Historical Event:
The Word War I, labelled as WWI or the Great War, was a global conflict that wreaked devastation from 28Jul1914 to 11Nov1918 causing unprecedented destruction and death. Recent inventions then, like airplanes and chemical weapons caused the death of an estimated 9 million soldiers in combat and another 5 million civilians as a result of military actions, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in 1918 influenza pandemic. After the war, as political conflicts continued to usurp power, Pope Pius XI instituted the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, in 1925 to re-establish love, peace and universal brotherhood. We are happy that Loyola was founded in this same year reminding us of our mission of establishing love and harmony in the world. And this Church is Christ, the King Church and we celebrate its titular feast today.
Conflict and Compassion:
There was another series of conflicts and wars were going on but on religious grounds between 1095 and 1291, known as the Crusades. This was mainly to regain the Holy Land, especially Jerusalem and in particular the burial place of Jesus from the Islamic rule. I remember having the non-detailed novel The Talisman by Walter Scott (Pub. 1825) in my 10th Std. The event takes place during the Third Crusade headed by King Richard I of England leading the Christian army and Sultan Saladin heading the Muslim allies. During the combat, King Richard falls sick and he is on the verge of death. There comes to his tent, in the middle of the desert, an Arab saying he is a physician and he could cure the King. Though suspicious, after through checking, he was lead to the presence of the King. The physician attends to the King – He makes some concoction with some medicine, which is the Talisman, and after taking it for a few days, the King feels better and he is finally out of danger. As the physician is taking leave, the King asks him who he was as he was so compassionate. The physician reveals his identity as Sultan Saladin. As he leaves the tent, Sultan Saladin advises King Richard to take some more weeks of rest and recuperation and then both of them could meet again in the battle field. We see compassion reigning amidst conflicts. In a world of conflict (as we witness at present in Ukraine and the tension building in Korea as well as in Taiwan and in some sections in Africa), we celebrate the feast of Christ, the King to exercise His compassion to bring wholeness in the world of conflict.
In a world of arms-race, struggle for social dominance through discrimination, suppression, and demeaning the dignity of human beings through ruthless consumeristic thrust and force, we remember the King who came to serve and not to be served (Mt 20:28). Jesus was unique and charming:
Jesus had no servants, yet they called Him Master.
He had no degree, yet they called Him Teacher.
He had no medicine, yet they called Him Healer.
He had no army, yet kings feared Him.
He won no military battles, yet he conquered the world.
He did not live in a castle, yet they called Him Lord.
He ruled no nations, yet they called Him King.
He committed no crime, yet they crucified Him.
He was buried in a tomb, yet he lives today (as reigns supreme).[1]
And we feel so honoured to be invited to serve such a Leader because He loves us and He has redeemed us and he chose to remain with us in the Eucharist. And we are invited by St Ignatius to march under the banner of this King.
Kingdom of Contrasts:
In a world of conflicts and contradictions, the Kingdom of Jesus stands out as an opposing or counter-Kingdom to the expecations of the world. In the meditation on ‘The Two Standards’, Ignatius gives us a three-phase formula to follow Jesus under His banner of the Cross. In a world of riches, honour, and pride (SpEx 146), Jesus offers, in the words of Ignatius, riches of compassion to serve the poor, honour in the dignity of the discriminated and the discarded, and pride of finding one’s salvation in the salvation of those we serve. This counter-culture of values and ethics is a battle in a world of power and glory. As enlightened ones by Ignatius, we raise our battle cry in the world asking Jesus to
Lead us on gallantly,
Ever more valiantly,
Neath the banner of the Cross
To fight for the people and their rights.
And this fight is not for gain,
Nor in vain,
But for God, who is our King and of all our hearts.
And our resolve is to die loyal to our King who reigns on us.[2]
We always takes our stand with Christ, the King. When worldly power and dominion treat the marginalized as non-people or sub-humans, we celebrate Christ, the King who turned the human as divine. When the world is busy establishing external power, pomp, and glory, Christ builds up the inner power of sympathy and compassion in each one of His followers. When the political power goes for external recognition, Christ underlines the internal impulses that regulate our thinking, feeling, and doing good for all.
In a world of collusion between power and corruption, we march under the banner of Jesus Christ to establish unity, harmony, and dignity. Our world today is rampant with secularism, consumerism, affluence, media addiction etc making each person as an island and lonely – Today, more than ever, people feel isolated even amidst a crowd of thousands; and today, people get easily depressed with very little resilience to cope with life’s stress and strain. The world is exploring ways to make money but does not know the way to reach God. At this crossroads, there stands Jesus inviting us: come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Mt 11:28). And He has the living water and whoever drinks this water will never thirst. Indeed, the water that Jesus gives us will become in us springs of water welling up to eternal life (Jn 4: 14).
