“He will sit upon His
glorious throne.”
(Mt. 25: 31)
The Title John XXIII Liked Best of All
November
20, 2011, Feast of Christ the King
Ezekiel
34:11-12, 15-17 I Corinthians 15:20-26,
28 Matthew 25:31-46
Alleluia,
alleluia.
A reading
from the holy Gospel according to Matthew
Glory to you, Lord.
The final judgment
Jesus said to his disciples: When the Son of Man comes in his
glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit upon His glorious throne, and all the
nations will be assembled before Him. And He will separate them one from
another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the
sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those
on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me food,
was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill
and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.”
Then the righteous will answer Him and say, “Lord,
when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When
did we see You a stranger and welcome You, or naked and clothe You? When
did we see You ill or in prison, and visit You?” And the King will say to them
in reply, “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers
of mine, you did for Me.” Then He will say to those
on his left, “Depart from Me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for
the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave Me no food, I was
thirsty and you gave Me no drink, a stranger and you gave Me no welcome, naked
and you gave Me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for Me.” Then
they will answer and say, “Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a
stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to Your needs?” He will
answer them, “Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least
ones, you did not do for Me.” And these will go off to eternal punishment, but
the righteous to eternal life.
The
Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord
Jesus Christ.
----------------
Introduction
A busy November calendar
The November calendar is busy. This Sunday
November 20 is the 34th and last Sunday of Ordinary Time. With this
Sunday we arrive at the end of the Church’s liturgical year. After celebrating
all the feasts of Our Lord and His saints through 52 weeks, the Church today
crowns her fast-departing old year with a feast in honor of Christ the King.
Then this Thursday November 24 we celebrate
Thanksgiving – the nation’s favorite feast. It is also our purest feast. Unlike Christmas and Easter which have gone astray, Thanksgiving
has remained faithful to an original inspiration: giving thanks for an abundant
harvest, and for family. Thanksgiving still sends us hastening “Over the
river and through the woods to Grandfather's house we go.” At Thanksgiving sons and daughters, brothers and sisters
(scattered all over the country) crowd the airways, the byways and highways, as
they hurry home (from which they at one time couldn’t break loose fast enough).
They hurry home, bringing no other gift than themselves.
An image that “can easily get in the way”
The feast of Christ the King was instituted
as recently as 1925 by Pope Pius XI.[1]
He was battling with various kings. He was
fighting anticlericalism in Mexico, and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. In
his own backyard, he was quarreling with the Italian State which had wrested
Italy back from the popes. The newly instituted feast seemed to say: “We have a
King who is greater than all your kings. He is Jesus of Nazareth -- the ‘King
of Kings and the Lord of Lords.’” (Rev 19: 26)
But that great bishop of Saginaw, MI, Kenneth Untener (1937-2004) wondered whether the institution of the feast of Christ the King was perhaps a mistake.”Pope Pius surely meant
well,” Untener said, “but the image of `king’ can easily get in the way.”
An
endless list of despotic kings
He’s
right. History is cluttered with kings who “get in the way.” When Jesus was
born in Bethlehem of Judea, there was King Herod. He was worried that the
new-born King of the Jews would be a threat to his throne, so he slew all baby
boys two years and younger. (Mt 2:2-16) Then fast forwarding to the first half
of the twentieth century, there was `führer Hitler,’ king of the Master Race. Out of some insane
hatred he gassed or starved to death six million Jews in the concentration
camps of Dachau, Auschwitz and Buchenwald. On April 29 1945, as the Soviets
were closing in on his Berlin bunker where he was hiding, he married Eva Braun,
and the very next day, April 30, both committed suicide.
In the second half of the twentieth
century, there was king Saddam Hussein of Iraq who lived in eight palaces! He filled the city dumps
with the remains of people who didn’t want him as king. After American soldiers
found him also hiding -- in a hole near a farmhouse, he was brought to justice,
found guilty of killing 48 Iraqi Shiites, and was hanged on
30 December 2006.
Then in these last days there was king
Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, who always bedecked himself with robes befitting a
king. But behind a showy facade there lurked a brutal cynic who ruthlessly ruled Libya
for 42 years. Libyans finally rose up against this
tyrant. On
20 October 2011 they found him also hiding - inside a concrete drain
pipe, and they killed him.
