06/14/2026
Mary, Mother of Jesus, is known by a title most Christians have never heard of: Our Lady Queen of Palestine.
The title was given in 1920 by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, after WWI left the region in upheaval. The Vatican formally approved it in 1933. In 1994, St. John Paul II declared her official patroness of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.
Her shrine, built in 1928 in the Soreq Valley between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, bears her Latin title on its facade: Reginae Palaestinae. Inside, angels carry the Ave Maria across the ceiling vault in 280 languages.
Mary was born in Jerusalem and lived in Galilee and Bethlehem, in the region known as Palestine up to 1948. The Catholic Church merely recognized it in the official 1920 prayer:
“Palestine, which more than any other country, belongs to thee, since thou hast graced it with thy birth, thy virtues and thy sorrows… Watch therefore, with special protection, over thy native country.”
In Nazareth, Bethlehem and Jerusalem, the Church is still there. Blessed Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Send this to a Mary, Maria, Marie, Miriam or Marilyn or Marion.And follow us for the story of when Cardinal Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem drove to her hilltop shrine 3 weeks after October 7, when hope was hard to find.