Surprise! Happy Feast of Our Lady Queen of the Angels!!!

Today in my homeland, the archdiocese of Los Angeles, we are celebrating the Feast of Our Lady Queen of the Angels because, often forgotten but fun, true, and glorious fact: Los Angeles is really short for El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles (The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels)!

This meant that though I was ready for the feast of St. Gregory the Great (who has amazing things to say in the Office of Readings today in the new calendar), and if I had gone to an earlier Mass may have expected the feast of Pope St. Pius X (on the old calendar), instead I was greeted by our holy pastor in a white and blue Marian vestment, heard him say something vague about "the Marian feast today" and thought he must be losing it, thinking when he saw September 3rd that he was seeing September 8 (Feast of Our Lady's Nativity, aka her birthday).

Wrong again, mustard seed!

What was my delight when he announced more fully that although the rest of the Church is celebrating St. Gregory the Great today (and I may add Pope St. Pius X), we in the archdiocese of Los Angeles are celebrating our patronal feast!

We got a Gloria, special readings, and a wonderful homily. I will abbreviate it all to say:

Proverbs (ah, how true it is! "How does the Church read the Bible? The Church reads the Bible as liturgy," as another wonderfully holy priest once taught me, and I hope to speak more on this for Our Lady's birthday, but meanwhile...)

Psalm 45 - not abridged like it was on the Assumption, but lots of verses. Gorgeous!

Galatians . . . I wasn't expecting the part about "Abba, Father!" to come so soon after "born of a woman," but then . . . 

St. John's Gospel account of the Crucifixion. And there is Our Lord and "when he sees" the two of them there, He gives Mary and John to each other. How had I never quite noticed that before. When He sees them. 

I couldn't sleep last night (eventually I did, don't you worry!) - and so I picked up a story of St. Andre Bessette, one of my heroes, and my how he just lived in the Presence of God. We all do, of course, because God is present even when we're rather absent, but to be aware of His Presence and talk to Him all the time - or, as in the case of St. Andre, to be aware of His saints and talk to them all the time (for St. Andre, especially St. Joseph, though Our Lady too) . . . 

But as this article pointed out, few know how devoted St. Andre was to Our Lord's Passion. This devotion made his love of St. Joseph pale in comparison! So there I was thinking of St. Andre and St. Joseph (because St. Joseph was always with him) at the foot of the Cross when St. Andre made the Stations often, and Our Lord saw them . . . and gave Mary to St. Andre as his mother too. He does this for all of us, for certainly we are all at the foot of the Cross far more often than we care to be! But ah, how He looks and sees us. . . 

One of Father's remarks in the homily, and then I'll leave you to your own reflections (and cupcakes!) was this: By making her Queen of the Angels, God put Mary in charge of all their work. Marvelous!!!

I knew an elderly couple who said the Angelus every day before lunch, and after saying this beautiful prayer, they would ask Our Lady to send angels to all those who'd asked for their prayers recently. I remember they had lots of awesome stories that came back to them about how people they'd prayed for had seen and been helped by angels, often thinking they were people (ah, those clever angels!!) . . . 

I am asking Our Lady to send you angels, to you and your loved ones for all your and their needs today!

Our Lady, Queen of the Angels and most of all our Mama, pray for us and send us angels!

​Draw me, we will run!!!