Beauty Queens

Learning the meaning of beauty from Mother Mary

08/15/2018

Psalm 45:10, 11, 12, 16

R. (10bc) The queen stands at your right hand, arrayed in gold.

 The queen takes her place at your right hand in gold of Ophir.

 R. The queen stands at your right hand, arrayed in gold.

 Hear, O daughter, and see; turn your ear,

 forget your people and your father's house.

 R. The queen stands at your right hand, arrayed in gold.

 So shall the king desire your beauty;

 for he is your lord.

 R. The queen stands at your right hand, arrayed in gold.

 They are borne in with gladness and joy;

 they enter the palace of the king.

 R. The queen stands at your right hand, arrayed in gold.

Let me share with you the story of two stunningly beautiful women, but who have one decisive difference. One knows she’s gorgeous but the other does not. The humble woman’s praises are sung by Sammy Kershaw in his hit song, “She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful.” Here are a few lines: “We go out to a party somewhere / The moment we walk in the door / People stop and everybody stares / She don’t know what they’re staring for.” You might remember the refrain: “She don’t know she’s beautiful (never crossed her mind) / She don’t know she’s beautiful (no she’s not that kind) / She don’t know she’s beautiful / Though time and time I’ve told her so.” The beauty of a humble woman is not skin-deep but sinks deep into her soul and from there radiates out to the world. Her beauty is spiritual as well was physical.

The second woman could also be a supermodel, but unfortunately, she’s fully aware of it, and even needs others to know it, too. We find this femme fatale in the story of Snow White, personified in the Evil Queen. Every morning she inquires of the Magic Mirror, who by the way cannot tell a lie, “Magic Mirror in my hand, who’s the fairest in the land?” Undoubtedly the Evil Queen is ravishingly beautiful and the Magic Mirror must admit it. But not only is the Evil Queen vain, she’s also jealous and will kill the competition. When the Magic Mirror later answers that Snow White is the fairest in the land, the Evil Queen becomes bent on her destruction. In other words, such beauty does not stay simply skin-deep but devolves and deteriorates into a disguise for evil. Imagine a wolf in sheep’s clothing; or as Sarah Palin put it more colorfully: “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” That is where the shallow beauty of the Evil Queen eventually ends: as lipstick on a pig.

The Scriptures today speak about the first kind of beauty queen, the Queen Mother, Mary. All the passages of our Scriptures are closely related and well worth our careful study, but let me just say a word on Psalm 45, a coronation psalm. We repeatedly said: “The queen stands at your right hand arrayed in gold.” Before we can determine who the queen is, though, we must ask: who is the king in question? Scripture scholars overwhelmingly agree that Psalm 45 is a prophesy about the Messiah, the future Davidic king of Israel, namely, Jesus. If Jesus is the king, who then is the queen? In this case it would not be the king’s wife, but rather the king’s mother, the queen-mother, an ancient institution called the “gebhirah.” Think about it: in a culture where you had polygamy, more than one wife, it’s a lot safer to seat the king’s mother next to him than choose one of the wives. The one who “sits are the right of the king arrayed in gold” is the queen-mother.

Now, fast forward to Jesus and the episode in Mark 10 when James and John ask ambitiously to sit on the Lord’s left and on his right. (They sounded suspiciously like the Evil Queen: vain and competitive.) Our Lord explained to the Sons of Thunder: “to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared.” And we might wonder for whom specifically has it been prepared? From the time of King Solomon and his Queen-Mother, Bathsheba, the seat on the king’s right was reserved for the gebhirah, the queen mother, and in the case of Christ, that seat was made for Mary. And what distinguishes Queen-Mother Mary from all the other women (and men and even apostles) in the world? Simple: her humility. Every Christian could sing like Sammy Kershaw: “She don’t know she’s beautiful, though time and time I’ve told her so.” Indeed, “all generations will call Mary blessed,” but “a girl like her she just can’t see / What the fuss is all about.”  Mary’s sublime beauty is surpassed only by her genuine humility. Humility is the heart of her beauty.

My friends, the annual feast of the Assumption of Mary into heaven is all about a beauty queen, but it also holds a hidden lesson on humility for each of us. That is, real beauty – beauty applauded also by the angels – is never merely skin-deep (like the egotistical Evil Queen), but goes to the depths of a heart that is humble (like the sincerity and simplicity of Snow White). If we hope to be loyal subjects of the gebhirah, our Queen Mother Mary, humility must be the cornerstone of our holiness. We have to stop staring in the magic mirror and asking who’s the fairest in the land. Only those who are oblivious to their own beauty can become eternally beautiful.

Praised be Jesus Christ!