By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
“For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. When everything is subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all.”
The first reading from First Corinthians proclaimed in all our churches on Sunday, November 23, proclaims that Christ reigns as “king” because He demands complete obedience of intellect and will on the part of all who love Him as Savior and God.
Archbishop William Lori, chairman of the Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, in his remarks to the annual meeting of the USCCB, pointed out that the Solemnity of Christ the King originated in the struggles of the Church under totalitarianism in the 20th century. For that reason, he said, it is very appropriate in our own day when our religious freedom is under attack.
Our bishops have been engaged for some time now in the fight for religious freedom on several fronts. The HHS mandate and the redefinition of marriage with attendant efforts to attack businesses and individuals who refuse to obey this legal perversion are just two of the effects of a general rejection of our right to declare Christ our King in action as well as in our beliefs.
The social kingship of Christ is nonnegotiable. Our right to live our faith as witnesses in every aspect of our existence is not simply an adjunct to believing, but is constitutive of believing itself.
Christ is the King of the Universe precisely because He rose as God in our human flesh from the dead, establishing His absolute Lordship, which phrase is a redundancy made necessary by the lack of understanding today in regard to what this term means.
“Lord” is a title without any qualification, denoting the one who demands our total fealty, allegiance, obedience, and love without rival. St. Paul used this term to describe Christ precisely because it was so well known in the Roman world to mean complete obedience to Caesar.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, chairman of the USCCB Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, reviewed ongoing efforts to defend the truth of marriage as always and everywhere between one man and one woman only. He reminded the bishops at their fall meeting of the recurrent cases of legal attack against individuals of faith who choose not to provide marriage-related services to same-sex couples.
These attacks are but one facet of a broad societal attack on our religious freedom and therefore on the Lordship of Christ the King.
Efforts to secure and defend our religious liberty are essential because we cannot “be” Catholic without at the same time “doing” Catholic.
Also during this month of November, as we pray for the holy souls, the four last things surface in connection with the Lord as judge, another facet of His Kingship. Some of our parents balk at the mention of the word “Hell” and claim in defense of their reaction that they fear such discussion will cause people to leave the Church.
Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell are typically taught together to give context. Catholic faith must be given in its totality because it cannot be lived except as an integral whole, all of its parts fitting together into a beautiful mosaic to guide our lives. Our children cannot follow a partial presentation of the faith, some parts being withheld out of a misplaced fear that they might be frightened out of loving Jesus.
Loving the Lord is precisely the answer to the unwelcome prospect of losing our salvation. Discussion of the four last things is an opportunity for parents to say that we plan on going to Heaven and for that reason we always plan first where and when we will go to Mass each Sunday, along with following all of the Ten Commandments.
In addition to reminding our parents that they are the first teachers of their children in the faith and therefore must discuss the faith in an integral way in the home, we can also instruct them that if people leave the Church because of the unapologetic and full teaching of doctrine in faith and morals, it is in fact Christ that they are leaving. The Church serves the lordship of Jesus Christ her King precisely by teaching His saving truth in His divine love.
Pray for our priests and religious men and women of parish staffs who assist our bishops by teaching our faith to families and who lovingly support the bishops’ vocation in many ways.
Thank you for reading.
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(Follow Father on Facebook at Reverendo Padre-Kevin Michael Cusick and on Twitter @MCITLFrAphorism. Father blogs occasionally at mcitl.blogspot.com and APriestLife.blogspot.com. You can email him at mcitl.blogspot.com@gmail.com.)
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