A Homily for the Feast of Christ the King

 + In the Anglophone world at least, kings and queens have been very much to the fore in recent weeks as the death of Queen Elizabeth II has been mourned around the world (and her virtues rightly praised) and as the accession of King Charles III has been marked and plans for his coronation next year have begun. The pageantry we have witnessed has been rich and the symbols it has employed are powerful—and instructive.
 
If we can prescind for a moment from the sad and somewhat incongruous reality that rites involved were conducted (splendidly) by a protestant ecclesial community, the ritual removal of the orb—the symbol of the monarch’s power being derived from Almighty God—and the sceptre from the coffin of the late queen immediately before her burial and their placing upon the altar, from which King Charles shall receive them at his coronation, taught us everything we need to know about any monarchy: its authority comes from Almighty God and is exercised under Him. We do not yet know exactly how King Charles’ coronation ceremony shall be modified according to modern sensibilities, but it is nevertheless sure to include that anointing which—when performed in the Catholic rites of Coronation—is regarded as one of the most powerful sacramentals and has at times in history even been regarded as a sacrament conferring the particular grace of state of kingship: the power authoritatively to govern their kingdom in the name of Almighty God, alongside and under His Church.
 
As poignant as these ancient rites are, and as comforting as it may be that they survive in the modern world, they ring somewhat hollow not only when they are celebrated by protestants, but all the more so when the monarch who is mourned or who is anointed is what is quaintly called a “constitutional monarch”, whose authority is regulated and restrained by a Parliament to which he or she owes obedience above all. Despite the cross surmounting the orb, the opinions of the majority of a group of elected men, not the eternal truths revealed by Almighty God, are that which is supreme. Laws that flatly contradict the law of God are routinely promulgated without any possibility of the monarch’s conscience being involved. 
 
To this day an Act of Parliament excludes the possibility of any Catholic acceding to the British throne: the exclusive claims of pernicious papists are far to dangerous even to be allowed anywhere near a constitutional monarchy—for Catholics insist that their obedience is not to men, not even to the personal preferences of the pope, but to Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of God, our unique Saviour, whose life and saving death and resurrection from the dead is the definitive revelation of God in history for the salvation of all of mankind. A Catholic monarch could not but take the cross on the orb seriously—for he would know that his own salvation depends on his faithful obedience to Jesus Christ, the Eternal King of kings (who is also the Eternal King of presidents or prime ministers or anyone who holds authority on this earth).
 
As indeed does the salvation of each one of us. Upon our obedience to Christ, the King of Heaven and Earth, we shall be judged. His teaching on matters of faith and morals faithfully taught by His One True Church throughout the centuries is the just and life-giving law by which we must abide and indeed propagate, regardless of those who deny, deride or despise the Truth, to which the Holy Gospel of this Mass teaches us, Our Lord came to bear witness. For he is the Way, the Truth and the Life (cf. Jn 14:6) He is the Narrow Gate by which all men must enter. (cf. Mt 7:13) His is the Flesh and Blood that we must eat if we wish to have eternal life. (cf. Jn 6:53)
 
In spite of this, our own times are seeing various attempts within the Church to reduce Our Lord Himself to little less than a constitutional monarch—to constrain His voice; to limit His authority; to subject the Truth to the opinions of men. From the deification of dialogue to the sacralisation of synodality, we are witnessing the subjection of Christ’s sovereignty to the desperate designs of men in endless endeavours that make ends out of means, prostrating themselves before the god of process thereby reducing eternal Truth to mere opinion—thus facilitating its banishment as irrelevant or inconvenient.
 
No matter how men seek to dismiss Him, as the orb in the hand of the crowned Christ-child held by the Virgin here in our monastery church bears witness, Our Lord Jesus Christ is the King of Heaven and Earth. Neither the world nor even His Church can take away from His authority nor His power—and we rightly resist any attempts so to do (as have many before us in Christian history).
 
Let our celebration of this great feast move us to pray in particular for those in the Church and the world who exercise authority, that they may do so in humble obedience to the King of Kings, and let it move us to pray and work for all that the collect of this Mass asks: that all things may be made new in Jesus Christ and that people of the earth may come to rejoice under his gentle rule. +

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