Christ the King and the Virtue of Obedience

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I have two things I want to share with you today. The first has to do with the recent election, the second has to do with the second occurrence of the feast of Christ the King this year, that is, in the novus ordo calendar.

The Election

Shortly after the election, a colleague told me that between her classes she streamed Mrs. Clinton’s concession speech into her classroom for students who wanted to see it. The students were almost all young women who had voted for Mrs. Clinton – many of them buying pant suits for the occasion. She told me that, as they watched the speech, they sobbed. Mrs. Clinton was a symbol for them of breaking the final glass ceiling in the women’s rights movement.

As I thought about it I was struck by their ability, on the one hand, to dismiss the horrors of abortion, as, on the other hand, they attach abortion to the mantel of womanly power. Yet, I wonder if I asked them what they thought of soldiers in the Middle East using children as human shields in battle whether or not they would be able to separate the goals of the soldiers from their use of innocent children to accomplish those goals. I suspect they would not, and that they would find this practice reprehensible.

The devil has done a commendable job of entwining evil with noble goals – and thereby using the noble goals to promote evil. He has done an even more admirable job of goading young women such as these to think they are fighting for noble goals, while, in truth, they are being used as pawns in a much more demonic battle – one that is not really about gender equality, but about the dissolution of gender altogether and ultimately about the destruction of the family as it has been defined since the creation of man and woman – the social unit that is essential to God’s plan for the human race.

We cannot assume that, because the demonic machine was unexpectedly slowed down in this last election, it is gone. And we certainly cannot assume that Mr. Trump and the republicans will now take care of everything.

We have been given a reprieve and an opportunity to gather some strength for the battles that lie ahead. Thanks be to God for that. And just as it was Catholics who determined the outcome of this recent election, it must be we Catholics who take the lead in these battles. We have to help young women like these and many, many others to disentangle truth from lies, noble goals from evil means. And every one of us can help, certainly by our prayers and our sacrifices. (Remember the Blessed Mother’s words to the children at Fatima – to pray and sacrifice for the end of the war. Indeed, their prayers and sacrifices help to bring about the end of that great war.) She is our greatest advocate, and she will not turn a deaf ear to our cries.

We can also be proactive in our lives. We hear often today that “Christ is present in each of us" (when, of course, we are in the state of grace). Each of us needs to live in a way that those we meet see Him in us. We should be what you might call “Jesus magnets,” drawing people to Christ and away from evil - not because of what we are against, but through the beauty, through the attractiveness of our lives.

Let’s not forget – everyone of us has a role in this battle that has hardly begun; everyone of us can and must make a difference.

The Kingship of Christ

I also want to talk to you a little bit about the Kingship of Christ, which is directly related to how we will fight the spiritual battles in front of us.

A few weeks ago we looked at the feast of Christ the King (in the traditional calendar) in light of what it tells us about the responsibilities of our elected officials. Today, perhaps we should take the opportunity to look at this feast in light of what it tells us about our own responsibilities. Just as we must hold our elected officials responsible to observe what Jefferson called “ the laws of nature and of nature’s God,” whom we know to be Jesus Christ, we also must hold ourselves accountable to observe those same laws...

...which ultimately brings us to a discussion of the virtue of obedience. Let me give you three quick scenarios:

1. A man enters a monastery to become a monk. From the moment he crosses the threshold of that monastery, he strips himself of his own will and subjects it to that of the abbot. What he eats, prays, does for his labor, when he eats, sleeps, prays, works, studies and has leisure are all at the discretion of the abbot. And he does so willingly and cheerfully.

2. St. Paul tells us, in a not-so-popular verse today: “Wives, be submissive to your husbands.” (We’ll return to this in a moment.)

3. A man takes a job in a corporation. He disagrees with his supervisor on just about every aspect of the business, from day-to-day management matters to strategies for the long-range success of the company. Yet he complies with his supervisor’s wishes, cheerfully and willingly.

All of these stories are about obedience - the moral virtue that inclines us to subject our wills to the will of another who has rightful authority over us. It is the virtue that teaches us to be humble; that helps us to shed our egos and our pride.

But why? Why are these things important? What difference does it make if we are not humble, if we have huge egos – other than the fact that it makes us irritating? These things are important because in subjecting ourselves to another, we learn how to subject ourselves to God. And why is that important? The easy answer is that He is our King and our Creator, and as such He is owed all obeisance. But the full answer encompasses much more than that.

