Bulletin Message on the Solemnity of Christ the King of the Universe

Sunday, November 22, 2020

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Beloved in Christ, today we celebrate the Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of the universe. When Pope Pius XI established this special feast in 1925 to honor Christ Jesus as the true King of the universe, he deeply lamented over a world that has been ravaged by World War 1 and which has also began to bow down before the false lords of consumerism, blind nationalism, secularism, and new forms of injustice. The old power structures in Europe and the Middle East including the colonial system that permitted European nations to grab lands in Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America were fading into memory, and a new and uncertain world was rising to take their place. In his Encyclical Letter, Quas Primas, Pope Pius XI acknowledges that those fading empires and colonies did not define who or whose the Christians were. He teaches that the kingdom to which Christians belong is spiritual and therefore should be concerned with spiritual matters. As citizens of God’s Kingdom, Christians should detach from riches and earthly things and imbibe a spirit of gentleness. They must hunger and thirst for justice, deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Christ. Pope Pius envisages “a dominion by a King of Peace who came to reconcile all things, who came not to be served but to serve.”

Jesus is King, but not like any human king who lords it over his subjects. He is a Shepherd-King who as the first reading tells us “will look after and tend my sheep.” He will rescue his scattered sheep, pasture them, give them rest. He will find the lost and bring them back home; he will heal the injured and shepherd them aright. As we celebrate the kingship of Christ, let’s not forget the broader outlook of what we are also celebrating today— our citizenship in the Kingdom of God. Although we are born as Americans, Africans, Europeans, South-Americans, Asians, etc, but through baptism we have been claimed by Christ and our true home is in Christ’s Kingdom, a Kingdom that goes beyond the limits of race, nationality, ethnicity, language and even time itself. We are citizens of God’s Kingdom who care and support each other especially those who hunger for food, for justice, for peace, for a place at the table. We are citizens of God’s Kingdom who remember those who like Christ on the cross, are thirsty for water, for friendship, and to be heard. We are citizens of God’s Kingdom who welcome Christ who also abide in the stranger, the undocumented and the poorest of the poor. We are citizens of God’s Kingdom who clothed the physically and spiritually naked ones among us and those whose human dignity are constantly being stripped from them. We are citizens of the Kingdom who visit and care for the sick and the imprisoned ones among us. We accomplish all these because Christ the King, according to Pope Pius XI reigns in our minds, in our wills, in our hearts, in our bodies and in our members. 

Be Blessed Indeed!

Fr. Marcel Okwara, CSsR