Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Solemnity of Christ the King (A)

November 21, 2020

 

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.21.20_Landry_ConCon.mp3

 

The text that guided the homily is: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us as we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King this Sunday.

* Christ the King is, by the standard of Church history, still a very young feast. It’s only 95 years old. It was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 Jubilee in response to the rise of communism, fascism and aggressive secularism, all of which were trying to eliminate Christian influence in society to be supplanted by communist, fascist or secularist pseudo-religious ideologies. Pope Pius XI stressed both the importance of Christian believers influencing society for the good as salt of the earth, light of the world and leaven, but also cautioning them to recall that Christ had not come into the world to inaugurate a political but a spiritual kingdom. That’s a lesson Pontius Pilate didn’t get when he asked Jesus whether he was a king. That’s a point that most Jews didn’t get when they anticipated the long-awaited Messiah would rule in the way that his ancestor David had ruled, defeating all foreign powers and triumphing over all who opposed him. That’s a truth that not even the apostles grasped as they jockeyed for the choicest cabinet secretariats in what they presumed would be earthly administration.

* The King we celebrate does not fit into any of those earthly categories. As St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians, Christ the King “even though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave and being born in human likeness. He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross” (Phil 2:6-8). Christ’s whole kingship is caught up in his saving service until death. Whereas most terrestrial kings have slews of servants caring for their every need, Jesus came “not to be served but to serve” those who by creation ought to be his servants. Whereas earthly leaders regularly have sacrificed their subjects as soldiers for their personal royal aggrandizement, Christ the King came to die for his subjects, “to give his life as a ransom for the many.” That’s the king we fête. That’s the kingdom he has established. That’s the way we’re called to reign with him.

* In the Gospel for the feast, Christ the king identifies as someone who hungers and thirsts, as a stranger, as someone naked, imprisoned or sick, as someone suffering or in need, and says that whatever we do to anyone in these circumstances he will take personally. These are not just words for Jesus. When Jesus was on the Cross, for example, he himself was needy in all of the ways he described. He was hungry and cried out, “I thirst!” He was stripped naked. He was a stranger even in the world he created, kicked out of his own city of Jerusalem to die as a malefactor at the place of the skull. He was sick and wounded, having had his flesh ripped open by a brutal Roman scourging, having been beaten and crowned with thorns. He was imprisoned not only in the high priest’s dungeon but pinned to the cross not by chains but by nails. The more we look to him on his throne of the Cross, the easier it is supposed to be for us to see his sufferings in the suffering members of his Mystical Body.

* Just as it shocked the people 2,000 years ago that Jesus crucified was really the King of Jews,