ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

Christus Rex 2006

Fr Ivan Aquilina

Let’s start from a fable by Aesop:

The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said: "I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin." So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveller. But the harder it blew the more closely did the traveller wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair. Then the Sun came out and shone in all its glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on and so removed it.

Kindness effects more than severity.

“…If my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but my kingship is not from the world.”

Our human nature falls into its default mode very quickly, and its default mode is the way that the wind takes in our fable from Aesop. We tend to value things according to numbers behind them, from the angle of financial profits or from what we consider as strength, generally they who shout loudest. This is the way of those who do not follow Christ. The way that Christ shows us and summons us to take is the way of the sun. It is the quiet way, the kind way, the way that respects who we are but leads us to remove the cloak that shrouds us, the cloak of sin and egoism which hides and disfigures our humanity. It is not through force but through kindness that God leads us to himself and creates for us the right environment to part company from sin and live the life of the kingdom: the life of truth, justice, mercy and peace: “my kingship is not from the world.”

Every year we come to an end of our liturgical year by celebrating the feast of Christ our King, the King of the Universe. Throughout the whole year the Church has taken us for a journey and this is where that journey leads, it leads us to Christ. All has been revealed to us through readings from the Sacred Scriptures and explained through homilies. The truths that we learnt and heard we experienced in the liturgical celebrations, and here we have experienced them in style. There is no more the Church can do; it is now up to us.

As we stand in front of Christ the King with all the knowledge and blessings we have received it is a very simple and yet a very profound question: Will I accept this King in my life and be his ambassador? Today we are called to take this decision or to refresh it, there is nothing more to say or do, it is now in our hands.

Conforming to Christ, which is the decision I hope we shall all take or refresh today, puts us in an extraordinary situation. It summons us to live in the world, to embrace the world, to care for it and love it, but never to be part of it or think like it. We are of Christ and we think through Christ’s mind. Conforming to Christ is setting aside our will to fulfil the Father’s will and enouncing all our precious opinions to accept the mind of the Church Catholic. If we are alone when taking this decision, and we are, we are not alone in the living of it, we are in the company of the Church part of which, as we saw in Daniel and in Revelation, is already in heaven seeing God as He is and singing His eternal praises. This fills us with courage in moments when it becomes difficult to witness to Christ. Difficulties that range from witnessing in a hostile environment, of living the Gospel in a context that works against it or in a situation where it is made difficult to wear a cross or teach the Faith in a classroom. We and those after us are strengthened by the Holy Spirit to bring about the first fruits of Christ’s kingdom: truth, justice, mercy and peace.

Genuflecting is not out of fashion, it is more necessary than ever. As we walk in front of Jesus our King, truly present in the Blessed Sacrament we genuflect in humility to acknowledge him as the King of glory, physically submitting ourselves to him in everything. We bend the knee as we carry that sweet weight of witnessing to him and we arise as ambassadors of his love and of his kingdom, we then hear in our ears that divine command of going out there to establish his kingdom, to bring light in darkness, holiness where sin is, to distribute to all those we come across and beyond the gifts of truth, justice, mercy and peace in kindness and love; to allow and enable others to get rid once and for all of that cloak of sin and darkness. To live as subjects of the Kingdom of Christ to whom belong all glory and power and might now and for ever. Amen.