Homily: Christ the King – Cycle A
“Long live Christ the King!” This was the rally cry of the Cristero
rebellion, which fought to restore religious freedom to Mexico in the
1920s. After the revolution of 1910, Mexico
enacted a constitution that placed strict limitations on the Church and its
clergy. At first, these limitations were
not strongly enforced. Under Mexican
President Plutarco Elias Calles, however, a strict enforcement of these
limitations was put in place, often using violence as the means for
enforcement.
In response the Bishops of Mexico suspended all public
worship, in the hope that it would rouse the hearts of the Mexican people to
respond to the unjust actions of their federal government. This, coupled with the increasing violence
against Catholics, led to the uprising that became known as La Cristiada. This rebellion fought against the government
forces in order to protect the faithful from their violence and to restore
justice by restoring freedom of religion to their country.
Blessed Miguel Agustin Pro was a young Jesuit priest who
was killed during this persecution of the Church under President Calles. In 1911, when Miguel was 20 years old, he was
expelled from Mexico because he had entered the Jesuit novitiate. He completed his formation and was ordained a
priest in 1925. He had a severe stomach
ailment, however, and, after several operations were unsuccessful in resolving
it, his superiors allowed him to return to his home land, in spite of the
persecutions.
By that time, the churches were closed and priests were in
hiding. Thus, Father Pro spent the rest of his life in a secret ministry to the
sturdy Mexican Catholics. In addition to fulfilling their spiritual needs, he
also carried out works of mercy by assisting the poor of Mexico City with their
temporal needs. He adopted many disguises to carry out his secret ministry. In
all that he did, he remained filled with the joy of serving Christ and obedient
to his superiors.
In 1927, Father Pro was falsely accused of having
participated in a bombing attempt on the President-elect and became a wanted
man. He was betrayed to the police and
sentenced to death without the benefit of any legal process. On the day of his death, November 23, 1927,
Father Pro forgave his executioners, prayed, bravely refused the blindfold, and
died with arms outstretched proclaiming "Long Live Christ the King!",
in Spanish, Viva Cristo Rey!
Persecutions always have the effect of polarizing
people. Violent persecutions will often
reveal the depth of a person’s faith, because they force a person to choose a
side. Thus, no one stands on the
sidelines. This is true of the
persecution in Mexico during the last century and for every other religious
persecution that has happened throughout history.
There are other, more subtle persecutions, however, that
don’t polarize people so absolutely.
These, in a way, are just as sinister, because instead of trying to kill
the believer with one thrust of the sword, this type of persecution slowly
bleeds a person to death by making thousands of little cuts. No single one is enough to force the person
to take a stand and so he or she is forced into submission often without
realizing that it was happening.
This type of persecution doesn’t affect the person of
conviction, however. At the first little
cut, these men and women immediately respond.
The person that this type of persecution affects the most, rather, is
the lukewarm person: that is, the person who is not deeply convicted by his or
her beliefs and so is either: frozen by fear of choosing the wrong side, or
unmoved because of apathy (which, in fact, is a tacit approval of the
persecutors). It is this lukewarm group
that Jesus is targeting with his parable today.
The image that Jesus gives us is an apocalyptic one: It is
the end of time and Jesus has come to sit on his throne so as to judge, that
is, to polarize, all peoples. He
separates them into two groups: one group on his right, the other on his
left. The group on his right is composed
of those who lived what they proclaimed: that is, that Christ is King and that
to serve him is to serve the needs of his people. Notice, however, that the group on the left isn’t
made up of persecutors. Rather it is
made of the lukewarm: those who, perhaps, proclaimed Christ as King, but who
did not live what they proclaimed, choosing rather to enjoy their comfortable
lives instead of serving the needs of their King’s people.
Blessed Miguel Pro lived as if what he said was true. He proclaimed Christ as King and gave his
life in service to his King: first by becoming a priest, then by serving the
needs of his King’s people by serving the needs of the poor, and finally by
giving up his life in resistance to the forces that were trying to convince the
people that Christ wasn’t King. To him,
and to men and women like him, Jesus gives the name “sheep”.
How many of us, however, live like the group on Jesus’
left: calling ourselves “Catholic Christians”, but then resisting the service
that demonstrates our convictions; preferring instead our comfortable
lives? If we have come here today to
proclaim that Jesus Christ is Our Lord and King of the Universe, but then return
home and live as if that doesn’t demand certain things from us—specifically,
service to the needs of our King’s people—then Jesus has a name for us, too:
“goats”.
As we know from elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus has no love
for hypocrites. Notice, he almost never
condemns persecutors and public sinners; rather, he condemns the hypocrites:
that is, those who profess faith in God, but then fail to live in accord with
that faith. Therefore, my brothers and
sisters, we must be sincere. If we call
Christ King of the Universe, then we must live that conviction: by proclaiming
his name, in spite of whatever hardships that may cause us, and by living
detached from material things in service to those who suffer because they lack
them. If we do, Our King will welcome us
to eternal life. If we don’t, he will
leave us to suffer eternal punishment.
My brothers and sisters, the blood of Blessed Miguel
Agustin Pro and thousands of others was shed to proclaim the truth that Jesus
Christ is King of the Universe. If our
hearts are convinced of the same, let us live as they lived, so that their
blood may not have been shed in vain and so as to hasten the coming of our King
and the blessed life that he has promised us.
Therefore, let us make our own the cry of the Mexican martyrs and
proclaim by our words and our actions, Viva Cristo Rey! Long live Christ the King!
Given at All Saints Parish:
Logansport, IN – November 22nd & 23rd, 2014
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