O WORSHIP THE KING

A HYMN FOR THE FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING

1. O worship the King, all glorious above, O gratefully sing God's power and God's love; our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days, pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.  2. O tell of God's might, O sing of God's grace, whose robe is the light, whose canopy space, whose chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form, and dark is God's path on the wings of the storm.  3. The earth with its store of wonders untold, Almighty, thy power hath founded of old; hath stablished it fast by a changeless decree, and round it hath cast, like a mantle, the sea.  4. Thy bountiful care, what tongue can recite? It breathes in the air, it shines in the light; it streams from the hills, it descends to the plain, and sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.  5. Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail, in thee do we trust, nor find thee to fail; thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end, our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend.  By Sir Robert Grant (1833)

HAIL, KING OF THE JEWS!

A SERMON FOR THE FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING

Our Lord had spent his entire life trying to show his chosen people that he was their King.  Not a king in the traditional sense of the term, but a spiritual king, whose kingdom, as he pointed out to the unbelieving Pontius Pilate, was not of this world. 

Pontius Pilate was not alone in his failure to understand the type of kingship that Our Lord brought to this world.  When the three Wise Men had told King Herod about the birth of a king in the land, Herod feared that this new king would be a rival, and plotted his death, slaughtering the Holy Innocents as Our Lord was forced to flee into Egypt to escape his wrath.  Later on, the Jewish Sanhedrin wanted a military leader to be their king, someone along the lines of Judas Maccabeus, who would put an end to the sacrilegious Roman occupation of the holy places.  But Our Lord was not at all the type of Messiah they were looking for, and so they turned on him, and, like Herod, plotted the death of this Most Holy of all Innocents.

And so it was that Our Lord found himself before Pilate, who asked him outright: “Art thou a king?”   But Pilate didn’t understand our Lord’s answer, and so he appealed to the Jewish mob, asking them to choose between the murderer Barabbas, and their King.  The mob responded “We have no king but Caesar,” and Pilate turned Our Lord over to the soldiers to be scourged.

After Jesus had been scourged, the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe and a reed in his right hand: and they smote him with their hands, and bowed the knee before him, and mocked him saying, Hail, King of the Jews!  And at that moment, the world changed.

Ever since the expulsion of the rebellious angels from heaven, this world had been the domain of Satan, and Satan was its Lord.  After our Lord fasted in the wilderness, the devil tempted him by offered him all the kingdoms of the world, which were his to give, if only he would kneel and worship him.  Our Lord replied with the holy words of truth, that “thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”  But he did not deny the words of Satan, who indeed had been permitted to hold dominion over the earth and be God’s unwitting instrument to test man through his nefarious traps and temptations. 

Satan was Lord of the World.  Now into his kingdom had come this man who was not like the others.  Satan had tried his best to tempt him, but had found out that here lay the difference between him and the rest of mankind, that he was like us in all things but sin.  Until now, Satan had been unable to compromise this man by luring him into sin, but now, finally, here was Satan’s chance to rid his domain of this holy man who sinned not.  If sin was the only thing separating him from the rest of mortal men, then surely he can die.  And so Satan would make sure he died, and with the most horrible death his angelic intellect and powers could devise.  He, Satan, was Lord of the World, and this man they hailed King of the Jews was not going to overthrow him and become King and Lord in his place.

Emboldened by the success of his vicious scourging of our Lord’s human body, the devil now intensifies his attack with an even more malicious assault against Christ’s divinity.  Satan has grasped the surprising reality of the moment, that this Son of God was not going to fight back.  At the scourging, thousands of years of hatred and envy are unleashed by the devil against Christ’s humanity, so apparently inferior to his own angelic nature.  Now Satan sets his sights on the divinity of Christ and dares to launch his most blatant attack ever against the Godhead itself.  It is history’s darkest hour and Satan’s hour of triumph, what he thinks will be his final revenge for the insult of his banishment from heaven by the sword of St. Michael.  Satan can begin to taste the victory that must surely be his.

In order to achieve victory Satan needed to strike at the very essence of our Lord’s kingship.  After the scourging, it seemed that there was very little left to do.  Already humbled and bleeding, bound and spat upon by the soldiers, our Lord looked like the very antithesis of royal power.  All that remained to do was a direct attack on his kingship, accomplished through mockery and humiliation.  There would be a coronation of this “king”, but it would be with a crown of thorns.  Earlier that day, our Lord had dismissed the idea of his kingship on earth, claiming to Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world but another.  Among those who heard these remarks, a cruel few set about constructing the only crown our Lord would ever truly wear during his earthly life as a man.  This was of course the crown whose razor-sharp thorns were to be squeezed tight around his head. 

