May our Heavenly Queen obtain for us the grace of final perseverance so that she herself may be by our side pleading our cause when the King, comes again in all His glory to judge the living and the dead. Amen.

Today we celebrate the end of the liturgical year with the Feast of Jesus Christ our sovereign Lord and King. So it is most fitting that we read of the great last judgment of Christ on humanity. This Gospel passage from St. Matthew has inspired many great works of art-like Michelangelo’s Last Judgment in the Sistine chapel. In that image, Christ has his arms raised, inviting the beloved to his right side and casting those who reject Him, to the left. When I saw this painting for the first time in person, it invoked in me an awesome sense of the majesty of Christ; He is truly the King of kings, even if there are some who don’t want to believe it. But at the end of the world all-willing and unwilling-will acknowledge Him as King and Lord.

The focus of readings for the last few weeks has actually been the Last Judgment. They remind us of the Four Last things…death, judgment, then heaven or hell. These last things should wake us up and remind us just how important our relationship to Jesus is, not only with regards to our final goal and destination that is our happiness in the next life, but also with regards to our happiness in this life. In fact, we can never and will never find meaning in our lives apart from Jesus Christ the King.

More than any other, the fundamental question on the heart of every human being is, ‘Why am I here? What is it that I’m really looking for in this life?” In fact, Jesus himself many times in the Gospels asks this same question to those with whom he came in contact. “What is it you want?” When people met Christ, they very quickly realized that they were having an encounter with someone who was corresponding to the deepest needs of their heart.

For us today with this Feast (and at this Holy Mass), Jesus answers His own question, “What is you want?”, by saying that, “Everything you are looking for, everything you seek, even the very meaning of your existence can be found only in…Me! What you really want and desire is me and my love for you, for I am the God who is Love. Only when you allow me to reign completely over your lives, only when you totally give me yourself in love and take the sweet yoke of my truth and the light burden of my rule over you and your life through my Church, only then will you find what you are looking for and begin to fulfill your deepest longings and desires. If you keep trying to quench your thirst for me with things of this world, even with human loves, you will only be thirsty and unfulfilled.”

When Pope Pius XI instituted this great feast day on December 11, 1925, he was saying this same thing not only to individuals, but also to all peoples and all nations of the world. Pius XI said that the 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 Jesus and His truth no longer had a place in private affairs or in politics. Pius warned 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. Men must look for the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ and that Kingdom subsists fully in His, One, Holy, Catholic & Apostolic Church because it contains the Holy Eucharist, Who is the King in the flesh still on earth.

Allow me to read a quote from this beautiful letter of Pope Pius:

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—he who came to reconcile all things, who came not to be ministered unto but to minister, who, though Lord of all, gave himself to us as a model of humility, and with his principal law united the precept of charity; who said also: "My yoke is sweet and my burden light." Oh, what happiness would be ours if all men, individuals, families, and nations, would but let themselves be governed by Christ! "Then at length…will many evils be cured; then will the law regain its former authority; peace with all its blessings be restored. Men will sheathe their swords and lay down their arms when all freely acknowledge and obey the authority of Christ, and every tongue confesses that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father."

The kingdom of Christ is a kingdom of love. He is not a tyrant or a despot; He will not impose His Will on His subjects--that is on us. He is a King who has come to serve, not to be served. And we must do the same in imitation of Him.

We must serve Christ by serving His Catholic Church and others for love of Him. If fact this is how we would show our love for Him. In order to manifest the Kingdom of God in this world more fully, we must love others for love of Jesus; we must give of ourselves, yes, we must even sacrifice ourselves for the Church and for love of others. Of course what better modern day example could I use to illustrate better this service and love of others for love of Christ, than the example of St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta?

Mother loved the Church and others not just for their own sakes, but because in faith she saw Jesus in them. How many times she quoted Jesus, “Whatsoever you do to the least of these you do unto me!” Jesus loves them, so she would love them for Jesus. And Jesus for His part, through the power of the Sacraments, would give her the strength and courage to love them with His own love alive in her heart and mind.

