Christ our King

Robert Hugh Benson was the son of the Archbishop of Canterbury who converted to the Catholic faith and became a priest. He also was a prolific writer of fiction. In Father Benson’s novel, “The Lord of the World,” a fictional pope is facing a world turned against its Christian heritage and all Christian values. The novel was written in 1895 but was set 100 years in the future in a stormy dystopian England of 1995. In the story, the world has moved against the papacy and all Christian forms of expression, severely limiting everyone’s right to believe and practice their faith. 

In response, the pope gives all Church property in Italy to the state in exchange for a small territory around the Vatican that becomes part of the papal household. In this way he can guarantee a measure of independence from the obtrusive government and create some breathing room for his initiatives to renew the Church. 

Along with having his own territory, he asks every Catholic noble family in the world to move to Rome to live their faith in solidarity with him and his clergy. In the story, the pope becomes king with his nobility at his side. 

With his sovereignty in place, the faithful there have a pathway forward. They are knit together by the royal blood running through their veins. They also are one in their identity and service to their sovereign. Because they are together, they can show the whole world what it is to be faithful, with the pope as their head and their royal identity flowing from him. Read the novel and find the stunning conclusion. You’ll be intrigued by it!

Though quite foreign to 21st century American sensibilities, the notion of a Catholic nobility was still active in the imaginations of many Europeans in 1895. For hundreds of years Catholics in Europe and elsewhere were schooled to imagine there should be a class of people dedicated to serve their Catholic sovereign and express their faithfulness through him. 

This coherence of identity and loyalty seemed a tantalizing possibility and a promising way to renew the troubled Church. In the mind of the novelist, this fictional call to nobility resonated in his readers’ imagination. 

What would be more inviting than an entire city fully integrating Catholic belief and practice in every way? For Father Benson’s readers, it made sense that such energy might still be present in the cinders of European faith.

This hunger for integrity is still alive among us as we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King. This liturgical feast was established by Pius XI in 1925, not so long after Father Benson wrote his novel. 

Virtually every noble family had already disappeared from public life by then. But despite the absence of royalty, Pope Pius wanted to direct the attention of all believers to the kingly supremacy of Christ in all aspects of life. The pope wanted everyone to know that Jesus is the true sovereign.
 
Whether we bow to a king or not, we celebrate Christ as the summit of belief and the purpose of all we do in both the sacred and the secular realms. 

Pope Pius proclaimed that there is no separate space, no carving off a portion of life, in which the promise of Christ is absent. We celebrate Christ, the king of all things, and we his people strive to serve Him in all things. We seek that kind of integrity in our lives and our service to Christ our King.

In the secularized and complicated world in which we live, we are expected to do the opposite. Secular society expects us to structure our lives so that religion becomes an isolated compartment. Our faith is supposed to occupy this private space and it is expressly forbidden in all other places. No hint of belief is to be found in the rest of life, certainly not in public life. 

In the controversies of our day, faith is ruled out of bounds. In fact, we believers are presumed to belong on the sidelines; we are supposed to remain silent concerning the teachings of Christ because religious belief is not to influence anything else. 

The Feast of Christ the King is the reminder that we Catholics refuse to allow the world to be taken from us. Our faithful practice calls us to submit the entire content of our lives to the gift of Christ’s truth and love. Just as the blood of nobility runs through every part of an aristocrat’s life, our faithfulness to Jesus is to flow through our lives.

There is no place where the promise of Jesus’ mercy and the temperance of God’s justice is not to be present. We are promised the gift of new life to extend this gift into every dimension of our lives and every corner of our world. Christ the King is king over everything. 

In November 1927, in Mexico City, Father Augustine Miguel Pro was executed because he embraced the vision of the pope’s proclamation of Christ as King of all. Father Pro heroically continued to practice his Catholic faith and carry on his priestly ministry even after the government outlawed the practice of religion.

Because of his resistance, he was arrested and convicted of opposing the government decrees. He was condemned to death. As the soldiers leveled their rifles and awaited the command to fire, he shouted out: “Long live Christ the King.” He died with the sentiment of the pope and the conviction of the Gospel on his lips. 

His life was a demonstration that there should be no place where the power of the Gospel does not reach. From the desire of a nation to practice its faith on its knees, to the last breath of a condemned man at his execution, Christ is 

Blessed Miguel Pro’s death was not fiction and the drama that produced it was not the plot of a novel. The drama continues in our day. We can expect resistance and even persecution for living our faith with integrity. Our invitation is to allow Christ to reign over every dimension of life. 

Christ is to be King in our lives. Viva Cristo Rey!