Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 2:06am

King Jesus

At the ending of the liturgical year our thoughts turn to the End Times.  The feast of Christ the King was proclaimed by Pope Pius XI in 1925 in response to the growth both of nationalism and secularism.  Pope Paul VI moved it to the last Sunday in Ordinary Time, the better to remind all of mankind that the time will come when Christ will return and reign as King forever.

Christ Pantocrator is one of the more popular images by which Christians pictured, after the edict of Milan, Christ, the Lord of all.  This representation ties in nicely with the traditional American cry of “We have no King but Jesus!” which became popular during the American Revolution.  At the battle of Lexington the phrase “We recognize no Sovereign but God and no King but Jesus!”, was flung back at Major Pitcairn after he had ordered the militia to disperse.    Christ the King and We have no King but Jesus remind Christians that the nations of the world and the manner in which they are ruled, and mis-ruled, while very important to us during our mortal lives, are of little importance in the next.   They also instruct us that the State can never be an ultimate end in itself, can never override the first allegiance of Christians and that the rulers of the Earth will be judged as we all will be.  Although my Irish Catholic ancestors will shudder, and my Protestant Irish and Scot ancestors may smile, there is much truth in the inscription supposedly written on the sarcophagus, destroyed or lost after the Restoration, of that “bold, bad man”, Oliver Cromwell, “Christ, not Man, is King.”

Seventy years ago the ashes of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan attested to the great mistake of making worldly power the excuse for any crime.  How different it seemed in 1941 when both Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan seemed well on their way to global domination. In that year Father Martin B. Hellriegel, a German-American pastor in Saint Louis, wrote the magnificent hymn To Jesus Christ Our Sovereign King as a direct response to the pretensions of the Third Reich and to remind people who actually reigns eternally:

To Jesus Christ, our Sov’reign King,

Who is the world’s salvation,

All praise and homage do we bring,

And thanks and adoration.

Refrain: Christ Jesus Victor, Christ Jesus Ruler!

Christ Jesus, Lord and Redeemer!

2. Thy reign extend, O King benign,

To ev’ry land and nation,

For in Thy kingdom, Lord divine,

Alone we find salvation.

(Refrain)

3. To Thee and to Thy Church, great King,

We pledge our hearts’ oblation,

Until before Thy throne we sing,

In endless jubilation.

Nations Rise and Fall.  Christ remains and rules in our hearts and for eternity.

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Philip
Philip
Sunday, November 22, AD 2015 4:42am

Amen.

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Sunday, November 22, AD 2015 6:04am

Traditional Catholics, of which I consider myself as I attend the Tridentine Mass and I am raising my sons to go to the same Mass, would well remember that the widely held belief among some Trads that the only valid government is one run by a Catholic monarch is silly.
There is only one King, and He dwells not in this world.

For us Trads, the solemnity of Christ the King was at the end of October. We are in the Last Sunday after Pentecost (which sounds so much better than…Ordinary Time).

As of next Saturday evening, we will enter into Advent. Purple vestments will be worn by the priests celebrating Mass. Advent is a time of penitence as well as preparation for Christmas for us Catholics – a mini-Lent. Going against American Shopping Season (acronym A.S.S.) with its bland “seasonal” music and exortations to shop, shop, shop is never easy, but well worth the effort.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Monday, November 23, AD 2015 3:12am

Very good! Let us pray that our dear Pope gets the message.

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