Beginning today, let us more deeply acknowledge Christ as our King;

The Solemnity of Christ the King

Today we end the 2009 Liturgical year with the celebration of Christ the King. Our Lord is King and ruler of heaven and earth and today in this solemn Liturgy we acknowledge this fact with our whole heart, mind, soul, strength, with our bodies and with our voices as we enter into full and actual participation in this Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Our whole liturgical year is, in a sense, encapsulated in this great feast. Our reading from Daniel says it well, “the Son of man received dominion, glory and kingship- his dominion is an everlasting dominion.” We read the vision of the glory of Christ, but the fullness of this glory is not an earthly one- it is divine. Jesus has gained this throne, but His throne is not the one we might imagine.
In our Gospel today we hear Jesus telling Pilate: “My kingship is not of this world.” Jesus admits that He is indeed a King, but not the kind of king this world knows or even wants. Jesus is not a political King, He is not a Democrat or Republican nor is He an Independent; in fact, His Kingdom on Earth--the Catholic Church, from which He rules, is not a democracy at all. Jesus is not a military or revolutionary leader; He is not socialist. He is not a king of material wealth or worldly power. This, by the way, is the type of King that the Jews wanted; to them the King-Messiah was to be a politico-religious liberator who would obtain their freedom from Rome and restore the glory, power and prosperity of their nation of Israel, making it again the dominant world power. They wanted to create the perfect image of a King according to their own designs.
So many in our world today, as well, are looking for a king like this. Many like the ideal of Christ the King, but only Christ as a king that will fulfill their earthly desires, their materialistic hunger for the things of this world. And so, many will worship Jesus as a king that will bring them economic prosperity, financial security and blessings, and the ease and comfort of the good life. But they will not worship Jesus as a King who places demands on His subjects, demands which call them to renounce themselves for the sake of the Kingdom. As result, they want the Church that Jesus founded to be, not the Kingdom of God on earth, but instead a democracy where the truth should be voted upon and accepted according to the recent gallop poll, or better yet, their own personal opinion.
A good example of this refusal of many to accept the demands of Christ the King has been seen in the past few elections. Most of the voters in the elections of the last few years, the majority of who claim to be Christian and a good percentage of them Catholic, put the economy at the top of the list of importance and put the truth about human life and its need for protection at the bottom; and as a consequence, continued the destruction of our economy…They voted against the war in Iraq, but not against the war that is killing millions on our own soil through the weapons of mass destruction known as abortion, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research. How foolish, for without the protection of defenseless human life, there can be no economic stability and no peace.
They also allowed the distortion of human sexuality by caving into the Homosexual agenda, thus denying Marriage and the family as God intended. By doing all of this they rejected the truth that Jesus, the God-Man, came to proclaim; and by doing so, by their vote, they rejected the life Jesus came to bring. In this pride they again and again voted Christ out of the social sphere, bowing down instead to worship mammon instead of adoring and loving God before all else, in Spirit and in Truth. By this they repeated in their hearts and in their actions these words of Pilate that we didn’t read today, but that immediately follow today Gospel, “Quis et veritas…what is truth?
The Kingdom of God does not mean food and drink, economic prosperity, but instead righteousness and true peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. This is what Jesus Kingship really is. By His answer to Pilate in today’s Gospel, Jesus makes it quite clear to us, as He as always done, that His mission is a spiritual one. His kingdom is “the kingdom of Truth and Life, the kingdom of holiness and Grace, the kingdom of Justice, love and Peace.
And what Jesus look like upon His throne in His Kingdom? Jesus has the most royal of thrones and precious of crowns. We have this throne pictured here- it is the crucifix. The perfection of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom is the crucifixion. His royal throne is made of the wood of the cross and his crown is made of thorns. Jesus is most perfectly King on the Cross. In the book of Revelation, the scenes of the glory of God’s throne are always accompanied by the vision of the Lamb who was slain- immolated and pierced. It is from this throne that Christ truly rules. Jesus gives all that He has- His very life- for us poor sinners. The Kingdom of Jesus is a kingdom of a true love, the essence of which is a man laying down his life for his friends.
True love must be through Jesus, in Him, and with Him or else it is not true, for Jesus is the Truth. Love apart from Jesus and His truth, results in our ideas quickly taking charge and then we end up creating our own version of the Kingdom of God, which is just our made up kingdom with a puppet on the throne—a king of our desire and making. This is the dictatorship of relativism which our Holy Father, the true Vicar of the true King, continually warns against.
Christ for His part, only allows in His Kingdom, those who accept and practice the Truth revealed by Him and proclaimed by His Holy Catholic Church, his visible Kingdom on earth. By their obedience of faith, His loyal subjects, show their acceptance of His Father’s will and so His love for the world. Jesus became man to make this truth about the Father's love for man known and to enable men to accept it and live it, through the grace He won through his death on the cross. Those who recognize Christ’s kingship and sovereignty, accept his authority given to His Church, and so allow Jesus to reign over them in His eternal and universal Kingdom. His faithful subjects live their lives on this earth by following His Way, the only true way, which is the royal way of the cross, which is the way of self-denial and sacrificial love, loving God above all things and their neighbor as themselves for love of God.
The Solemnity of Christ the King, ends ordinary time and thus the liturgical year. We now enter into the Season of hope--advent. Our readings take on the tone of the last things, death, judgment, heaven and hell. The Holy Spirit wants us to be ready, not only for the coming of Christ at Christmas, but for His Second Coming in glory at the end of the world or at our death whichever comes first. “Behold Jesus is coming amid the clouds and every eye will see Him even those who pierced Him.”
But the Holy Spirit reminds today not to think this event as happening somewhere off in the distance future. Behold He is coming soon!!. For those souls who die this day, the second coming will happen today, and for each of us, our death is the second coming, for on that day we shall see the King face to face and He will question us about love, our love…our love for Him and our love for one another and He will judge us accordingly. On that day, He will exercise fully His Kingship and His Divine authority both on the righteous and the unrighteous. All people will serve him one way or another. For those who refused to acknowledge Him as King in this life and did their own thing, they will serve Him by force in the everlasting torment, where they can sing eternally the theme song of hell, "I did it my way". But for those who acknowledged Jesus as King in this life, allowing Him to reign over their hearts by adoring Him, following His commandments and the teaching of His Holy Catholic Church in loving obedience and loving God and neighbor more than themselves--these alone will serve Him in freedom and in love, they will bow down before Him for all eternity, as they did in life, and they shall see Him as He is, for they shall become like Him and praise Him for ever.
Beginning today, let us more deeply acknowledge Christ as our King; let us start by offering our Hearts to Him at this Holy Mass which makes the King, His royal throne of the cross, His crucifixion and His Kingdom truly present on earth, right here in this Church and in every Catholic Church around the world. As we prepare to receive the fruit of the Crucifixion, Jesus Christ our King in the Holy Eucharist, the Kingdom of God personified, let us ask Him for the grace to hear His voice and to heed his words in testimony that we are committed to the truth of His Kingdom with every fiber of our being. Let us ask Him through His Holy Mother to help us keep His Authority and the Will of His heavenly Father and our Father, as the driving force of our life. Holy Mary, Queen of the Kingdom of Christ, Queen of our hearts, pray for us.