A Homily for the feast of Christ the King

+ As we know only too well, papal enthusiasms in respect of the Sacred Liturgy can be quite dangerous (!) however the introduction of the feast of Christ the King just under one hundred years ago by Pope Pius XI in the face of rising secularism and nationalism seems to have been an apposite enrichment of the Church’s liturgical life. Where Kings once knelt in adoration before the Sacred Host at Mass, secularism now reigns supreme. And the liberty which is the boast of many newer nations has all too often been hijacked to become secularism’s slave. Christ and His Truth have little place—if they are tolerated at all. His reign has never been known.
 
Pius XI most probably hoped and prayed that his new feast would outlive its necessity; it seems, however, that a century later in a world that is ever-increasingly secularist and syncretist we have even more need of celebrating and bearing witness to the temporal Kingship of Christ. If Christ has any place at all today, it is merely cultural or philosophical. We who worship Him as the definitive revelation of God in human history are tolerated—so long as we do not interfere with the dogmas with which secularism enslaves public life.
 
In the liturgical reform following the most recent Ecumenical Council this feast was given a more eschatological emphasis (as well as a change of date and new liturgical texts). Certainly, Christ is King of the whole universe, and as the Creed teaches us: He will come in glory to judge the living and the dead, and of His Kingdom there will be no end. But Advent is the traditional season in which to contemplate this reality. Today, let us stay with Pius XI’s concern for the reign of Christ as King in the world in which we live.
 
“I have come into the world, to bear witness to the Truth. Everyone who is of the Truth hears my voice,” Our Lord cries out to us in the Holy Gospel of this Mass. The Truth. In these two small words we come face to face with the problem, the crisis, the destruction or the salvation of every man and woman ever born, of every society or kingdom ever established—or that ever shall be!
 
Do I conform myself in all my actions, in all the details of my personal, social and professional life to the Truth? Is the society in which we live and participate founded on the Truth? Or are we expedient consumerists, getting away with as much as we can without getting into too much trouble—personally or collectively—giving tacit consent to the reigning relativism?
 
Most famously Pontius Pilate rebuked Our Lord with the question: “What is truth?” (Jn 18:38) prefiguring like a patron the relativism of so many in history, including almost every ruler in our own day. Truth? How can we know what is true, let alone base our lives and our societies upon it? Pilate’s problem was that he could not see the Truth literally standing before his very eyes, sinking instead into the all-pervasive quicksand of cheap subjective relativism that swallows up so many of our contemporaries. For the question is not “What is truth?” but “Who is the Truth revealed by God in history?” The answer, of course, is Jesus Christ “the Way, the Truth and the Life.” (Jn. 14:6)
 
If we can recognise and grasp this objective and indeed cosmic reality, we can be saved from this quicksand. Indeed, as Saint Paul teaches us in the Epistle of this Holy Mass we can be saved from much more, because in granting us such light Almighty God has “delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of His Beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
 
To be delivered from the dominion of darkness, in ourselves from the evil we have brought to pass through our sins—this is salvation. To be delivered in our societies from the prevailing values, where men and women created in the image and likeness of God are all too often considered as of little more worth than mere social or economic units that are valued only if they do not cause inconvenience or return a profit, and to establish societies based on the truth of Christ where the weakest and most frail of our brothers and sisters, particularly those most troubled and those whose vulnerability at the beginning and end of life is acute, are respected and protected—this is the reign of Christ the King. To recall societies (and the Church!) to the living of that the supreme law of any society, kingdom or ecclesiastical structure or initiative worthy of the name—the conversion and salvation of souls—and not their ideological control or economic exploitation or abuse: this is to establish the reign of Christ the King, the Way, the Truth and the Life.
 
We may well balk at even the possibility of achieving such a transformation: the world is too far gone; it has its own powerful dynamic. Let us not forget, however, that what once was Christendom arose because Christ’s apostles were His fearless witnesses to the ends of the earth.
 
Our fidelity to the Truth of His teaching bears powerful witness in our spiritually arid environment. A set of ancient monastic buildings given their authentic life once again, a crucifix worn or displayed with devotion, a business that respects the sanctity of the Lord’s day, men and women who refuse to cooperate with and who correct personal or corporate evil when they encounter it in others, in the workplace or in society—all of these things build up the Kingdom of Christ in our day, and it is our duty and privilege so to do.
 
In demanding the grace necessary in this Holy Mass thus to persevere, let us also rejoice in the grace and privilege to belong to Christ’s Kingdom, and thereby of being privileged cooperators in His reign of Truth. +