Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Buenos Aires (Agenzia Fides) – On February 23, the Parish of St. Mary of Bethany in Buenos Aires will host the solemn coronation of Mary as “Queen of the Missions,” coinciding with the celebration of the opening Mass of the Annual Assembly of Diocesan Directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) of Argentina. The ceremony will be presided by Archbishop Adriano Bernardini, Apostolic Nuncio to Argentina. The celebration will also be attended by bishops and priests, including the National Director of the PMS, Father Oswald P. Leone. After the celebration, the image of Mary, Queen of Heaven, will be carried in procession from the church to the National Headquarters of the PMS.
The PMS Argentina have prepared a web page to explain the devotion to Mary, Queen of the Missions, which contains the story of the devotion, the meaning of the image, the novena in honor of Mary, Queen of the Missions, a few articles on Our Lady in the missions, the Missionary Rosary, Marian prayers and hymns to Mary from the missions, and a gallery of images very wide.
Reading the history of devotion, we learn that the title of "Queen of the Missions" seems to have just arisen in the first half of the twentieth century. Vincentian missionaries in Spain published a magazine from 1935 to 1956 called "Queen of the Missions," which says that already in the 1930s, Mary was honored with the title. However, its inclusion in the official Marian titles of the Church took longer. In the final invocation to the Virgin Mary at the end of modern missionary documents written in the 20th century by Benedict XV (Apostolic Letter Maximum illud, 1919), Pius XI (Encyclical Rerum Ecclesiae, 1926) and Pius XII (Encyclical Fidei Donum, 1957), Mary is always referred to as “Queen of the Apostles.” Only in the encyclical Princeps Pastorum of John XXIII, in 1959, is she invoked as "Queen of the Missions." (CE) (Agenzia Fides 09/02/2010)
