Christ the King - Homily 1

Homily 1 - 2007

When I was a student in College in Ballarat in the late 40s, the Feast of Christ the King was a big deal. There used to be a procession around St Pat’s College oval, attended by students from the local schools, and parishioners not just from Ballarat parishes but also from surrounding areas; and it all climaxed with a special address and benediction given by Bishop O’Collins.

The tradition was still going strongly in the 60s when I came back to Ballarat as a young priest. At that time Vatican II was happening, the lay apostolate was flourishing; and we came to realise that celebrating Christ as King called for more than personal conversion. It called for engagement with our world. Christ’s Kingship was a call for all to make of our world a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace – as the Preface of today’s Mass will soon remind us. The words echo those used by Pope John XXIII in his encyclical letter, written in 1963, on “Peace in the World”.

Looking back on those years, I remember feeling then a great sense of hope. In the mid-60s, we put on, here in Ballarat, a series of annual Christian Social Weeks. The theme of the first one was “A New Age of the Human Person”. Many of us really did hope for a new age, a springtime, in the Church, that would usher in a better world – a world of truth and life, a world of justice, love and peace.

Things haven’t turned out as we dreamed. From the late-60s on, the Baby Boomers grew into adulthood. Their steadily-growing numbers eventually overwhelmed the influenceof the somewhat inflexible Catholic sub-culture in which many of us grew up. With notable exceptions, the new generation did not warm to authority figures, institutions or to open-ended commitments. [By the 70s, the pool of key leaders for the formative lay apostolate movements had dried up, almost over-night.]

Immersed in the changing culture ourselves, we did not realise what was happening. We were confused, and did not know how to respond. [As we have grown into and beyond middle age, we have felt the temptation to lose our commitment to engage with the world to which we belong and for which we are responsible, and to direct our energies instead to keeping the Church afloat.]

The wonderful thing is that we are all still here. In some ways we’re graduates of the “School of Hard Knocks”. Those of us with a reasonable number of years under our belt have known our share of hurts. The greater were our hopes and aspirations, our dreams and expectations, the greater have been our disappointments and pain.

But that is not the whole story. If we are here today celebrating Christ the King, it is because most of us have grown wiser across the years. We have come to understand better the One whose kingship we proclaim.

Today’s Gospel illustrates the point. Luke mentioned, almost as an aside, Above him there was an inscription: This is the king of the Jews. Above him … that tortured, dehumanisedindividual, being executed as a political criminal – jeered atby his religious and political masters, mocked by the military, the enforcers of law and order, and abused by one of the terrorists crucified beside him..

We know why he was crucified – precisely because he had dreamt of, hoped for, and poured out his energies to bring about a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.

That’s part of the answer. The other part of the reason why he was there was because he chose not to run away, not to renege on his message of love, justice and peace, not to lose his nerve, not even to lose hope or to surrender his dream. He hoped against hope. He trusted God. His integrity in the face of unthinkable suffering reveals his mysterious depths, his sheer perfection and his profound attractiveness - more clearly than could success or triumph, or whatever.

As I see you here today, celebrating Christ the King, I find myself wonderfully nourished [not just] by the sheer goodness of so many of you [but especially by your option for integrity, by your journey into wisdom, your trust in God and your hope in people.] Today’s Gospel spells out clearly that what God calls us to and empowers us for is not to succeed but to be authentic, to seek the truth, and especially to love, with all that that means: connecting, rejoicing in difference, forgiving, hoping.

When we are that, our world is a better place and closer to the Kingdom of God. Without that, social structures are empty. We are not resigned to what has been. We are used to, and practised in, hoping … We have learnt to leave the practical shape of outcomes in the hands of our ever-surprising God.

Now, as we move into Eucharist, we surrender ourselves once more to the Spirit of God who leads us… As we yield again to the mystery that unfolded there on the cross, the Spirit draws us closer to the heart of Jesus… With and in him, we are conformed, ever more deeply, to the mystery we call God.