Christ the King 2021 - Viva Cristo Rey

 “Viva Cristo Rey!” “Long live Christ the King!” These were the last words Fr. Miguel Augustin Pro uttered before he was executed by firing squad by the virulently anti-Catholic government of Mexico on November 23, 1927.

When Mexico achieved its independence from Spain in the 19th century, the government also sought to divorce itself from Catholicism. Mexico’s 1917 Constitution brought the seizing of church property, the outlaw religious orders, and the government’s insertion into internal Church affairs. The Constitution prohibited priests from voting or offering any comment on public policy. Priests were also banned from wearing their clerical attire or vestments outside churches. Public displays of faith like the Corpus Christi Procession or praying the rosary publicly were strictly forbidden. 

Some Catholics rebelled against the government persecution; the Cristeros movement fought against the anti-Catholic regime, which by the 20s was executing priests and even young people who practiced their faith. 

Pope Pius XI wrote three encyclicals denouncing the persecution in Mexico, calling upon faithful Catholics to defend the Church when possible. The persecution finally ended when a Catholic president, Manuel Avila Camacho, was elected in 1940. Yet, when Pope St. John Paul visited Mexico in 1979 it was still illegal for him to celebrate Mass in public.

The most famous martyr of this persecution is the Jesuit priest Blessed Miguel Augustin Pro. When Churches were closed by the government, Fr. Miguel would celebrate Mass in secret to provide the Eucharist for Mexico’s faithful. He became known throughout Mexico City as the undercover priest who would show up in the middle of the night, dressed as a beggar or a street sweeper, to baptize infants, hear confessions, distribute Communion, or perform marriages. Several times, disguised as a policeman, he slipped unnoticed into the police headquarters itself to bring the sacraments to Catholic prisoners before their executions.

Eventually, Fr. Pro was captured and arrested and sentenced to death. The President of Mexico ordered his execution to be photographed in great detail, hoping to incite fear amongst the Cristeros Catholics. You may have seen the photographs of Fr. Pro, dressed in a suit, facing the firing squad, with arms outstretched like Jesus on the Cross. The photographs, instead of inciting fear had the opposite effect, and Catholics began to show great devotion to the martyr—soon the government forbade the distribution of the very photos it had publicized!

When Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King for the universal Church in 1925, Christians were facing grave difficulties: the Mexican persecution of course, the rise of National Socialism which would become Nazism in Germany, Atheistic Communism in Russia, and the rampant Materialism, Consumerism, and Racism of the roaring 20s here in the States. The Pope instituted this feast for one, to show “the deplorable consequences” produced when individuals and governments rebel against and reject the Gospel. Godless governments are always anti-life governments, they emphasize power over peace, the state over the individual, and they censor and persecute religion. And it can and is happening again in this country. 

Pope Pius XI also wanted to strengthen and encourage Catholics facing persecution, like the Cristeros Catholics in Mexico. This feast of Christ the King, gave Fr. Pro and so many others, the courage to continue to work for the spread of Christ’s reign, despite formidable hostilities. 

This feast is also a reminder to all Catholics: that amidst all the trials of life, our faith in Christ can and will sustain us in the most difficult moments of life, it can and will transform our fallen world, if we let it. And to those who allow Christ to reign in them and through them, our Good King will speak the words we long to hear: “'Come, you who are blessed by my Father.  Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

On this last feast, this last week of the liturgical year, we consider what in the end really matters, not our status in any political party, not the esteem of our superiors or friends, but whether in the end we have allowed Christ to reign as king in our hearts and minds and wills.

In the Gospel, we hear of Pilate asking Christ, are you a king? Notice that Jesus does not answer Pilate’s question directly. Why? Because You have to answer this for yourself. On one level, Pilate washed his hands of this question because he was unwilling to face the political and professional ramifications for allowing Christ to be his king. The truth that Christ is King will set you free if you let it.

But on a deeper level, what kept Pilate from acknowledging Christ as king was his pride. Pride always keeps us from Christ as King because pride does not acknowledge a king outside of one’s self. Pride says, “I need be the one in charge, I need to lord power over others, I determine what truth is for myself” But this sort of pride is a rebellion and rejection of God-- the sort of rebellion and rejection of God that leads to broken friendships and families, even gulag’s and concentration camps. History shows this over and over again. Godlessness leads to violence towards one’s fellow man and self-destruction. 

But pride can be shattered, and it must be shattered, in order to belong to that the kingdom of truth and life, the kingdom of holiness and grace, the kingdom of justice, love and peace, the kingdom of Christ that we know we long to be apart of.

The upcoming month of December, and the season of Advent, we know is filled with many demands on our time. So during all of the busyness of the month ahead, we must remember our deepest duty is to Christ: not to contribute to the growing godlessness of our culture, but to bring about his Kingdom through faith, hope, and charity.

The changing of a liturgical season is always a good time to do some self-examination: to examine whether selfishness, pleasure, lust, control, pride, reign in our lives, or Christian generosity, self-control, humility, and prayer. And it is a good time to make a good confession of the times we let sin reign in us, rather than Christ. 

This week, I encourage you to plan ahead for Advent, which begins next sunday; plan additional daily prayer time, additional spiritual reading, additional acts of mercy and charity. Get to weekday Mass during Advent. So that you can hear and reflect upon the beautiful advent scriptures and lessons, and to pray and celebrate Eucharist for those souls who have lost focus of the reason for the season. 

Make a good sacramental confession prior to Christmas—acknowledge those times when pride has taken the place of the love of Christ the King.

