Epistle taken from the letter of St. Paul the Apostle to the Colossians
Col 1:12-20.
Brethren: We give thanks to God the Father Who has made us worthy to share the lot of the saints in light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness, and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, in Whom we have our redemption through His blood, the remission of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For in Him were created all things in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominations, or Principalities, or Powers. All things have been created through and unto Him, and He is before all creatures, and in Him all things hold together. Again, He is the head of the body, the Church; He, Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the first place. For it has pleased God the Father that in Him all fullness should dwell and that through Him He should reconcile to Himself all things, whether on the earth or in the heavens, making peace through the blood of His Cross, in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Continuation ✠ of the Holy Gospel according to St. John
John 18:33-37
At that time, Pilate said to Jesus, Are You the King of the Jews? Jesus answered, Do you say this of yourself, or have others told you of Me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Your own people and the chief priests have delivered You to me. What have You done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My followers would certainly have fought that I might not be delivered to the Hebrews. But, as it is, My kingdom is not from here. Pilate therefore said to Him, You are then a King? Jesus answered, You say it: I am a King. This is why I was born, and why I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.
Homily by Fr. Carlos Zepeda
My dear friends, today we celebrate the feast day of Christ, the King.
And If you allow me, I would like to use an Image from a non-religious source.
In this image, there is a wizard, a bad, evil wizard on top of a tower and he’s speaking to an army of monsters… devils we could say. And he says to them: “there will be no dawn for men” and he sends them to war.
On the other side, there’s a good king and the good king prepares with the few that follow him to fight. And as this king right before war is standing before his people, you see light which comes from behind him, filling his whole figure. And he says to his soldiers: “Do you trust me?” He says to those close to him: “Do you trust your king?” And the soldiers answer to him: “My Lord, Your men will follow you to whatever end”.
This scene, (as much as I don’t like to bring a profane source, to this sacred place), serves me well as an image. As a picture of what is the truth of our situation.
We are standing in the middle of the battlefield and there is no room for neutrality. Because one enemy is going to come and burn down your houses and destroy you and kill you and destroy your family. And our King, on the other hand, will not accept indifference.
You’re either for or against him. Because, when there is war in your country, indifference means siding with the enemy.
What is the speech that the enemy gives? The devil says I wish to conquer all men. He summons millions of devils, and he sends them out into the world; and he says to them: “we will take over all the institutions in the world. We will take the governments, we will take the schools, we will take the media, we will take the entertainment, and we will take the arts.
We will destroy the family. We will destroy womanhood. We will destroy manhood. We will bring the children against their parents and the parents against their children.
We will destroy man’s faculties: the will, the understanding, and the memory. We will numb them, we will stupefy them by filling their minds with nonsense, and immorality, and filth.
My will is the destruction of all human life. My will is the destruction of all men, to bring them here to damnation, to destroy in them the image of God, and torture them forever and have them share with me my failure, my horror, my destruction, my condemnation.”
Christ on the other side tells us: “I will, without doubt and without hesitation, conquer and have dominion over all Earth, and the creation of my Father, Order and Goodness and Justice will be established and my enemies shall all be judged and punished in the everlasting fire.
But I wish to do this with the aid of men. I wish to share my glory, my struggles, my fighting, and my war. I wish to share it with men, that they may join me in glory and in the reward.
And therefore I wish to go unto the earth, and to send those who will follow me, that they may keep the commandments of my Father, and bring others to keep them, and to remain in my Truth.
I wish to clean their souls from sin and to bring them out of their miseries and of the lies where they lie trapped. I wish to enlighten their minds with the truth.
I wish to bring them out of the falsehood where the devil has kept their deceived intellects, I wish to bring their wills to real good, and to strengthen their souls by the practice of virtue, of mortification, of penance.
I wish to reign in their houses by bringing into them good morals, good doctrine, and good examples. I wish to expel from their houses the influence and the deception, and lies from Satan. I wish that they talk to me and they communicate with me every day through prayer. I wish to give them and fill them with the wealth of my sanctity through my sacraments. I wish to bring them to poverty of spirit, to humility, to obedience, to charity, and in this way share with them my Divinity.