Little did Satan realize that he was dealing with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, a king whose kingdom was not of this world.  He had not the slightest chance of overthrowing this divine King who was the Supreme Being from whom derives all authority and power, who held the undisputable sovereignty of Creator over his creatures. This King was the ultimate source of all order in the universe, controlling by his divine will the movement of the stars and planets, the natural and physical laws that regulate and govern our world and everything in it.  He was the Supreme Being, almighty in his power and all-wise in the use of that power. 

When the soldiers mocked Christ, hailing him as “King of the Jews” with his purple rags and crown of thorns, they were doing the devil’s bidding and directly attacking Christ as God.  It is as though the soldiers are possessed, the demons within them furiously revolting against the very nature of God, his authority and sovereignty over them and all his creatures. They are taking their revenge for their expulsion from Paradise.  They are making the most of this opportunity to retaliate against God for elevating this Son of Man to a higher level than their own.  They are mocking their true King.

Christ was crowned not with great displays of solemnity and reverence, but with mockery and blasphemy.  And yet, he was crowned.  And that is why that at the moment of his coronation, his crowning with thorns, the world changed.  From that moment, in spite of the sacrilegious intent behind the words “Hail, King of the Jews!” Our Lord Jesus Christ was indeed crowned King.  And in spite of all mankind’s offences, sacrileges and blasphemies that have continued, and even increased, to this day, Christ is still King.  He has reclaimed the domain of Satan over man by his death on the cross, showing himself to be our true Messiah, our King of kings, and Lord of Lords, whose kingdom shall have no end.

Our Lord was not born in a palace, but in a miserable stable, to a life of poverty and suffering.  It is fitting that his coronation should also be without pomp and ceremony, and that he should humbly accept his crown of thorns and the malicious insults that went with it.  It is our reminder that we too must always choose humility, that we must embrace the humiliations we receive, and even the persecutions we must suffer, if we want to be true followers of Christ.  Today, on this great feast day of the Kingship of Christ we should renew those resolutions, and make reparation for the offences committed against the Most Sacred Heart of our King.  As commanded by the Church on this day, we shall now kneel before the crucifix, and make together the Consecration of the Human Race to the Most Sacred of Jesus…

STAYING AFLOAT ON THE BARQUE OF PETER

A SERMON FOR MISSION SUNDAY

Today is Mission Sunday.  In the days before Vatican II, we used to think about taking up collections for the Holy Ghost Fathers, or some of the other missionary orders who spent their time over in third world countries, Africa, Indochina, and so on, building schools and hospitals, teaching the natives the rudimentary truths of the Faith, and baptizing little colored babies.  This rather outmoded colonial way of thinking about the missions is now lost, perhaps forever.  Today it is those little colored babies who have grown up and who now fill the convents and rectories of Europe.  Convents and rectories that would otherwise be empty.  It is now they who are the missionaries, and we who have become the ones in need.

Right now, our concern is not with missions to Africa or the Far East.  As we are now the ones in need, we must concern ourselves with missions closer to home.  Our church is a mission in every sense of the word.  And as members of this church we are all missionaries, apostles, sent by God into this world with a mission.  And the nature of that mission is for us today what it has always been for Catholics through the ages.  It is to know, love and serve God, to save our souls and bring as many other souls as we can to the truth and sanctity of the Catholic Church.

The profession of faith by St. Peter confirmed Our Lord’s selection of this fisherman apostle to lead his Church.  Upon this Rock, said Our Lord, I will build my Church.  After Our Lord’s Ascension and the coming of the Holy Ghost, St. Peter founded the Church of Antioch in Syria, and then continued his travels until he arrived in Rome.  The Church of Rome thus became the seat of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and ever since has been the center of Church authority.  The Church of Rome was not founded by Peter as a rival to the Church of Antioch, or the Church of Jerusalem, or Constantinople, or Alexandria, the other great patriarchates founded by other apostles.  It was not in conflict with these Churches, but the head of these Churches, the deposit of truth, the source of authority, government, and unity.  The Fathers of the Church, eastern as well as western, acknowledged this supremacy of Rome, and it was understood that in any controversy it was Rome that would decide the matter, certainly and infallibly because of the promise of the Holy Ghost made to St. Peter.  It became an axiom that when Rome spoke, the matter was settled—Roma locuta est, causa finita est.  After the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine and the Edict of Milan granting liberty to the Christians to worship openly, many churches were built in Rome.  But it was the Pope’s own personal basilica, that of St. John Lateran, that was given the extraordinary title Omnium Ecclesiarum Urbis et Orbis Mater et Caput—“Mother and Head of all Churches in the City and the World.”

