Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
The Gospel of the Annunciation is read on many feasts of the Blessed Virgin, because it is so rich in implications, the day we draw out of it Our Lady's Queenship. The readings seem to show us only that Mary is the Mother of Christ, but that makes her a Queen according to the tradition of Israel. The Queen Mother was an institution in Israel from the time of Solomon. He began the tradition by giving his mother a throne next to his own. We read of this in the first book of Kings, that Sheba went to King Solomon to speak to him on behalf of Adonijah, and the king rose to meet her and bowed down to her.
Then he sat on his throne and had a seat brought for the king's mother, and she sat on his right. From that time, the king's mother had a special position of authority in the kingdom. She was called the Gebirah, the powerful lady or great lady. Because of the power that she wielded, the Book of Kings almost always gives us the name of the king's mother together with the name of the king. Historically, one reason for this institution was that the king had many wives who competed for his attention. So the one woman who was in a singular position to influence the king was his mother. However, the institution also had a providential place in God's plan, for the prophet spoke of the son of David who would reign forever, the Messiah.
This is what the angel Gabriel refers to when he says to Mary, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son. The Lord God will give him the throne of David, his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom, there will be no end. This means that Mary will forever be the Queen Mother, the Gebirah. This lecture ought to be clear to anyone who knows that the Bible will. But physical motherhood alone would not make Mary a good queen. Jesus insists in his preaching that mere relations of blood are not enough, virtue is needed. And this could well be why the communion antiphon is, blessed are you who believed. Mary is Queen Mother not just because she is the mother of the Messiah, but because she is a worthy mother, full of grace.
Virtue is very important in kings and queens. To rule others is a greater task than to rule oneself. And a ruler must guide a society to attain its purpose, its goal. This is chiefly a matter of prudence, which is the virtue that chooses the best ways and means to reach the goal in the present circumstances. Now every society exists for the good of the persons who are its members, and their good is what favors the attainment of their end. Our ultimate end is heaven. Civil society should serve this end by providing conditions of material well-being that give the members leisure to pursue their spiritual good. Some civil societies also try to promote the spiritual good of their members actively. The Church is a society that secondarily serves material well-being by works of charity, but primarily provides the necessary means for salvation and sanctification, among which the sacraments of the first place. Thus our Lord said, the kingdom of God is within you. A good ruler must understand well the goal the society ought to pursue, and have the prudence to choose the best means to pursue it. Someone who lacks prudence in his own life could not be expected to guide society prudently. But prudence alone will never be perfect without the other virtues.
A ruler who is not temperate will often be distracted from exercising prudence. A ruler who lacks fortitude will be unable to get the society to undertake difficult measures. A ruler who is not just will not govern justly. This is why the idea of a king is personal excellence, above all in virtue, but also in other qualities. And so metaphorically, we call something a king or queen if it is the most excellent of its kind. Sometimes a queen, in the proper sense, is simply the female equivalent of a king. But that's not the case for Mary. Christ is the King of Kings, and she does not rule in place of him or as his equal. She is subordinate to him, and this is, in fact, the same position the Queen Mother held in Israel. But, of course, she is far superior to all the queens of the Old Testament. Having been full of grace on earth and now full of glory, she is the best queen possible in this order of things. As Christ is king both by nature and by right of conquest, so too does Mary have a double right to the queenship. The first reading speaks of these two motives, the victory that they won together and the child born of Mary on whose shoulder dominion rests. He is the king of the universe because he is the true God, and this man is the son of David. By his cross, he conquered. We are not our own, for we are bought at a price. She is Queen because she is the Mother of God, whom she made the son of David by her consent to the incarnation. She stood fast at the foot of the cross in this way, shared in obtaining Christ's victory. The kingdom of God differs from earthly kingdoms in that it has an interior dimension. Its law is, first of all, a law of grace, and, secondarily, a law of precepts. The precepts serve to keep us from losing the grace, and no one will ever break a precept while corresponding to grace, for charity fulfills the whole law. This is why Mary is called a Queen of Hearts. Her role is exercised first and foremost in the hearts of men by grace, by giving them the graces that they need in order to become holy and take the place that God wills for them in the kingdom. We, therefore, benefit her from her Queenship in two ways, by asking for her aid and by submitting to her rule.
In the first place, she is the most powerful of all intercessors with Christ. Christ is the only mediator between God and man, while Mary is the only mediatrix between Christ and the Church.
This is the teaching of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, among others, but it is well founded on the Old Testament role of the Gebirah. We see in 1 Kings 2 the power of her intercession, for when Bathsheba went to King Solomon, the king rose to meet her and bowed down to her, and he sat on his throne and had a throne brought for the king's mother, and she sat on his right. Then she said, I have one small request to make of you, do not refuse me. And the king said to her, make a request, my mother, for I will not refuse you.
And so it is with Our Lady, God will not refuse her. Yet Mary's intercession is not the only way to benefit from her Queenship. Remember that the function of a king or queen is to rule in a society, helping it to obtain its goal, and the goal of the kingdom of God is our heavenly glory.
To submit to this role, which works by grace, is, therefore, to be guided to heaven by a power and a virtue superior to ours. But they will work most powerfully in those who are most docile to their rule. Jesus and Mary have no desire to be tyrants, and so they leave us a great deal of freedom, so much freedom that we can even hurt ourselves. But they urge us to use our freedom for good.
They want us to submit willingly and to recognize our need for their help. So we must, first of all, decide to submit for them, and the most complete way of submitting is consecration to Our Lady.
Secondly, we must implore the grace necessary to be faithful, whether to our consecration or simply to the ordinary obligations of Christian life. Then when trials or opportunities to do good arise, we must use that grace courageously to embrace God's will, overcoming our fear of the cross.
If we are generous in God's service, we will not only save ourselves, but also many poor sinners.
Then we and they will reign forever in heaven with Jesus and Mary. 
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.