The Assumption of Mary body and soul into heaven and the Coronation are one event. Mary is recognized as Queen by all the citizens of heaven. In our celebrations, we present them as two events due to our limited time-bound understanding.

Likewise, we describe with imaginative understanding what took place. "What a delightful scene! While David, her forefather, and Joseph, her virgin spouse, look on with rapturous joy, and the angels, the archangels, the virtues, the principalities, the powers, the dominations, the cherubim, and seraphim sing their glorious canticles, her divine Son, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, amidst the applause of the whole courts of heaven, places the royal crown upon Mary's head." (from Discourses on Our Lady, by Fr. O'Rafferty)

We the Church on earth, recognize her great holiness as the beloved of God and honor her above all the angels and saint. Our brothers in Christ of other denominations do not fully realize her greatness and think we worship Mary. If God so greatly honored her by becoming man through her fiat, should we honor her less?

Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam established the liturgical feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen in 1954. He said, "We are instituting this feast so that all may recognize more clearly and venerate more devoutly the merciful and maternal sway of the Mother of God." The pope closing words are just as true today as they were in 1954 as he said,

"Earnestly desiring that

the Queen and Mother of Christendom may hear our prayers,

and by her peace make happy a world shaken by hate,

and may, after this exile show us all Jesus,

Who will be our eternal peace and joy...."