Feast
of the Kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ
St. Dominic, Canton, 30 October 2022
Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless Glory!
According to custom as prescribed
by Pope Pius XI for the occasion of the Feast of the Kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ,
I would like to offer with and for you the Act of Consecration of the Human Race
to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Please kneel. …Please be seated. …
The passage
from St. John’s Gospel assigned for today’s Mass recounts the exchange which
took place between Pontius Pilate and Jesus at the Lord’s judgment before Rome’s
tribunal. “Pilate therefore said to him: Art Thou a king then? Jesus
answered: Thou sayest that I am a King. For this was I born, and for this came
I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth My voice.”
“Every one
that is of the truth, heareth My voice.” How can we judge whether in all
that we are and do that we truly adhere to the fulness of Truth in Christ? Can
we honestly say that it is His voice which directs our lives and guides us in
the way of Truth? If we are faithful to the grace received in Baptism and to
the extent not, if we turn to the Sacrament of Penance to seek forgiveness when
we have failed to keep our baptismal promises, we can be confident in Christ’s
love and in His saving will for us. We may yet have a burden of satisfaction to
fulfill for the temporal punishment due to our sins, but at least we can be
spared an eternity in Hell for having denied our Lord or having gravely
offended Him.
One of our
biggest challenges in life would seem to be to remain faithful to our baptismal
promises. Believe it or not, one of the greatest challenges facing the Church
in every age is the one which the Children of Israel faced time and time again over
the course of the Old Testament, namely, to keep ourselves free from idolatry. Running
after false gods or giving someone or something pride of place in our lives
over Jesus, over Christ the King, is a real and constant problem for a lot of
people who claim to be Catholic. It doesn’t have to be a golden calf or a
wooden pacha mamma idol, very often it is a matter of holding to our own
stubborn will rather than submitting to Christ the King. We permit something
other than God’s will and His law to reign as god over our lives. In effect, we
turn our backs on the Lord Jesus and His Truth, Christ’s Truth being the only
truth which can set us free.
How can I say
that? It is all too evident to me. The worship of false gods, idolatry is an ever-present
problem and danger for us even in the Church. Do you doubt it? Would you
challenge my statement? Before you do, ask yourself the question: Where in the
world and maybe even where in our lives does the Headship of Christ go
unchallenged? We rightly pray in one of the verses of the great sequence of
Pentecost: Bend the stubborn heart and will; Melt the frozen, warm the
chill; Guide the steps that go astray.
Just as the capital sin of pride looms
over much of what we do wrong or of what we fail to do (our sins of omission),
so too turning our back on the Most Blessed Trinity and chasing after other
gods, that is idolatry, separates us off from the saints in glory and from the
love of the Father in Heaven.
My own wish or
prayer for you today would be that you may have an easier time and enter safe
and secure into the Kingdom of Christ, into His Reign of Truth, justice, love, happiness,
and peace. Looking at Jesus, surrendered by His followers to the judgment of
Pilate, abandoned before the tribunal of this world, we recognize the ever-present
danger that we might yield to human respect in our life’s choices and not heed
Christ’s voice.
The Feast of the Kingship of our
Lord Jesus Christ: Moving this Feast from the last Sunday of October where
we celebrate it today to the last Sunday of the Church year (this year it will
be November 20) may not have been the denial of any article of faith, but it has
to be one of the most gratuitous changes which were made to the Church calendar
after the Second Vatican Council. While the post-conciliar reformers suppressed
any number of feasts, especially Marian feasts and saints' days, this one they
moved. It would be hard to explain just why all of a sudden, we are better off
because the Feast of Christ the King concludes or crowns the Church year as
opposed to remaining where it was, preceding and linked to the feasts of All
Saints and of All Souls. Technically, I suppose it is another case of demoting
the sanctoral cycle, of cutting us loose from all that bound us liturgically to
the saints up until the 1950’s.
As I say, it is not exactly easy to
sort all these things out and most of us are too small to be involved in talk
about the social reign of Christ the King. I would ask you today to simply run
to stand at the side of the Man of Sorrows, our Suffering Lord, judged by the
tribunal of this world. I would ask you to embrace in full and without reserve His
Truth, the only Truth. We need to repent of our own sins of idolatry and
enthrone Christ in our hearts, in our homes, and to the extent that it lies
within our power, in our world. We need to prayerfully and lovingly lead or accompany
others to the King, abandoning all pretense in order that He might reign, that
His Heart might rule supreme.
This week in your prayers find joy and
consolation on November 1st, with knowing that the Christ Who was
abandoned before Pontius Pilate finds Himself praised, worshipped, and
acclaimed by countless saints and angels, who bow before His Throne. Give of
yourself whole-heartedly on November 2nd and throughout this month
of November, by your penance and prayers, to magnify the King and win for the
Poor Souls in Purgatory admission to His Holy Presence!
