Feast of Christ the King—Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

“I am a King. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world,
that I should give testimony to the truth.
And everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.”[1]

The philosophical scourge of the twentieth and twenty-first century is modernism—first condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in 1908, it had to have been around even earlier than that.[2] The essence of modernism is that, in religious matters, there is no objective truth. The modernist perceives religion as being noting more than “opinion,” or “sentiment.” What passes for “truth” among modernists is quite flexible—capable of being modified through “dialogue” between the modernist “believers.”

It is instructive to consider our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel: “I came into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth.” Notice that He says “truth,” and not sentiment or opinion. Human beings have trouble discovering objective truth for themselves—think about how many centuries we have spent to develop the natural sciences, which are still imperfect. But God knows all things exactly as they are—all of His knowledge is objective truth. It is this truth—about God Himself and about the behavior He expects of us—to which our Lord gives testimony. We can know God and morality through natural reason, but we know them with absolute assurance when we know them through divine revelation.

The preface of today’s Mass, given to us in 1925 by Pope Pius XI[3] suggests that Christ gives us more than objective truth. It speaks of the Kingdom of Christ as:

Whoever wrote this preface understood that scholastic philosophy recognizes truth as being “transcendental”—that is to say that truth, unity, beauty, existence and goodness are all aspects of the same thing.[5] We can say, for example that “existence is true” to the degree that what we have in our mind exists in the real world—to the degree that it does not exist in the real world, we say that it is “fictional” or “false.” There must be “unity” in truth, for an idea and its contradiction cannot both be true. We say that something is “good” in so far as it truly represents what God intended to create—a person is “good” insofar as he lives the life truly intended for him by his Creator. Men and women are beautiful insofar as they are possessed of health in mind and body, and have the physical, intellectual, and emotional characteristics necessary to carry out their true roles as men and women. A work of art is beautiful insofar as it truly depicts its subject.

Given this concept of “transcendentals” it becomes clear that the Kingdom of Christ must be “eternal and universal,” for objective truth cannot change with time or location. The kingdom must be one of “truth and life,” for life is God’s most noble creation—life in its higher forms (angels and men) gives testimony to God’s truth and goodness especially when that life is endowed with “holiness and grace.” And if “holiness and grace” show forth the existence of God’s spiritual truth and goodness, then “justice, love, and peace” show forth the existence of God’s truth and goodness in the material plane.

What could be better than living in an eternal and universal kingdom of truth, life, holiness, grace, justice, love, and peace? The answer, of course, is that nothing could be greater!

And, this is why we are asked to renew the Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus at the end of this Mass of Christ the King. The Sacred Heart is a tangible symbol of God’s love for His people. That love is the only thing that can soften the hearts of those who have rejected Jesus Christ and keep His Kingdom from reigning universally and eternally. In the Consecration we will ask God to do precisely that—to touch the hearts of all of His people “who are deceived by erroneous opinions, or whom discord keeps aloof, and call them back to the harbor of truth and unity of faith…. to draw them [out of the darkness] into the light and kingdom of God.”

Our Lord tells us that: “If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.”[6] Nothing could be better than living in an eternal and universal kingdom of truth, life, holiness, grace, justice, love, and peace! But for that kingdom to stand on Earth, it must not be divided. We pray that the Sacred Heart of Jesus—the Love of Almighty God for His creatures—will touch all who divide His Kingdom—rather than touching them with His holy wrath. For our sake as well as for theirs, may God grant the former and forbid the latter!

[1] Gospel: John xviii: 33-37 http://www.drbo.org/x/d?b=drl&bk=50&ch=18&l=33-#x

[2] Pope Saint Pius X, Encyclical Pascendi Dominici gregis http://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius10/p10pasce.htm

[3] Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Quas primas http://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius11/p11prima.htm

[4] http://www.rosarychurch.net/english/xking.html

[5] https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=36907

[6] Mark iii: 24 http://www.drbo.org/x/d?b=drl&bk=48&ch=3&l=24-#x