Christ the King (OF)

In challenging times, the Church offers a message of comfort to her members. When the world is poised against her, when all are vying to tear her apart from the outside, the Church offers those who remain with her the message of the Gospel today: You shall be with the Lord in paradise. Persevere and win the crown of victory. But in comfortable times, the Church is called to do the opposite: she is called to be a challenge not only to her members, but to the entire world.

The Church must balance the message of the Gospel with the times, for the situation requires the message that the situation requires, not necessarily the message that is desired. How comfortable indeed our times have become! Adults needing safe spaces to shield them from reality and safety pins being worn like badges of honor. Technology overwhelming our personal spaces to the point of making it quite impossible to engage in silence and meditation. Protests and riots over the past few weeks because their candidate was not elected, protests that would be called anti-democratic in other countries. How comfortable we have become indeed.

But our feast today offers us a challenge, a challenge perhaps particular to we who live in these United States, but a challenge all the same. For in celebrating this feast, we are reminded who is ultimately in charge, who is the real ruler, who has the message of truth: Jesus Christ the King of the universe. Truth, we ought to remember, is not wrong because the majority disbelieve it, nor is it right because the majority believe it: it is true because it stems from reality. In our times of excessive comfort even within the Church, the truth becomes a slap in the face that ought to awaken us to the cold hard facts of life.

The truth that we are given in today’s feast is this: Jesus Christ is not only the focus of our religion, but He is the point of unity between God and man, the one by whom we are restored to the Father. Saint Paul outlines this splendidly in our second reading, when he points out how this Jesus of Nazareth is far more than a man: He is the image of the invisible God and also the same God by whom all things were created. This Jesus of Nazareth has become king by birthright, being both God and man, and by the election of the Church, in which He is the head.

So far, that sounds pretty good. Even though we Americans prefer democracy, who doesn’t love a king? But the challenge of this truth is in this kingship of Christ. Kings do not have to pander to us to gain our vote. A king traditionally had two duties intertwined in his office: the duty to God and the duty to his people. The king was mindful that he had received his position by the grace of God and by the assent of the people, and the king must serve both. He must obey the law of God and enact laws for the well-being of men, irrespective of their desires. It is the same for Christ our King.

The challenge presented by this feast day is the challenge of understanding our place in the great hierarchy. We are all under the dominion of Christ our King, whether we accept it or not. The challenge that we face as Catholics is whether we will give assent to His kingship or not. Just as David was made king of Israel by the will of God and the request of the people, as our first reading shows, so too is Christ made the King of the universe by the will of the Father and the assent of the Church. By that assent, each Christian acknowledges that Jesus has full authority over us and that we will obey out of thanks for His redemption and to gain Him not merely as our King, but as our brother.

Jesus Christ is the King of the universe, having dominion and authority over every facet of the cosmos, yet His kingdom must begin within our lives if it will truly extend to all things which He created. The challenge of this feast is to submit ourselves to our King not as slaves, but as those who have been freed of sin by the blood of His cross, through that reconciliation He has made on the glorious altar at Calvary. Though He reigns over everything, Jesus will not force us to be the free citizens of His kingdom; only those who accept Him as Lord and King will begin to receive the inheritance of the holy ones in light.

But how do we accept this challenge and become the true members of the kingdom of Christ? We do this by making Christ the complete center of our lives, by orienting our hearts and minds more to the one who has full rights to them more so than even we ourselves possess. We abandon sin which makes us the slaves of Satan, and we turn to the sacred liturgy, the sacraments, and the devout life so as to be transformed into the citizens of the heavenly and eternal kingdom. We plead with Jesus as did the good thief at Calvary when he said, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Last week, I announced my intention to begin celebrating the Mass with all of us turned together towards the Lord, praying in a common direction. I gave the first reason for this restoration as a means of orienting us towards the eternal realities. Today’s feast provides us with another reason to return to this quite traditional position. If Jesus Christ is King, if He is meant to be the center of our lives, this truth must be lived out not merely in a philosophical or internal way. We humans need the physical as well as the mental: we use signs and symbols to reflect the truths and beliefs we hold. If Jesus Christ is King, then the sacred liturgy should reflect this reality in the fullest sense.

We are not meant to gather together to worship the priest, to gaze at his actions and marvel at him. The holiest priests are those who make themselves almost invisible before Christ, who is the High Priest truly offering the Mass through the priest. The priest is meant to represent Christ the Head of the body, the Head that looks to the Father in a gaze of adoration and love, to that same Father who gave us His Son so that we may indeed be worthy of His inheritance. Our orientation is heavenly because Christ gazes that way, returning everything to the Father, including us.

Let us acclaim Jesus Christ as our king not merely in word but in action. Let us turn to the King and honor Him as is fitting for the one who endured so much for us. Let us break free of the comforts of this world and accept the challenge of the Gospel so as to gain the inheritance won for us. Let us indeed rejoice in this house of the Lord by making the Lord the focus of our liturgy, of our prayers, and of our lives. Let us seek to reflect more clearly within us He who is the image of the invisible God, He who offers us His kingdom that shall not end.