of the KGB on 13 October, 1984. Besides Saints Thomas More (+1535) and John Fisher (+1535) there is yet another group of Martyrs of England and Wales (+1535-1679) including Edmund Campion.
As Queen of the Martyrs, Our Lady is their leader and consolation. Saint Mary “only” suffered a mystical sort of martyrdom as foretold by Simeon as she stood at the foot of the Cross (Luke 2:34; John 19:25). Our Lady surely consoled the Lord as He was dying on the Cross. How many other martyrs invoked her aid “now and at the hour of our death”? Many martyrs may have sought the intercession of Our Lady while “mourning and weeping in this vale of tears” as we pray in the Savle Regina. While the English Martyrs would venerate Our Lady under her title of Walsingham, and Polish Martyrs under Jasna Gora, and the Cristero Martyrs Guadalupe, the same Blessed Virgin is Queen of all the Martyrs regardless of the era or location of their sufferings. Now in Heaven she leads them in interceding for us.
Father John Arthur Orr