I wish to bring man to his utmost perfection as man, and to bring woman to the great perfection of her womanhood, as I planned when I created them both. I wish to give them as much as I can that they can create and foster the family. This family, the image of the blessedness, joy and love from heaven, and hold their family as a stronghold for them.
And above all these things I wish to uphold my Church, my Mystical Body. The one gift I have given to mankind, in which men and women will serve me with perfection, where they will give themselves entirely to God; and their salvation will be secured if they persevere in its teachings and commandments. Where men will be taught the true doctrine, where men will be able to go always, in order to receive the truth and salvation.
And for this purpose, I summon you all. I have given myself entirely to you, and I ask you now that you give yourself entirely to me. I have promised, for my own glory, that this war shall be won, and the Victory and Glory be of My Father, and of all who shared the battle with me. Of you, I command only this: that you have nothing to do with my enemy.”
These are the words of Christ.
We can no longer operate under the delusion that we are able to remain indifferent.
It is something that can be frustrating sometimes to see Christians eager to keep peace when their enemy is bent on war. To see Catholics wishing to remain idle and in comfort, when their enemy is moving to destroy them. To see parents giving away their children to be raised by their enemy. To see Christians making the priority of their life to live happily, well, fat and comfortable, when the enemy does not rest, to bring them to eternal damnation.
There is no room for indifference. We are either with Christ or against Christ. He will come to judge and He will ask for an account to each and every one of us. He will ask me for an account.
He will ask, to each one of us:
“What did you do to foster my kingdom? Did you fight for me or against me? Did you listen to me or to my enemy more? Who did you surrender your children to? How long did your children listen to my enemy? How long did they listen to me? How often did you speak to them of me? Now I come and I take account and I make my judgment.
Now tell me, where are the talents that I gave you? How did you fight for my kingdom? Did you pray? Did you do penance? Did you win and fight in the schools, in the families, in politics, in writing, in charity? Did you seek everywhere to establish my kingdom or did you sit back and watched as others fought alone and you did not help them?
Is it not treason, if you watch how my enemies slaughtered my children and you did nothing to prevent it? I hold you accountable today.”
That Day, the day of rendering an account will come. My friends, the best thing to do for us is to follow our good king. Look at the beautiful things that he offers to us, to make us perfect. To make us good. He does not offer to us that we will be perfect today, but to make us perfect and better as we follow Him. He offers to us to fulfill all our aspirations in heaven, to give us all the things that we can receive!
Let’s follow this king.
There is only one way to find peace and happiness, There is only one kingdom where there will be justice, truth, peace, happiness and life without sorrow. There is only one kingdom that will not end: the kingdom of Christ. The kingdom of God.
In the kingdom of Christ, we need to act. We don’t come here to hear. If you wish to listen to talks, there are a lot of Protestant churches where all they do is hear…that’s literally all they do. The difference between Protestants and Catholics is that we do.
In the kingdom of Christ, we act, we keep his commandments. It is not just our understanding that we’re giving to our King, but also our will. So as you’re listening to this today think: In what things have I been lacking, in serving our King? And say to yourself, I will serve more. I will act more. I will no longer stay idle while we’re at war.
My goal as a Catholic as a Christian is not to sit idle is not to be comfortable. The enemy is coming. The enemy is burning my house, destroying my country. I cannot sit idle anymore. I will fight! I will fight by prayer, by receiving the sacraments, by raising my children as Catholics, by taking away from my house whatever instruments the enemy has in there to corrupt my children, or my family.
I will change my life today, but because I know that I will not be able to change in one day, I will write it down and I will not forget, I will see it every day where I wrote it down in my room, in my house, in my car. I’m supposed to change. I’m supposed to fight for this kingdom, I wish to serve Our Lord Jesus Christ, so that when He asks me, “am I your King?” I can say: “Yes! You are my King! You are my King. I serve you, I am here to serve you.”
This is the true kingship of Christ, the one that begins in our minds. It goes to our hearts into our wills. And when we serve him thus, this kingdom extends also to our family and to our society. On this, the day where we celebrate the kingship of Christ, let’s begin serving him anew, begin fresh from the start to truly serve Christ to truly change our lives so that he reigns in our hearts in our families and in our societies, in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Ghost, amen.
