Intro: In the Litany of Loreto which we have just recited, we praised Mary with the title "Queen of Peace". In the minds of many, peace and happiness are the same thing, and so, for the purpose of our meditation this afternoon, let us centre our thoughts on Mary, Queen of Happiness.
Point 1: "Happiness"! Everyone wants to be happy. Down through the centuries philosphers and theologians have asked the great questions concerned with happiness. In what does it consist? Is it the same for all people? Can complete happiness be achieved on earth, or only in the life hereafter? And how can it be achieved?
Because we dont have the time to consider the various answers offered by secular thinking, we will concern ouselves only with the Christian point of view. And that is, perfect happiness belongs to the eternal life of the immortal soul at rest in union with God, its Creator, and therefore its fulfilment. As we read in St. John's gospel, "I have come that you may have life and have it to the full". Or as St. Augustine wrote, "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you".
Does this mean then, that we cannot be happy in this life? Not at all! In so far as every good deed is a reflection of Divine Goodness, then with every good act that is informed by faith, we embrace the Divine in the passing moments of our earthly pilgrimage, and so experience a degree of happiness.
Point 2: All persons, without exception, desire happiness. And if they fail in their quest to find happiness, it is either because they seek it where it does not exist, or, whilst seeking it in the right place, they do not search long enough or hard enough in the right manner. Comparatively few stop to ask themselves what is happiness, where can it be found, or how can it be found? The great majority think that it is to be found in something they lack and that if only they possessed that "something", they would be happy. For the sick person, good health sounds like happiness; but all healthy people are not happy! Poor people dream of wealth as spelling happiness; why, then, are so many wealthy people miserable? Others think power would make them happy - if only they could give the orders instead of having to obey them all the time?Looking for happiness is like looking for a needle in a haystack. And yet,happiness, and only happiness makes for fulfilment.In her desire to be happy, Mary was no different from the ordinary person. But Mary had one advantage over the average person. She had grown up with the idea that God, and only God, could make her completely happy. Throughout the Old Testament with which she would have been familiar, this thought is constantly expressed. More than eighty references make this point, e.g. Psalm 40, v.4 "Happy are those who make the Lord their trust".And again Psalm 33:12, "Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage". In a degree far higher than any other person, Mary realised that nothing created could give her complete happiness. This does not mean that she despised the goods of this world. Reflecting, as they do, the goodness of God, she recognised that each thing would have a greater or lesser value in proportion to whether it led her more quickly and more surely to the ultimate possession of God. With this in mind she was sensitive to the needs of others, e.g. at Cana; also she felt the need to comfort her cousin Elizabeth. For Mary, the search for happiness was a search for God -"Let it be with me according to your will". But she recognsed, too, that even if in that search there were failures, there was still value in continuing the search. Recall St. James advice -"But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers but doers who act - they will be blessed in their doing." When Jesus remained in Jerusalem, Mary would have had an experience of failure; and as the tragedy of her son's life unfolded, she would have had to draw heavily on her original promise -"Let it be with me according to your word".And so it must be for us. For centuries, millions of Christians have sought happiness searching for God and finding him in sacred places. The idea of pilgrimage is as old as religion itself. People have always gone on pilgrimage to pray at holy places and to find happiness in having their requests granted - the cure of an illness, the atonement of some fault, or simply as an expression of faith in God's presence manifested by a special happening. But, in every instance, they were searching for happiness as they searched for God,It is no different for us to-day as we make our pilgrimage to find God through Mary, Queen of Peace! Queen of Happiness