Last Sunday in Ordinary Time--Christ the King

Our Lord, Christ the King Church, Cincinnati, Ohio

Why a feast for Christ the King? Because only in the Kingdom of God, with Christ as King, will we find the peace we are looking for. Pope Pius XI instituted this feast in 1925. The world had just gone through World War I. He wrote in the encyclical Quas primas: “Men must look for the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ…” (1). “That these blessings may be abundant and lasting in Christian society, it is necessary that the kingship of our Savior should be as widely as possible recognized and understood, and to the end nothing would serve better than the institution of a special feast in honor of the Kingship of Christ” (21).

Jesus said: “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be” (Mt 6:21). “If to Christ our Lord is given all power in heaven and on earth; if all men, purchased by his precious blood, are by a new right subjected to his dominion; if this power embraces all men, it must be clear that not one of our faculties is exempt from his empire. He must reign in our minds…. He must reign in our wills…. He must reign in our hearts…. He must reign in our bodies and in our members…. If all these truths are presented to the faithful for their consideration, they will prove a powerful incentive to perfection” (33).

Pope Pius XI fervently desired that we turn ourselves to Christ as King so that we may receive the blessings of love, holiness, and peace in our lives. We celebrate the Feast of Christ the King every year at the end of the liturgical calendar to look to the end of time when Christ will return in glory as King to judge all of humanity. “¡Viva Cristo Rey!”

November 19–“Saint” Mechtild of Magdeburg, Beguine, Third Order Dominican, and Mystic

Photo: Andreas Praefcke, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The language of love is one of complete self-gift of one to the other: “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16). Pope Benedict XVI wrote the encyclical Deus caritas est, wherein he wrote about love as eros in a way that transcends sexuality: “True, eros tends to rise ‘in ecstasy’ towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing” (5). It is this sense of ecstasy and transcendence that the mystics touch in their writings, as well as in their prayer lives with God.

Today’s “saint”, Mechtild of Magdeburg (born about 1210, died about 1282/1297), has not been officially canonized by the Catholic Church, although some have called her saint and blessed. Yet she experienced mystical revelations from the Holy Spirit from the age of twelve and continued to write about these throughout her life, published as The Flowing Light of the Godhead. There, she describes the union of her soul with God: “O Lord, love me excessively and love often and long; the oftener you love me, so much the purer do I become; the more excessively you love me, the more beautiful I become; the longer you love me, the more holy will I become upon earth.” And elsewhere: “And he, with great desire, shows her his divine heart. It glows like red gold in a great fire. And God lays the soul in his glowing heart so that he, the great God, and she, the humble maid, embrace and are one as water with wine. … Then she says, ‘Lord! You art my beloved! My desire! My flowing stream! My sun! and I am your reflection!’” This is the language of love beyond love!