Christ The King – A Recent Feast
(By Fr. Dexter Brereton)
Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ Universal King. It may surprise quite a bit of us that this liturgical celebration is of relatively recent vintage, being inaugurated by Pope Pius XI in 1925. The Holy Father did this in the consciousness of the ever-increasing phenomenon of secularism in the countries of the West. By secularism we mean the tendency to deal with human life and human institutions without any reference to their transcendent ground, without any reference to their foundations in God. Jesus is raised up as our true leader and King who will listen to our prayers and answer all our concerns as Christians: the success of the Gospel message, the triumph of Peace and of Justice in the world, the conversion of sinners and so on.
In the meeting of Jesus and Pilate, we have the meeting of two kings, Jesus on the one hand and Caesar on the other. We also have a meeting of two fundamentally different ways of approaching the world, “the truth of power” which is the philosophy of the powerful, the philosophy of Rome and the “power of truth” , which Jesus evokes. These rival conceptions of power vie for our allegiance even in the Church, whether we are Pastors or powerful lay leaders, or even parents or teachers. Jesus says to Pilate: “Yes, I am a King, I was born for this, I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.” This is our basic choice in life – are we going to expend energy attempting to run the lives of others (our children included) or are we simply going to give faithful witness to the truth that we have learned from God? Will we shout down others who may insult our religion and question our opinions in public or are we going to calmly and firmly state the truth of the Gospel?