“Viva Cristo Rey!” “Long live Christ the King!” in us. In our minds and hearts, our relationships with family, friends, strangers, neighbors and enemies. 

When we allow Christ to reign in us, he transforms us into instruments of his justice and his goodness. We become partners with Christ in reuniting divided humanity, in extending God’s mercy, truth, and love to all, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: Christ the King 2016 - "He must reign in you"

The Feast of Christ the King is a relatively new feast, only being placed on the calendar in 1925 by Pope Pius XI. There is a story of Pius XI walking with a priest-friend of his, Father Carlo Confalonieri were taking a stroll through the Vatican gardens behind St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. And Father Confalonieri could see that the Holy Father was distracted, the Pope wasn’t speaking much. The Holy Father then sat down on a bench, and said to his secretary, “Carlo, I am worried about this man, Mussolini and his fascist party here in Italy. I must admit, he seems to be organizing things well, the trains are running on time, but he preaches this poisonous doctrine, that all of us are subservient to the State. And then I hear the rantings of this man in Germany by the name of Adolf Hitler. He’s preaching about something called ‘National Socialism’; they call themselves the Nazi’s. And he too speaks about this blind militaristic unquestionable obedience to him, and to the party, and to the state; and he’s encouraging racial and religious hatred and division in society.” Pius XI went on, he said, “And what about Russia; I hear about these men named Lenin and Stalin, and this thing called communism; this too seeks to impose a totalitarian authority over our lives.” And he said, “I hear even in the United States, they are boasting of the “roaring 20s”, where there seems to be unbridled, cutthroat capitalism” (which we know would trigger the great depression). Apparently, in the United States,” the Holy Father said, “all that matters is wealth and pleasure. And then I hear of a man in Vienna named Sigmund Freud, he seeks to develop the field of mental health, and yet, at the same time he claims that our whole lives are determined by unconscious psychological drives”

Pius XI then, sort of bewildered stopped, and was silent, and he says, “Fascism, Nazism, Totalitarianism, Communism, Psychological Determinism, Consumerism, Nationalism, Racism” and he banged his fist on the bench and he said, “Basta! Enough! Christ is our King; Our true and only allegiance is to Him and Him alone. Only He is to have total mastery over our lives. Our destiny is to reign with Him in heaven, and seeking heaven is our highest earthly priority, and our other earthly duties come second to that most important priority.”

Soon after the conversation, Pius XI issued the encyclical letter, Quas Primas, in which he instituted today’s feast. Pius XI explained that the “manifold evils in the world were due to the fact that the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics…that as long as individuals and states refused to submit to the rule of our Savior, there would be no really hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations”

If we want peace in our world, our nation, our families, and our hearts, Christ must be reign in these places. No place can have true peace without Christ as its king.

Pius XI saw the great danger of thrusting Jesus out of the different dimensions of human life and human society. The genocide and mass murder of the Nazis took 11 million lives, atheistic communism resulted in the death of 94 million people.  Pope Francis has continued to voice concern over the deChristianization of economics: how unbridled capitalism and rampant materialism lead to dehumanization—how violence and crime bubble up with the poor are extorted.  

Many critics of the Church blame Christianity for the evils of the modern world: war, racism, sexism... But the truth is just the contrary.

Only through Christianity did the human family gradually come to realize that all people share the same human dignity and have the same basic human rights. Only through Christianity, for example, was slavery recognized as an injustice and gradually eliminated - in fact, in non-Christian cultures even today slavery persists. We must not believe the lie that popular culture wants us to believe: that all religions are the same, and our faith in Christ should not overflow into the laws and customs of our communities. That is the lie that today's Feast was established to expose. If we exclude Christ and Christian values from public life, we will only give more room for anti-Christian values to flourish.

In Quas Primas, Pius XI gave us a remedy, a solution, how to truly make Christ King in our world.

“He must reign in our minds,” the Holy Father explained, “which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to him alone. He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls, or to use the words of the Apostle Paul, as instruments of justice unto God.”

Pius XI used a powerful word several times throughout his encyclical. The word is Dominion. We must place our minds, hearts, will, nations, and families under the Dominion of Christ. The word ‘Dominion’ comes from the Latin word “Dominus” the word for ‘Lord’…Sunday is the Dies Domini, the Day of the Lord.

It is a good day to evaluate, who or what has Dominion over our lives. Who or what is Lord of our lives. Is it Christ? His teaching? His commandments? Virtue? Love? Goodness? Decency? Is it the most noble aspirations of the human heart that come from God through Jesus? Do those magnificent things have dominion over our hearts?

Or does anger? Lust? Money? Drugs and Alcohol? Revenge and Hate? The pursuit of prestige or power? Who or what has dominion in your life?

Does Christ truly reign supreme in you? Is his reign evidenced in the choices you make throughout the week? Through your prayer life, through your confession of sins, through the sacrifices you make in order to be more generous to the poor.

He must reign in our minds through our study of the Scriptures and the Catechism. He must reign in our wills be obeying God’s laws and going to Confession when we disobey them. He must reign in our hearts, by loving God more than we love sports, television, entertainment, gossip, material goods. He must reign in our bodies, by allow God to use us to work for justice.

To quote Pius XI once more: “Oh, what happiness would be Ours if all men, individuals, families, and nations, would but let themselves be governed by Christ! Then at length will many evils be cured; then will the law regain its former authority; peace with all its blessings be restored. Men will sheathe their swords and lay down their arms when all freely acknowledge and obey the authority of Christ.” May not just our tongues, but our whole lives confess that Jesus Christ is King, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.