When the First World War was staining with blood the fields of Europe and the world, Pope Benedict XV, in order to obtain the intercession of the Blessed Mother of God for the speedy end of that bloody conflict, ordered that a new invocation be introduced into the Litany of Loreto, which since then has been prayed daily by thousands and millions of devout faithful. It is the one that proclaims her “Queen of Peace.”
On May 5, 1917, the Pope wrote to all the Bishops of the world: «Since all the graces that the Author of all good deigns to grant to the poor descendants of Adam, by the loving design of His Divine Providence, are distributed through the hands of the Most Holy Virgin, We desire that to the Great Mother of God, in this hour more terrible than ever before, there may rise the living and confident supplication of her deeply afflicted children […] “Let there rise, therefore, toward Mary, who is Mother of mercy and omnipotent by grace, from every place on earth, from the noblest temples to the smallest chapels, from royal palaces to the poorest huts, from wherever there is a faithful soul, from the bloodstained fields and seas, the pious and devout invocation [‘Regina pacis, ora pro nobis’], and may there reach Her the anguished cry of mothers and wives, the groaning of innocent children, the sigh of all noble hearts. May her sweet and most benign solicitude be moved, and may the peace implored for this convulsed world be obtained. And may future centuries remember the efficacy of Her intercession and the greatness of the benefits obtained through Her.”»
And on May 13, 1917, the «Regina pacis» responds to the call of Pope Benedict XV and of the whole Church, and appears in Fatima to three children playing on a slope at Cova da Iria. «— Do not be afraid… I am from heaven… I come to ask you to come here for six consecutive months, on the 13th day at this same hour… Are you willing to offer yourselves to God to endure all the sufferings He may wish to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended and in supplication for the conversion of sinners? — Yes, we are willing… — Pray the rosary every day in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war…»
Mother of Peace
The Messiah is the “Prince of Peace.” Of Him a Psalm says that “in His days justice shall flourish and abundance of peace” (71:7). Therefore the Sacred Liturgy affirms that the kingdom of Christ is a “kingdom of truth and life, kingdom of holiness and grace, kingdom of justice, love, and peace.” Very rightly, then, the Virgin, Mother of the Messiah, can and should be called Queen of Peace. Moreover, Our Lady is “Queen and Mother of mercy.” And since war always brings in its wake the macabre procession of blood and fire, death and orphanhood, hunger and pestilence and, what is worse, hatred and resentment, the merciful heart that she possesses cannot but be moved when she sees her children victims of such evils, and consequently she is always ready to pray that they may be remedied with the effective and only remedy of peace.
Isaiah, in announcing to us the coming of the Messiah, tells us that He shall be called «Prince of Peace, that great shall be His dominion and that peace shall have no end» in Him (9:5-6). Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, in announcing in his canticle the imminent arrival of the light from on high, tells us that His mission is «to direct or guide our feet into the way of peace» (Lk. 1:79). And Saint Paul even says: «He is our peace» (Eph. 2:14). Now, if Christ is our peace, Mary is the Mother of peace. Her virginal childbirth was a childbirth of peace.
Saint Paul presents Christ to us on Calvary «making peace through the blood of His cross, both on earth and in heaven» (Col. 1:20). Christ is the great artisan of peace. And the Gospel of Saint John presents Mary beside the cross of Jesus. She was not only the creature most perfectly redeemed and pacified by Christ — having no guilt or stain of sin — but when she offered to the Father her own sorrows together with the blood of the Son on Calvary, she was especially associated with Christ’s work of peace. That is why she is “Bearer of peace,” “Creator of peace,” “Mother of peace,” and “Queen of peace.”
Deborah, Jael, Judith, were heroines of Israel, but their hands were stained with blood or at the price of blood they purchased peace for their people. Mary, on the contrary, without the shedding of blood, was the heroine of the new Israel of God, kingdom of justice, love, and peace.
Mary, Queen of Peace, is the one who can obtain for us from heaven the gift of peace, the one who can help us in the task of conquering peace.
The Blessed Virgin is also spouse of the Holy Spirit, one of whose fruits is PEACE (Gal. 5:22).
Especially in these days, ask fervently the Queen of Peace that, thanks to her peace-giving intercession, the longed-for peace may shine perpetually over the firmament of the Church and over the horizon of the nations.
Source ad sensum: «The Beatitudes of Mary» by Mons. Castán Lacoma
