The Word Of Peace
Homiletic Reflections On Peacemaking

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti

Feast of Christ the King

Christ the King 2004

When statesmen or leaders forsake their own conscience for the sake of their public duties…they lead their country by a short route to chaos.

These are the words of Sir Thomas More from the stage play, "A Man for all Seasons. It is a play about the struggle for integrity in being a leader. A real leader leads; is in front of the line of march. A real leader is not interested in what may be popular, but what is right! A real leader is not interested in being loved, but in being just. For the Christian, the real leader doesn't give a fig for the good opinion of others but only to be faithful to the way of Jesus Christ-the way of justice and the way of peace. The great modern mystic, monk and poet Fr. Thomas Merton put it this way:

Christ our Lord and King did not come to bring peace to the world as a kind of spiritual tranquilizer. He brought to his disciples a vocation and a task-to struggle in the world of violence to establish his peace not only in their own hearts but in society itself.

We are told in Colossians that Jesus is the standard by which all things, all lives and all powers and institutions will be judged. To the extent that lives and structures have helped to create a more humane and just world they will be judged to be successful. To the extent that lives and structures have created gross injustice through the sins of commission of omission they will be judged destructive and sinful. We know that without justice there can be no peace. And we are not merely talking about the individual virtue of justice in our dealings one on one with people. We are speaking to the way society is organized! Who wins and who loses. Who has the power and who does not? How can we create a society where want and injustice are no more?

Today we celebrate the feast day of Christ the King. In America it is difficult to sometimes understand how people saw kings in the ancient world. We have not experienced one person that can command almost absolute power in a nation like the kings of old. So often these kings had others serving them as slaves. But our King serves us and most especially the "least of these" unto death. The kings of old might be compared with the dictators of the 20th century. It was as a challenge to the emerging "Age of the Dictators" that Pope Pius XI declared Christ the King feast day December 11, 1925. By that year Mussolini was in power in Italy, Josef Stalin would ascend to the top spot in the Soviet Union by 1929, and Adolf Hitler would assume power in Germany in 1933. History records that this period in history would lead to the Second World War, the Holocaust and terrors of the nuclear age.

But with Jesus as our King things are to be different. In the reign of our Lord there is no desire for worldly conquest through the use of force and violence. There is only the persuasive and alluring power of self-sacrificing love revealed in its fullness on the cross of Christ. Jesus occupies no countries with troops but desires to occupy the depths of our hearts and souls manifested in making God's loving and gracious presence evident in all dimensions of life. This is a King that came to serve and calls upon the followers to do the same. This is challenging for it leads inexorably to the cross. The cross is the place where we have to lay our cards on the table and declare whom we serve and how we will serve.

This weekend is the collection for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. This collection is not only about charity, a handout, it is also about empowering people to co-create with God and others a productive life and community. We know that charity is essential but, if it is not followed up with an active working for justice it can reinforce the evil situation if the causes of need are not addressed and changed. Charity is like a pill that masks pain. Justice addresses the cause of the illness and cures the source of the pain. Should a people ignore the demands of justice conflict can erupt into social violence of all kinds. The former slave and abolitionists Frederick Douglas once remarked:

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither person nor property will be safe.

Our King rules with divine justice that demands that the poor and powerless be given the opportunity to live in human dignity. Our King calls the followers to live that same sacrificial love that he lived unto the cross and in the process discover what it truly means to live. Our King reveals the depth of God's love for all human beings and calls us to imitate this love in a life of generosity that gives to the needy and helps to shape society to end all need.

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.
Uploaded November 19, 2004