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.