Christ the King

John and Thommy

Good morning
I love you

[now is 1803 on 11/26/7, I started this missive at 1500ish]

Christ the King
2007 on Nov. 25th

Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17
Such an abbreviated version. Sculpted as much for the time allotted for readings/sermon as it is for our edification. Or, maybe, to whet our appetite and get us to read some more of Ezekiel. Try it. A good way to start the day – not only a saints litany but also the day’s readings….

11 For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. 12 As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. …. 15 I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. 16 I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice. 17 ?As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and male goats.
Thus says the Lord God. Our ancestors, our tradition, sure talks funny. The Feast of Christ the King, our connection with Christ is as challenging as our assimilation of King. We are so modern. So American. And before that Catholic and Irish. Get with the language. Words help us be closer – the absence of common language, even worse, the rejection of common language, separates us: from one another and from God moreso….

God seeks us out. Our Lord searches for us. Our King, Christ our King takes the initiative – from the grace imbued in our souls at baptism and each and every day of our lives. Not unlike the secret of a Father’s Love.

We do get scattered. Play out the metaphor. Scattered within ourselves – our thoughts get scattered, our feelings get scattered, our sense of who we are and what we are to become gets scattered. We get scattered. We also get scattered from God. Ezekiel’s Jewish people had scattered from God over and over sense Abraham – on their own accord and by the powers of the warring tribes. We too get scattered from God. In our daily not connecting in prayer and community and action. In our bouts of rejecting His Love – because His Love asks us so much in our love for Him? We get scattered from family. By the turmoil of the people in our family. By the separations wedged between us within our family. By the choices we make along the way – the acts of omission as much, maybe moreso, than the acts of commission. By the evolution of our individual lives – creating our identity by the two year old’s first “no” to the adolescent’s “I am not you”. Developmental progress challenges our connection with others, including, especially, God and Family, Father Son Spirit; Father, Mother, Brother, and the extended family.

And when we scatter, our King, Lord, God, seeks us out – individually and as family, clan, church, and community. We are with him ourselves but never alone, always as a part of the Body of Christ.

Our King takes us in, even when, especially when, we are in the midst of our thickest darkness, suffocating in the clouds surrounding us, when we have strayed/walked off/left where we should be, when we are injured [how often and in how many ways are we injured!?], and when we are weak [we are always weak – unless we embrace our weakness it will be much harder to embrace God, our King.

[oops, I picked the wrong cycle. So, I’ve inserted 2Sam and Col.]


2 Samuel 5:1-3

David Anointed King of All Israel
5Then all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron, and said, ‘Look, we are your bone and flesh. 2For some time, while Saul was king over us, it was you who led out Israel and brought it in. The LORD said to you: It is you who shall be shepherd of my people Israel, you who shall be ruler over Israel.’ 3So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron; and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the LORD, and they anointed David king over Israel.

When you think of kings, how often do you pull up Brian Boru? The first High Ry of a ‘unified Ireland’ – about as unified as we are still here in the USA?  But David, as king – or as sling shot wielder par excellence. We do tend to mythacize our kings.

The people of Israel, just as we should as the Body of Christ, the People of Christ, come to the King as flesh of one flesh – the Son of God become Man; all cut from the same grace, aka soul. Maybe, yes?

The King as shepherd; his people as sheep – who know his voice; who are led by him to the food of eternal life… go with the metaphors and make them real in our lives.

God has made a covenant with us. We each have also made a covenant with Him – baptism and confirmation and each reception of each sacrament. …. Covenant, promise, vow, forever, no matter what….

As we acknowledge Christ as our King, we are also saying a lot about who we are, what our duties are, how we give liege and receive the blessings of living under His kingship.

1 Cor 15:20-26

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Christ delivers the Kingdom of God to all those who belong to Him.

Kingdom. About as foreign to us in our day to day lives as King. But our traditions, our culture [so many kingdoms in Ireland, alone ] we know about kingdom. In our literature. In our fantasies. We understand Kingdom.

Christ makes us fully alive in His Kingdom. Not the Kingdom of Palm Sunday, not the Kingdom that Pilate felt threatened by, but the Kingdom into which the good thief asked Jesus to bring him.

Our Father… Thy Kingdom come…. We live in the Kingdom of Christ now, in the anticipation of, in the hope of, in the expectation of the Kingdom that will come.

Into the Kingdom of Christ, after all of His enemies have been put under His feet, when we put His enemies, our King’s enemies, thus our enemies under our feet – destroying every rule, every authority, every power…. Expect the Love of God with Whom we come to knowloveandserve in this world so we might be with Him forever in His Kingdom….


Colossians 1:12-20

12giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled* you* to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.*

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16for in* him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17He himself is before all things, and in* him all things hold together. 18He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. 19For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things.

To be a subject of Christ the King, Jesus our Brother, we share in the inheritance – Thy Kingdom come!

