Queen of Intercessors: Her Story, Your Story - Dennis Girard

As Fr. Roger Vandenakker, General Superior of the Companions of the Cross remarked at the 2019 Marian Devotional Movement pilgrimage to the Cape, "Mary is gathering her children." Through the MDM's inaugural Canada54 National Novena, launched during the 2020 pandemic, it was observed that her children love to pray. For these children, Mary is both Mother and Queen. As children she is their Mother - as Intercessors she is their Queen! Her gift of this unique title, Queen of Intercessors, birthed through the National Novena, unites Mary with her Intercessors through a profound personal bond ... the bond of intercession. Her gift of this title is not exclusive; it extends to all Intercessors throughout the world.

On November 27th, 1830, St. Catherine Labouré received the apparition leading to the striking of what was to become known as the Miraculous Medal. Unknown to many is that this particular apparition comprised of two phases, the first of which, according to St. Catherine, was to be the image struck on the medal. The first phase is known as either the "The Virgin of the Globe" or "The Virgin Most Powerful" - the second as "Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal." We can do no better than citing from Fr. Joseph Dirvin's 1958 classic, Saint Catheriné Laboure of the Miraculous Medal, to explain the difference between the two phases.

There is, of course, a difference of emphasis upon doctrine in the two representations, for the first phase of the Apparition, in addition to honoring the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady in the words, "conceived without sin," expressly demonstrates the doctrine that Mary is Mediatrix of All Graces. Very simply, this doctrine-considered by the Church to be certain although not yet solemnly defined-teaches that all prayers and petitions, whether made to God directly, to Our lady, or to the saints, are presented to God by His Mother; and that all graces, whether answers to prayer or gratuitously bestowed by God, pass to men through the hands of His Mother. In the first phase of the Apparition, the attitude of Our Lady, eyes raised to Heaven, lips moving in prayer, and the symbolic offering of the golden ball of the world, beautifully express the intercession of Mary, while the rays from her fingers express the bestowal of God's graces through her. In the second phase of the Apparition, the bestowal of the graces alone is represented by the rays flowing from the outstretched hands.

However, while Father Aladel must have regretted the inability to present the completeness of doctrine symbolized in the first phase, he must have considered the intercessory powers of Mary as Mediatrix to be sufficiently represented by the words of the prayer on the Medal: "Pray for us who have recourse to thee."

The miraculous statue of Our Lady of the Cape was donated to Canada's National Marian Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in 1854 coinciding with the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception by Pope Pius IX. She was fashioned after the image of the Miraculous Medal depicting the Immaculate Conception. Under the title, Queen of Intercessors, she also embodies majestically the first phase of St. Catherine's November 27th, 1830 apparition having been canonically crowned not once, but twice; the first in 1904 by Pope St. Pius X to celebrate the Jubilee of the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception and the second by Venerable Pius XII in 1954, the centenary of the aforesaid proclamation. 

The titles, Our Lady of the Cape, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, Queen of Intercessors, magnify Mary's desire for Intercessors to coalesce through her Rosary Confraternity established at the Cape in 1694. The Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary was entrusted to the Dominicans over 500 years ago by the Holy See. Popes including the great rosary pope, Leo the XIII, have enrolled and propagated the Rosary Confraternity. It was to the Rosary Confraternity in Rome and the recitation of the rosary that Pius V, a Dominican, attributed the 1571 victory at Lepanto leading to the establishment of the October 7th Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Our Lady of the Cape, Queen of Intercessors, pray for us who have recourse to thee. Amen.