Christ’s Headship over our lives.
Today we gather with the Church around the world and we celebrate Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as Universal King, ruler over all of creation. These feast closes the liturgical year. We will begin with the year of Mark next week. It might seem strange for us to celebrate Jesus as King. The idea of King or Ruler may seem rather foreign and even strange to us as Americans. Living in a society where democracy and the rule of the people through voting and having leaders represent us is how we understand rule and law, all in all the idea of a King seems strange to us.
So what is this feast of Christ the King that we celebrate each year all about? I would propose that in celebrating Christ as King, we celebrate his Headship over our lives and over all that is. Namely, when we speak, we act, we treat others, we allow Christ to guide our words and actions. We seek to live under Christ’s direction and will for our lives and the life of the world around us. Knowledge of God’s word is so important to our living for God and Christ’s headship over us. This is radical and counter cultural notion, namely to allow someone other than ourselves to determine our lives. For us a Catholic Christians we recognize our desire and need to allow Jesus into our lives our very selves to lead and guide us. We accept Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, and allow that relationship to permeate everything we do. Unkindness, gossip, power plays and all other ways of seeking to harm and destruction others is not of God. Christ’s headship provides the guidance we need in our relationship with others, the world and even creation. Jesus is Lord and Head over all and invites us to share in His Divine life as head of our lives. This is real, concrete and tangible. If a person is divisive they fail to truly be a follower of Christ. Submission to Christ’s headship is the true key to living a life of faith and grace filled with happiness.
Pope Francis in his Encyclical Laudate Si states:
“230. Saint Therese of Lisieux invites us to practice the little way of love, not to miss out on a kind word, a smile or any small gesture which sows peace and friendship. An integral ecology is also made up of simple daily gestures which break with the logic of violence, exploitation and selfishness. In the end, a world of exacerbated consumption is at the same time a world which mistreats life in all its forms.”
- Love, overflowing with small gestures of mutual care, is also civic and political, and it makes itself felt in every action that seeks to build a better world. Love for society and commitment to the common good are outstanding expressions of a charity which affects not only relationships between individuals but also “macro-relationships, social, economic and political ones”.[156] That is why the Church set before the world the ideal of a “civilization of love”.[157] Social love is the key to authentic development: “In order to make society more human, more worthy of the human person, love in social life – political, economic and cultural – must be given renewed value, becoming the constant and highest norm for all activity”.[158] In this framework, along with the importance of little everyday gestures, social love moves us to devise larger strategies to halt environmental degradation and to encourage a “culture of care” which permeates all of society. When we feel that God is calling us to intervene with others in these social dynamics, we should realize that this too is part of our spirituality, which is an exercise of charity and, as such, matures and sanctifies us.
Let us Make Christ the Head of our lives.
Fr. Stephan Brown, S.V.D
Parochial Administrator