And now there is king Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who is presently being confronted by his people who do not want him as their king any longer. Al-Assad blames the uprising on “foreign intervention,” and he threatens “an earthquake that would burn the whole region,” if his subjects don’t behave. Finally there is king Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, who threatens to wipe Israel off the map. History records an endless list of despotic kings.
A superfluous feast?
It
seems this late November feast of Christ the King is superfluous. Already in
early spring, there is a feast honoring Christ as King. On Palm Sunday the
Church cries out, "Hosanna to the Son of David! O King of Israel, hosanna in the
highest!" Holy Week seems to be a better context for the kingship of
Christ. It sets Jesus upon an ass and not upon a throne. It places a palm
branch in his hand and not a scepter. It plants a wreath of thorns upon his
head and not a crown. And the Passion read on Palm Sunday sets the records
straight for anyone who wants to build an earthly kingdom for Jesus. "My
kingdom,” He says, “is not of this world." (Jn 18:36)
Scripture is clear.
Who serves is king
Fr. Damien de Veuster (1840 – l889),[2]
a Belgium priest, served the spiritual needs of
lepers on the island of Molokai in the Hawaiian chain, and he himself
contracted leprosy and died. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India (1910-1997)[3]
served the spiritual and physical needs of the `untouchables’ dying in the
streets of Calcutta. Teams of medical personnel served the needs of the
victims of Hurricane Katrina, bringing their
equipment and expertise to set up hospitals and emergency facilities. Doctors Without Borders serve the needs of the poor and ill of foreign countries, asking
nothing for their life-saving services. Bill Gates of Microsoft, the world's
richest man, by donating $10,000,000,000 serves the needs of people suffering
from AIDS and other diseases, especially in Africa.
All of them are kings, for whoever serves is a king.
A pope who served
On November 4, the day of his coronation, a three-tiered crown was placed upon his head. In his homily that day the new pope said that he had in mind for his pontificate the example of the Good Shepherd who came not to be served as kings are served but to serve. (Mt 20:28)The next day after his coronation, John launched off his pontificate, which he promised would be one of service. In a papal auto he sped off through elaborate Vatican gates to visit aging brother priests in nursing homes, and yes, inmates in the nearby Regina Coeli Prison along the Tiber. He told them: “I come to you, because you couldn’t come to me.”
At the end of the day, it was really Good Pope John who put an end to the crowning of popes. It is true that after John died, Pope Paul VI was, indeed, crowned, but after the powerful example of John, Paul’s coronation fell quite flat. He sold his crown (the gift of the people of Florence) and gave the money to the poor. That was the end of the crowning of popes: John Paul I and II and Benedict XVI were not `crowned;’ they were `inaugurated.’
Conclusion
The title John XXIII liked best of all
The pope has a
whole slew of official and impressive titles: He is Bishop of Rome, Vicar of
Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the
Universal Church, Patriarch of the West, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and
Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City,
(and last but not least) Servant of the
Servants of God.As Good Pope John lay dying on June 3, 1963, it is no exaggeration to say that whole world was kneeling at his bedside. (Some of us senior citizens vividly remember that day.) The world was at his beside because it remembered how John, Bishop of Rome, visited inmates in a prison and elderly brother priests in a nursing home the very next day after his coronation. The world was at his bedside because it remembered how John, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, during his first Holy Thursday Liturgy as pope in 1959, stunned the universal Church as he girded himself with a towel and bent down to wash the feet of 13 young priests. That foot-washing rite called the `Mandatum’ had fallen into disuse for centuries, and that disuse itself was symptomatic. By reviving the ancient rite of foot-washing Good Pope John wanted to tell us that his future pontificate would serve the People of God, and that of his many papal titles the one he liked best of all was: Servant of the Servants of God.
[1] In his encyclical Quas Primas
(December 11, 1925) Pope Pius XI promulgated the Feast of Christ the King.
