Homily for the
Solemnity
of Christ the King
Nov. 22, 2020
Collect
St. Pius X, Scarsdale,
N.Y.
“Almighty
God, your will is to restore all things in your beloved Son…” (Collect).
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| Christ the King window Holy Name of Jesus Church, New Rochelle |
In the biblical picture of the universe, God created an orderly, harmonious world. The order and harmony were shattered by sin, by the rebellion of human beings and demons against the Creator and his work.
God
the Father gave his Son the mission of “restoring all things,” of freeing us
from our sins, which so terribly shattered creation, and thus of enabling us to
live in harmony with one another and with the universe. So the eternal Son entered our created world
with all its miseries. He took flesh of
the Virgin Mary, so that “in Christ all shall be brought to life” (1 Cor
15:22).
The
Scripture readings today illustrate the Son’s restorative work. The prophet Ezekiel (34:11-12,15-17) tells
how the Lord acts like a good shepherd to care for his flock, an image
reinforced by the psalm response (Ps 23).
Jesus
tells a parable in which his followers are rewarded because during their
lifetimes they provided the necessities of life for those lacking food,
clothing, shelter, medical care, social inclusion, and freedom. These followers have restored human dignity
to the poor and abandoned, the endangered and desperate. One of the central messages of our Holy
Father during his 7 years as Pope has been this very message: to care for our brothers and sisters in the
human family. In fact, his most recent
encyclical is titled Fratelli tutti:
“We are all brothers and sisters.”
The
Collect that we addressed to God the Father moments ago speaks of “the whole
creation” being “set free from slavery,” i.e., from the disorder in which we
see it. The book of Genesis tells us how
God ordered the world by his creative power. Then sin introduced chaos, brutality,
alienation, and murder, even alienating humanity from the rest of nature. We see daily how alienated nature is from
us: hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes,
droughts, floods, and other disasters make life terrible for tens of thousands
of people and kill thousands of us. How
can nature be at peace when those whom God has put in charge of his creation
are themselves in rebellion against him?
God’s
will is to restore all things, to make all things new, to create a new heavens
and a new earth under the lordship of his Son Jesus Christ. When Christ conquers sin and all the rot and
chaos that follow from sin, then, as we prayed, “the whole creation” will be
“set free from slavery.”
There
have been in history, and there still are, awful forms of human slavery: slave labor, serfdom, sexual exploitation, and
human trafficking, for instance. All of
these, and our personal susceptibility to greed, laziness, lust, anger, gossip,
selfishness, environmental degradation—all these are forms of slavery.
How
are we—how is “the whole creation”—to be “set free from slavery”? Only by recognizing Jesus Christ as our Lord,
as our king, as the only one who guides, rules, and saves us. An honored philosopher recently stated: “No society can exist without a principle of
community. It is precisely what is
missing in all societies, both in the U.S. and in Europe. There is a deficit of community. And the role of Christians is to create
communion out of a community within societies.”[1] Our communion is based on the lordship of
Jesus Christ, and only this can heal our shattered society, our divisions, our
hatreds, our slaveries. This recognition
of Jesus Christ as Lord may be implicit, i.e., by adherence of non-Christians to
his principles, values, and truths and by the rejection of sin. It’ll never happen, however, so long as Christians
or anyone else adheres to the principle of looking out for #1, every man for
himself, my way or no way—be that in family life, business, or politics.
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| Good Shepherd fresco from the catacombs |
The Lord promises to “look after and tend” his sheep (Ezek 34:11), to “bind up the injured” and “heal the sick” (34:16), and to defeat all the enemies of God’s rule; and “the last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:26). Therefore, brothers and sisters, let’s let the Lord Jesus rule us and heal us, and thru us bring about a greater sense of communion in our society—in the Church, in our country, in our culture—so that the “goodness and kindness” of the Lord our shepherd may follow us “all the days of [our] life,” and we may “dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come” (Ps 23:6), in fact, forever and ever.
[1]
Jean-Luc Marion, “Christianity Offers Best Hope for Restoration of Community…,”
interview in National Catholic Register online, 11/13/20: https://www.ncregister.com/blog/christianity-offers-best-hope-for-restoration-of-community-says-ratzinger-prize-laureate?utm_campaign=NCR%202019&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=99915033&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_d1LEN-dWTZhOG5xdv5eyRJIVyv1OUP2XTyN21ex3OkziQfjQLs3uBcpH3IXY1ikJ6oAcCFa7CMme0qwzFfXHUV22Vhv0y2Pcu3A84eiGt9m0s4nQ&utm_content=99915033&utm_source=hs_email
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