It is with Christ our King that we have forgiveness of our sins – Forgive us our Trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…. Yes?!. Out of the clutches of the power of darkness into the embrace of our King, our beloved brother. Go with the metaphors because they are also authentic experiences.

We don’t have just any king. It’s hard to put my feeloughts around the statue of Christ the King – the plastic figure about six inches high, dressed in a red robe and crowned with ‘jeweled’ crown, holding a scepter – how that statue with which I grew up, stood for, reminded us of, called upon us to always remember that our King is the King of Kings, the creator of all things visible and invisible – the invisibles made metaphorically real with the statue and the understanding of what it represented – our King over all thrones or dominions, rulers or powers, whether in heaven or on earth, or under the earth. After Genesis, try Dante and then Milton….

Who is this King whom we follow? Who is this King who holds us in the palm of his hand? Paul is clear! Not subtle or indirect. Christ the King, head of the Body, the Church – of which we are integral parts; he is the beginning, the alpha, much more than our alpha male; Christ the King is the first born of the dead – who not only leads us into the Father’s Kingdom, but takes us there, admits us [except those Mary lets in the side door]

For us – put ourselves in Him, dwell in Him, through Him we are reconciled with each other and with God….
Some King!



Luke 23:35-43

And the people stood by, watching; but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!" The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him vinegar, and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" There was also an inscription over him, "This is the King of the Jews."

One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, "Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!" But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." And he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

BUT, THE PUNCHLINE!

Not the King of Palm Sunday.

Our King has been scoffed at – before the rulers, before Pilate, by his community, by the Pharisees, by the Sadducees, by the elders …. Our King is scoffed at today by people in your life, people in authority, people important to you, people who say they are your friends, protectors, putting your interest first – and they scoff at our King. And, yes, that is important to you, what is said about our King denigrates you more than Him; what does it say about you who stays close to those who reject, diss, disavow our King?

Our King – if you are King, save yourself! The saving this crowd has missed the mark by a mile, by an infinity. How do you save yourself with our King?

The same as the good thief – “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” And Jesus says yes. Yes because the good thief knew and admitted who he was. Because the good thief confessed his sins and asked forgiveness. Because the good thief rejected his world and embraced the Kingdom of God.

Christ our King. Be there or be square…..



Andrew Greeley’s online sermon for the day – a quote:

“perhaps we don’t quite understand any more the tragedy that is inherent in royal leadership. In fact, the kingdom which Jesus preached was the kingdom of his Father in heaven, a kingdom of forgiving love with no royal trappings at all, a kingdom which had always been there but which now (through Jesus) were beginning to recognize for the first time. The kingdom of Jesus is summarized in the words of the Our Father – forgive us as we forgive. No matter how many times we say that prayer, the meaning seems to allude us.”




FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING

I couldn’t find a quickie summary of the feast – so I went to the source, Pius XI’s encyclical that created the Feast in 1925.

We’ve had celebrations for the great Feast Day long before this pope created a universal church feast day. Many Asian and Latin countries today have tremendous processions through the town for this feast. It’s a biggie

Each proclamation by a Pope is embedded in the zeitgeist as well as his personal experience plus in the river of our traditions. Pius XI started this encyclical summarizing his times – and it sounds to me not unlike what we’ve been hearing Benedict XIV say: “manifold evils in the world were due to the fact that the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics: and we said further, that as long as individuals and states refused to submit to the rule of our Savior, there would be no really hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations.” Not only vis a vis nations, communities, parishes but also for each of us individually.

The entire encyclical is dedicated to our better understanding how Christ the King leads us, is part of us and we of Him, and how this annual Feast is meant to remind us, enrich us, help us celebrate our relationship with Christ the King. Pulling out excerpts will say as much about me as what I want us to have in common, what I pray that you assimilate ….

Christ the King “is said to reign "in the hearts of men," both by reason of the keenness of his intellect and the extent of his knowledge, and also because he is very truth, and it is from him that truth must be obediently received by all mankind. He reigns, too, in the wills of men, for in him the human will was perfectly and entirely obedient to the Holy Will of God, and further by his grace and inspiration he so subjects our free-will as to incite us to the most noble endeavors.” Pius XI starts here. Appealing to our reason and our heart – reiterating our faith, the foundations of our relationship with Christ our King. His Knowledge, His being the Very Truth, Veritas Splendor! Which we receive obediently. To whom we give our will – not my will, but Thine be done. [try Ignatius’s prayer.] Our King incites us, motivates us, calls us to our/the most noble endeavors – and without him, we are less noble, sometimes even less than noble…. We share in nobility to the extent that we share in Christ the King, that we live in His Kingdome, that we seek The Kingdome….