God searching for Us:
Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said: In other religions humans search for God but in Christianity, God searches for human beings. As Ignatius depicts in The Spiritual Exercises, the Holy Trinity looking at the plight of humankind, ‘decide in their eternity that the Second Person should become a human being, in order to save the human race’ (SpEx 102). God came to search for and to redeem humankind. And Jesus confirms this search primarily in three parables: the lost sheep (Mt 18:12-14), the lost coin (Lk 15-8-10), and the prodigal son (Lk 15:11-32). In the case of the sheep and the coin, He goes in search of the lost one and finds it. But in the case of the son gone astray, he does not go in search. But he waits patiently as he respects his prodigal son’s intelligence and integrity. Eventually Jesus’ Kingdom leads people from ignorance to enlightenment.
This search of God will be relentless. Francis Thompson (1859–1907) depicts God as the hound used in hunting animals. He calls God as ‘The Hound of Heaven’ (1890). The modern version of it is a documentary which depicts the journey of a young man who plummeted from the heights of a comfortable life to the depths of drug addiction in London’s seedy alleys… and then found redemption.[3] In the words of Francis Thompson:
I fled Him down the nights and down the days
I fled Him down the arches of the years
I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind, and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
(But God was following him)
With unhurrying chase and unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy.
(And finally, God overpowers the fugitive and says):
Rise, clasp My hand, and come…
(my) fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He whom you seek.[4]
God takes over the running away human being and fills one with grace and joy.
Sending on Mission:
Once Jesus finds each one of us, He then sends us out to building His Kingdom of service. As ambassador of this King of kings, we have the mission, as Pope Benedict XVI indicated in his address to the participants in the 14th session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, 2008:
To build the Kingdom of Christ here on earth resulting in solidarity,
- We need to dedicate ourselves to human dignity which is the intrinsic value of a person created in the image and likeness of God and redeemed by Christ, the King;
- We have to work for solidarity by enabling the human family to share fully the treasure of material and spiritual goods with our neighbour; and
- We need to establish the common good through coordination of society’s activities that support internal life of the local communities.[5]
And today this King of kings would send us on to continue His mission of compassion. He was the Word of God and He was broken on the Cross. And today we expect that His Words of healing should be brought by us to the people and in this noble mission we need to be broken. As we break the bread on the table of the Lord, we are invited to be broken in service for the needy. In this process, Christ expects us to be the leaven that would transform the world (Lk 13:21).
On We go:
In a world of self-centeredness, we are invited to be the other-centered. Archbishop Oscar Romero said: “When I give bread to the poor, they call me a saint. But when I ask why the poor have no bread, they call me a Communist.” We have seen this happen in the life of Fr Stan Swamy. Pope Francis describes this irony with the words: “The promise was that when the glass was full, it would overflow, benefitting the poor. But what happens instead, is that when the glass is full it magically gets bigger… nothing ever comes out for the poor.” In a world of greed, we are invited to give to the poor till it hurts us.
We shall look at Christ, the King, and reflect on His words of invitation and respond in our life today, tomorrow, and on all the days to come. Let the words of Pope Pius XI, written in the encyclical on the Feast of Christ the King, reverberate in our minds and hearts. He wrote: Jesus must reign in our minds… He must reign in our wills…He must reign in our hearts… He must reign in our bodies … so that we serve as His instruments and ambassadors of God’s justice and salvation for the universe.[6] This would truly bring out the meaning of the Feast of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the universe, that we celebrate today. Our vertical connection for salvation depends on our horizontal connection of service. All Jesus wants of us is to remember him and to remember his outstretched hands to welcome and embrace us.
Francis P Xavier SJ 20Nov2022
[1] Lyle C Rollings III, 2008; http://www.ntcu.edu.tw/hcwu/9/43.pdf
[2] https://www.flickr.com/photos/zoxcleb/5342243316
[3] http://www.houndofheaven.com/product/the-hound-of-heaven-the-story-of-francis-thompson#:~:text=The%20Hound%20of%20Heaven%3A%20The%20Story%20of%20Francis%20Thompson%20is,alleys%E2%80%A6and%20then%20found%20redemption.
[4] http://www.onthewing.org/user/Hound%20of%20Heaven.pdf
[5] subsidiarity is the coordination of society’s activities in a way that supports the internal life of the local communities.
[6] Quas Primas, 11Dec1925, No. 33