Mother observed that the poorest ones were ones who had no love, that is those who did not know or who were indifferent to the sweet yoke and reign of the King of all hearts. In this, Mother’s love went beyond those who were just materially poor. Yes, she would love them as well, but more importantly she would also feed those who were utterly starving for the love of Christ; and these as she said, were many times very rich, materially speaking. She once said that the United States was so much poorer than the slums of Calcutta, because so many in the U.S., as rich as they were, were very poor spiritually speaking because they did not know the love of Jesus and show that love by taking upon themselves the sweet yoke of that love by serving Him in obedience to His Catholic Church and Her teachings. And this is the primary meaning of today’s Gospel. When Jesus comes again in Glory, He will question us individually about our love; that is, about our love for God, a love that is carried out by our love for the Church and for our neighbor shown in our service to the Church and our neighbor.

Jesus will ask us in the Last Judgment about this- how have we loved Him? In other words, Did we show our love for Jesus by not only feeding those who are physically hungry, but most of all by feeding those who are spiritually hungry, hungry for Christ in the Holy Eucharist and for the food of His truth… Did we show our love for Jesus, not only by giving water to the thirsty, but giving the love of Christ alive in us to those who thirst for it… Did we show our love for Jesus, not only by visiting those who are imprisoned, but by visiting with our admonition, those who are slaves to their sins?… Did we show our love for Jesus, not only by caring for those who are physically ill but by showing our care for those who are spiritually ill through their ignorance, by giving them the medicine of God’s truth, the teachings of His Church?… and not only by welcoming the stranger, but by welcoming back those who have offended us by offering them our forgiveness and mercy and leading those who have separated themselves from God and His Church to the Sacrament of Confession and so to Jesus the King in the Holy Eucharist?…and finally, not only by praying for the bodily dead, but by praying for the spiritually dead through mortal sin, offering our suffering and doing penance for them and offering Holy Mass for them?

Mother Theresa lived her service to the King caring for the poor in these ways just mentioned. But, where did she receive the power to do so? She received it from Jesus her King, truly present in the Holy Eucharist. She said so many times, “My sisters and I could never do what I do without the Eucharist, both receiving Jesus at Mass and adoring Him outside of Mass.” As Jesus once said, “For without Me you can do nothing.” In other words, without the Holy Eucharist, believing, adoring, hoping and loving Jesus present there we can do nothing. Pius XI said the same thing when He instituted this feast day of Christ the King, he said the faithful would grow in the love for Christ and receive the power to bring His reign over the earth, through love, when the faithful of every diocese, district nation and of the whole world, would be given every opportunity to come together to venerate and adore Christ the King hidden under the sacramental species. …By public adoration of the Blessed Sacrament exposed, and by solemn processions, men united in paying homage to Christ whom the Father has given for their king.

Pope Pius went on to say, Christ must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ found in the teachings of His Holy Catholic Church, which is the fullness of His Kingdom on earth. Jesus must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God (and His Church). 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. Pius ended with:

“It is Our fervent desire, Venerable Brethren, that those who are outside of the fold may seek after and accept the sweet yoke of Christ, and that we, who by the mercy of God are of the household of the faith, may bear that yoke, not as a burden but with joy, with love, with devotion; that having lived our lives in accordance with the laws of God's kingdom, we may receive full measure of good fruit, and counted by Christ good and faithful servants, we may be rendered partakers of eternal bliss and glory with him in his heavenly kingdom.”

I would propose to each one of us that the most important question each one of us must ask ourselves on this great feast of Christ the King, is not whether Christ does or does not reign in the world, but does He or does He not reign in me? We should ask not if His royalty is recognized by states and governments, but is it recognized and lived by me? In other words, is Jesus Christ truly King and Lord of my life? Who reigns in me, who sets the objectives and establishes the priorities in my life: Christ or another? Is it really Jesus that I serve? Do I serve and Love Him by serving and loving His Kingdom on Earth, the Holy Catholic Church. May our Heavenly Queen obtain for us the grace of final perseverance so that she herself may be by our side pleading our cause when the King, comes again in all His glory to judge the living and the dead. Amen.