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When the Jewish leaders dragged Christ, a peasant carpenter from rural Galilee, before Pilate and yelled, “This man says He is a king!” Pilate must have thought they were joking. Pontius Pilate, the Roman administrator in Palestine was a lot of things, but he was no dummy. Christ had ridden into Jerusalem five days earlier on a donkey, not a war horse. And if He were a king, where was His army?
Christ Is the King
A few hours later, up on Calvary, the Jewish leaders and Roman soldiers made jokes: “He saved others! If He’s a king let Him save Himself!” But the joke was on them. Christ was saving others. And He was a king. That is what makes this all so mysteriously fascinating. Bishop Fulton Sheen, who died in 1979, put it this way:
The Last Judgment was prefigured on Calvary; the Judge was in the center, and the two divisions of humanity on either side: the saved and the lost, the sheep and the goats.
Two thieves crucified on either side of Him at first blasphemed and cursed. Suffering does not necessarily make men better; it can sear and burn the soul unless men are purified by its redemptive value…The thief at the left was certainly no better because of the pain. He asked to be taken down.
But the thief on the right, evidently moved by Our Savior’s priestly prayer of intercession, asked to be taken up. A dying man asked a dying man for eternal life; a man without possessions asked a poor man for a Kingdom. (Life of Christ, 394-95)
The History of the Feast
Pope Pius XI promulgated the feast of Christ the King in 1925 (Quas Primas). Why? He did so because the world had come to regard the notion of Christ the King as something of a joke. But all peoples, the pope wrote, are under the dominion of Christ, even as a plague had infected society:
…There were even some nations who thought they could dispense with God, and that their religion should consist in impiety and the neglect of God. This rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences. (24)
The pope was referring in a particular way to the new Marxist governments in Russia and Mexico. In 1917, Marxists overtook Russia. In 1918, they murdered the Christian Russian king (czar) and his family, then proceeded to murder the Christian moral order. They did so by promoting sexual license, which they called “freedom,” and by legalizing divorce and abortion. They also mandated that mothers leave the home and join the workforce alongside men in factories and mines. They called it “liberation.” This “liberation” also made it easier for the government to step in and claim children for the state.
So, this is the historical perspective for Pope Pius XI’s promulgation of the feast of Christ the King. He did so to counter the nation-states who had usurped the power and authority of Christ’s Church.
Pope Pius instituted the feast in 1925 on the last Sunday of October—the significance of which was not lost on anyone at the time. For about 400 years, the last Sunday of October was “Reformation Sunday,” the day Protestants celebrated their breaking away from the one, true Faith. The pope called for a Catholic counter-feast to show that Christ, and not national governments, had ultimate authority on matters of faith and morals. In 1970, “experts” in Rome, perhaps to lessen any semblance of “triumphalism” on the part of Catholics, and to lessen any offense given to Protestants and non-Christians, moved the feast to the last Sunday of the liturgical year.
So the feast of Christ the King as we know it is more about Christ reigning in heaven, rather than here on earth, which gives the feast a more of a “Well, we win in the end” feel. Convinced we no longer have to fight for our faith, we’ve laid down our arms at the altar of ecumenism and co-existence—which has led to indifference and other deplorable consequences. In the meantime, our Christian culture has been murdered.
Dominion Over All
My friends, here is a question you have not been asked in a long time, if ever at all: Does Christ have dominion over all nations, or not? And does this dominion begin only at the end of time, or is it now? What does Scripture say?
Psalm 47 states:
God is king of all the earth.
Sing praise with all your skill. God is king over the nations;
God reigns on his holy throne.
It continues:
The rulers of the earth belong to God,
to God who reigns over all.
The enemies of the Cross argue that the God mentioned in the Psalm could be a God of anyone’s choosing or making. But who is God, if not Jesus Christ? Who is the only person whose life and death were prophesied about? Who is the only person to have risen from the grave after three days and appear in a glorified state? Who is the only person to have ever claimed to be the way, the truth, and the life?
My friends, Christ is King, and He has dominion over all peoples. In the end, it does not matter what those people believe. Christ is and still will be their King. In the end, they will bow down to Him. In the meantime, Christendom is gone; the Christian culture has been murdered. The West has entered a post-Christian era. A scholar recently asked:
What does that mean, exactly? To begin with, it means Christian morality will no longer shape our public life. It also means we will no longer desire or seek out Christians for positions of leadership in society. In fact, we will consider sincere Christians to be bigots and fascists, unfit for positions of public trust.
This opinion has already been widely adopted by the mainstream left, and on certain subjects it is now being adopted by the mainstream right. In sum, the de-Christianization of America means that the mainstream culture in our country will not simply be secular or neutral toward Christians; it will be actively hostile towards the Christian faith.
The Holy Mass and the King’s Holy Army
The Jews were actively hostile toward Christ and saw to it that He died. He then offered the perfect sacrifice on His throne, the cross. Since there is no time with God, the perfect sacrifice continues on altars all over the world, where the King dies to save His own subjects. This is why Holy Mass, as it has been traditionally celebrated, is so dangerous. It is why it is such a threat to those who rule this present darkness.
At this very moment, Christ is in the act of saving you. How mysteriously fascinating is that? The princes and kings of this world are doing all they can to stop it. But they are fighting against God. And that of course is a fight they’ll never win. The joke is on them.
At Holy Mass your judgment is prefigured. That is no joke. That is why, as I heard a priest on the radio once state: “The congregation at Mass is not an audience to be entertained, but an army to be equipped.”
In the silence at Mass, look up to the throne and listen to your King as He hangs. Listen to Him ask, “Where is my army?” Hear Him say, “Who is ready to die for their King?” Whisper to Him, “Here I am. Send me.” You see, at Mass a dying man can ask a dying man for eternal life: a man without possessions can ask a poor man for a Kingdom.
Photo by Sai Madhav on Unsplash