If we go back to the unpopular verse from St. Paul, the full verse is, “Wives be submissive to your husbands as unto the Lord,” (Eph 5:22) that is, "let your submission to your husband teach you how to submit yourself to the Lord." Then, three lines later, the Apostle says, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it,” (Eph 5:25) that is, treat your wives as God would treat those who submit themselves to him.

We could say the same thing about the abbot and the monk or about the supervisor and the employee. The monk, through his submission to the abbot, learns how to submit himself to God. The abbot has the responsibility to treat the monk as God would treat that monk. The employee, through his submission to his supervisor, learns how to submit himself to God. The supervisor has the responsibility to treat the employee as God would treat that employee.

It is in this model of complete submission of self, on the one hand, and the return of untold blessings, on the other, that God shows how everything is supposed to work, and also why it is so important for us to submit our wills to Him absolutely and completely.

It is ONLY when we submit ourselves totally to the will of God that we permit Him to shower upon us the grace and the everlasting happiness that He created us to enjoy. God desires nothing more than to give us everything, but because He gave us free wills, He will not force Himself on us. We must give ourselves completely to Him first. He has given us the power to hold Him off or to allow Him to come to us.

Even Christ, Who was like us in every way but sin, had to enter the Garden of Gethsemane and say, in agony, “Father, not My will, but Thine be done.” (Luke 22:42) It was then that His Father could accompany Him through His passion and death, and give to Him the glory that was His before the world began. (John 17:5)

It is in our practice of obedience to rightful authority that we learn to obey God, and it is in our obedience to God that we permit Him to shower His love upon us.

I would like to share with you part of a letter from a mother to her daughter that exemplifies this way of being with God very beautifully and most tenderly. It is a letter from Marie de Medici, the Queen of France (wife of Henry IV) to her daughter Henrietta Maria. It was written in 1625. Henrietta Maria had just married Charles I of England, and she was about to depart from France to become his queen.

My dearest daughter:

You have no other father on earth but God, Who will be a father to you for ever, as He is eternal. It is to Him you owe your being and your life; it is He who made you the daughter of a great king, He Who now puts a crown upon your head, and establishes you in England, where you are to believe it is His will that you should serve Him, and attend to your own salvation.

Reflect, my child, every hour of your life, that He is your God, that He hath created you for Himself, and hath placed you on earth to prepare you for heaven.

After God, and the religion which, in order to employ us in his service and to effect our salvation, He hath established in the world, your first duty is to the King, to whom God hath united you by the sacrament of marriage….

Observe a respectable familiarity with him, considering him as your head. Be patient and submissive to his will, placing your contentment, not in satisfying yourself, but in pleasing him; and if at the same time you please God, He will bless you both on earth and in heaven.

Usurp no authority; and the more the King in his goodness is inclined to give you, do you exercise the less. Indeed, your business is to love and honour him, and not to govern…. Let your conduct show him, that after God your whole desire is to obey him.

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This is the week before Advent begins. Advent is that time of the year when we prepare for the great feast of Christmas, the feast on which the hope of ages was realized, that the promise of salvation would finally be fulfilled.

Yet how was this promise fulfilled? It was fulfilled through our Lord and King humbling Himself to take on human flesh, human nature, and further humbling Himself to endure a torturous death on the Cross. “He was obedient, obedient even unto death, a death on the Cross.” (Phil 2:8)

This week offers a particular opportunity to contemplate the virtue of obedience, and to use this contemplation as the starting point for deciding just how we will prepare for Christmas. What in my life prevents me from stripping myself of my pride, my ego – from being obedient to my King – which, in turn, prevents my King from showering His blessings upon me?

What must each of us cast off so that at our judgment, every one of us may kneel before our king and hear Him say, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.”

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Ps. Please keep the Collegium in your prayers. Consider adding this prayer to your daily prayers:

Bless the Lord, All you His Angels, You who are mighty in strength and do His will. Intercede for me at the throne of God, and by your unceasing watchfulness protect me in every danger of soul and body. Obtain for me the grace of final perseverance, so that after this life I may be admitted to your glorious company and may sing with you the praises of God for all eternity.

O all you holy Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones; Dominions, Virtues and Powers; Principalities, Angels and Archangels; and especially you, my dear Guardian Angel, intercede for me and obtain for me the special favor of the success of the Collegium.

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