Pius XI gives us the many references in scripture for King. Our faith, our religion, Scripture and Tradition. Scan the bible and put your arms around the multitude examples of King – the kind of King, the Kingdom of God…. From scripture Pius XI just logically concludes “It was surely right, then, in view of the common teaching of the sacred books, that the Catholic Church, which is the kingdom of Christ on earth, destined to be spread among all men and all nations, should with every token of veneration salute her Author and Founder in her annual liturgy as King.”

Then Pius XI gives us the tradition – tracing from the beginning of our Church, through our Church fathers, our many eras, how we have referenced Christ the King, called upon Christ the King, depended upon Christ the King…. Thus, the feast makes sense from this road in our Church. E.g., “moreover it is a dogma of faith that Jesus Christ was given to man, not only as our Redeemer, but also as a law-giver, to whom obedience is due.” E.g., “Not only do the gospels tell us that he made laws, but they present him to us in the act of making them. Those who keep them show their love for their Divine Master, and he promises that they shall remain in his love” a covenant of His Kingship. E.g., “This kingdom is spiritual and is concerned with spiritual things.” The Kingship of Easter not Palm Sunday.
“The gospels present this kingdom as one which men prepare to enter by penance, and cannot actually enter except by faith and by baptism, which, though an external rite, signifies and produces an interior regeneration. This kingdom is opposed to none other than to that of Satan and to the power of darkness. It demands of its subjects a spirit of detachment from riches and earthly things, and a spirit of gentleness. They must hunger and thirst after justice, and more than this, they must deny themselves and carry the cross.” This quote got me to stop and pray, meditate, educate myself some more. An exterior rite, an exterior life, that produces an interior regeneration – sacramentally over and over. We are in a Kingdom that is our relationship with Jesus-Family-Faith-Church, it is not against the Romans or other seculars or any religions … although we are in the midst of people and organizations and faiths who persecute you/us for our very faith. That our being in Christ’s Kingdom is such a threat to other people, sometimes even to our selves, may be to the extent that the person is in the darkness.

In this spiritual Kingdom, in our relationship with Christ the King, we are detached from riches and earthly things [and I got lots of things I’d like to detach from storage, from my living room – and will be sending to you, ‘leaving to you’, I pray that you will use and pass on. My learning the poverty of Jesuits, the detachment rather than the things necessary [truly necessary would be redundant] for the work of the vocation.]. We have a duty to a gentleness – would that I were so much better with this: gentleness with myself, gentleness with you, gentleness with those close and those far …. I am sorry for my many ungentlenesses. We must go beyond the thirst for justice and deny ourselves, carry our cross – do what is ours to do for the others, family, parish, community, work, school … to do for them what is right and good and get over all the reasons, the inhibitions, the fears that keep us from fulfilling our duties…

“It would be a grave error, on the other hand, to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs,.. the empire of our Redeemer embraces all men”…. We are the ones with the obligation to bring Christ our King into all of our affairs. Crassly, WWJD? More eloquently “When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony. Our Lord's regal office invests the human authority of princes and rulers with a religious significance; it ennobles the citizen's duty of obedience.”

“If the kingdom of Christ, then, receives, as it should, all nations under its way, there seems no reason why we should despair of seeing that peace which the King of Peace came to bring on earth.” The Peace of Christ, Christ the King, the King of Peace. Christ’s Peace.

Pius XI saw the feast of Christ the King as an antidote to the anticlericalism of his day, of our history, of our present, actually. He also wrote “When we pay honor to the princely dignity of Christ, men will doubtless be reminded that the Church, founded by Christ as a perfect society, has a natural and inalienable right to perfect freedom and immunity from the power of the state; and that in fulfilling the task committed to her by God of teaching, ruling, and guiding to eternal bliss those who belong to the kingdom of Christ, she cannot be subject to any external power”. This applies to our church in the midst of the civil authorities and to each of us in the midst of anti-Catholic authorities. It speaks to our obligation as members of the Body of Christ as well as our protection by Christ the King.

Pius XI hopes that we will be imbued with Blessings by celebrating the Feast of Christ the King

“The faithful, moreover, by meditating upon these truths, will gain much strength and courage, enabling them to form their lives after the true Christian ideal. If to Christ our Lord is given all power in heaven and on earth; if all men, purchased by his precious blood, are by a new right subjected to his dominion; if this power embraces all men, it must be clear that not one of our faculties is exempt from his empire. He must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to him alone. He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls, or to use the words of the Apostle Paul, as instruments of justice unto God.[35] If all these truths are presented to the faithful for their consideration, they will prove a powerful incentive to perfection.”

This paragraph alone is worth the price of admission – a core for any meditation at any time. Get yourself a statue of Christ the King; and ponder these blessings. Embrace the Feast of Christ the King and meditate upon these blessings. And when you pass a Christ the King Parish [remember, e.g., the one in Nashville and your serving there as altar boys, attending CCD] or a Christ the King school [some of my cousins with to Molloy’s archrival CK], assimilate a feelought about how Christ the King matters to you at that moment…. And beyond.



I love you
dad