Christ founded no other Churches, only this one Church founded on Peter, the first Bishop of Rome.  This Roman Catholic Church is therefore THE Church.  The true Church.  The Bride of Christ.  His Mystical Body.  The only Church founded directly by the Son of God.  And it is to this Church that we are invited to belong by God himself.  Now, an invitation from God is not something we should have to think about.  History, however, is filled with individuals, groups, and even whole nations, who have rejected God’s invitation to be members of his Church.  First there were the Jews who rejected their calling, then soon after, the early heretics who obstinately refused the teachings of the Popes and Councils.  Later on, the Eastern Orthodox schismatics would refuse the supremacy of Peter and tear the Church asunder.  Another few hundred years later, the Protestants would invent a whole new religion based on their own individual interpretations of Holy Scripture, refusing the guidance of the Church in these matters and thereby rejecting the very Word of God they claim is so important.  Today, the Modernists play around with the teachings of the Church to make them fit in with the culture and topsy-turvy trends of the day.   But God has shown us the way, he has invited all men, Jews and Gentiles, to be members of the true Church.  This Church is the Bride of Christ who IS the way, the truth, and the life.  And if we reject this invitation we will not save our souls.  Outside the Church there is no salvation, it’s very clear.

In the Athanasian Creed, we state our belief that “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith; which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.”  We must keep our faith whole and undefiled.  Our adherence to the Catholic faith does not admit of any exceptions.  We can’t believe most of it.  We can’t disagree with this or that particular teaching.  We can’t adapt what the Church says to our own personal values or opinions.  We can't agree with the Church's teachings on abortion, for example, but disagree with what she teaches on contraception.  Rome has spoken, the matter is settled.  In mathematical terms, it doesn’t matter whether you think two plus two equals five, or five hundred.  Yes, one answer is closer to the truth than the other, but it’s still wrong.  Unless we accept the one and only possible truth that two plus two equals four, then we are wrong.  Unless we believe all the Church teaches, we are outside the Church.  Apply this to Pope Francis who clearly states that other false religions have the means of salvation, a heresy that has been condemned many times by the true Popes of the Church.  Apply it to the Democrat politicians who openly defy Church teaching by saying that abortion is about a woman’s right to choose, or that the denial of same-sex marriage is bigotry.  We can apply it to all the schismatics and heretics.  All of them.  Not just the Bible-thumping snake-handling fundamentalists, but even the Eastern Orthodox with their beautiful ceremonies and valid sacraments.  If you deny one single truth of the Church, you place yourself outside it.  Deny the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament?  You’re not a member of Christ’s Church.  Deny the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome over the universal Church?  You’re outside the Church where there is no salvation.

It’s vitally important we understand the importance of this doctrine.  It’s essential to our own apostolate.  Since Vatican II, the Catholic missions have all but disappeared.  Because now they believe that you don’t need to convert to save your soul.  Pope Francis has even denounced the idea of converting those outside the Church.  He has forbidden Catholics in Eastern Europe to try converting the Orthodox to the Catholic Faith.  What a terrible injustice we do to those in error, if we simply congratulate them on being “sister churches” and leave them in their error.  It doesn’t matter if someone is drowning in a stinking lake of rotting fish, like the Protestants, or if they are drowning in a bucket of perfume like the Orthodox.  We don’t admire them on how nice they smell.  We pull them out.  Give them air.   Poison is poison, no matter how attractive it might smell.  What a perversion of the truth if, in the name of Christian charity we no longer make the effort to draw souls into the fold of St. Peter, the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church.  Let’s be very clear that we must be apostles.  Christ gave this commandment to his disciples, telling them they must teach and baptize, in other words, bring people into his Church.   It’s the first premise of this Mission Sunday.  We’re not trying to convert people so that we have a bigger club than the Muslims, or so we can fill our collection baskets.  Souls are in danger.  They need to be rescued.

One last point—Don’t let anyone tell you that we traditional Catholics are not members of the Church.  We are the faithful remnant of that Church.  But that doesn’t make us The Church.  We do not enjoy infallibility.  We don’t have the luxury of being guided any more by the living teaching authority of the Church.  All we can do is cling on to what always was.  Not out of nostalgia for what was.  But because what was, still is, and always will be.  The revealed truths of God do not change, no matter what the circumstances in which we find ourselves.  We therefore have everything we need to save our own souls. 

But when it comes to saving other people's souls, it's a lot more difficult today than it used to be.  It’s a little bit like trying to sell someone a luxury cruise on a lifeboat.  We don't have too much of the exterior trappings of the Church to offer, and that makes it a lot more difficult to attract souls.  But it's not impossible.  They may point out to us that the ship the rival cruise line is offering is a lot bigger and nicer, and has better choirs, better educated priests and nuns, schools and hospitals and seminaries, we do have a response that works.  It works because it's true.  We need to reply to them that the ship that looks so very attractive is actually called the Titanic, and that it has already hit the iceberg and is going down.  If only we could persuade people of the truth of this comparison, perhaps we stand a chance of enticing them out of the icy waters of perdition and into our little boat.  We might be small and humble, but right now our lifeboat seems to be the only thing afloat.  It's Mission Sunday.  Let's pull as many out of the water as we can.