From the Office of Our Lady: 1959
At thy right hand stands the queen, in
Ophir gold arrayed.
Whereas the kings' daughters are in the plural, the queen is in the singular,
because we are to understand by her the Catholic Church or the blessed Virgin
Mary, who is the queen and mistress of the Church. She stands at God's right
hand because she receives more honor from God than the whole of creation put
together.
It was because the prophet was enabled by the Holy
Spirit to see the archangel talking to Mary that he said, "Listen, my
daughter, and consider my words attentively. Listen to what the angel says,
listen to what heaven's messenger promises you. Remember your chastity, listen
carefully, be all attention: what he has to tell you is very hard to grasp.
Listen, then, and try to realize what he means; lend a ready ear; take his
words into your heart and take the Word into your womb. Virgin when you
conceive, you will still be a virgin when you bring forth your Son. Lend a
ready ear, for it is by way of your hearing that he who is to be born of you
will enter into you: he is the Word, and words come in through the ear. "
Mary conceived because she listened and believed. If she had not listened, she
would not have believed; but she did listen and so she did believe, and by
believing she conceived.
Thou art to forget, henceforward, thy own
nation, and the house of thy father.
Thy beauty, now, is all for the king's
delight. And what beauty it must have been if it made
her alone of all women the Object of God's choice and drew the Lord himself to
love her.
All the rich among the people, shall
entreat thy countenance. Not only, he says,
will the women of Tyre worship your Son, but you too will receive their
prayers; they will pay their vows to you as well. Even if we take
"countenance" to mean no more than "image", the saying will
still be not inappropriate, for we do find that her images are universally
venerated wherever representations of her exist. But there is another way in
which all the rich among the people entreat the beautiful countenance
of the blessed Virgin Mary: they entreat it in the sense that they beg to have
the like themselves, for there is no one who does not desire to possess the
beauty and holiness that are hers.
After her shall virgins be brought to the
king. She, he says, will go first; she will precede
the others because she is their queen and mistress. All the rest will follow
her and after her will be brought to the king, Christ the Lord. Her
neighbors shall be brought to thee. They shall be brought with gladness and
rejoicing. The name "neighbor" is given to those who are like her
in mind and spirit, those whose lives resemble hers.
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