The folk singer Woody Guthrie
once wrote a song
entitled “Christ for President”
that goes, in part, like this:
“Let’s have Christ for president,
Let us have him for our king.
Cast your vote for the carpenter
That they call the Nazarene…
Every year we waste enough
To feed the ones who starve.
We build our civilization up
And we shoot it down with wars.”
once wrote a song
entitled “Christ for President”
that goes, in part, like this:
“Let’s have Christ for president,
Let us have him for our king.
Cast your vote for the carpenter
That they call the Nazarene…
Every year we waste enough
To feed the ones who starve.
We build our civilization up
And we shoot it down with wars.”
Guthrie’s words find an echo in, of all places,
the words of Pope Pius XI from 1925,
when he instituted this feast of Christ the King,
partly in response to the growing secularism of society,
but also in response to fascist movements
that substituted worship of the nation and its leader
for the true worship of Christ.
Both the open disbelief of secular atheism
and the manipulation of religion
by fascists and nationalists
are seen by Pius as rejections of the reign of Christ
in the hearts and lives of people.
He paints a picture of a world consequently in crisis:
“seeds of discord sown far and wide…
bitter enmities and rivalries between nations,
which still hinder so much the cause of peace…
insatiable greed which is so often hidden
under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism…
a blind and immoderate selfishness…
the unity and stability of the family undermined;
society, in a word, shaken to its foundations
and on the way to ruin” (Quas Primum n. 24).
Woody Guthrie and Pope Pius seem to agree
that our private and public lives would be better
if Jesus were in charge.
the words of Pope Pius XI from 1925,
when he instituted this feast of Christ the King,
partly in response to the growing secularism of society,
but also in response to fascist movements
that substituted worship of the nation and its leader
for the true worship of Christ.
Both the open disbelief of secular atheism
and the manipulation of religion
by fascists and nationalists
are seen by Pius as rejections of the reign of Christ
in the hearts and lives of people.
He paints a picture of a world consequently in crisis:
“seeds of discord sown far and wide…
bitter enmities and rivalries between nations,
which still hinder so much the cause of peace…
insatiable greed which is so often hidden
under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism…
a blind and immoderate selfishness…
the unity and stability of the family undermined;
society, in a word, shaken to its foundations
and on the way to ruin” (Quas Primum n. 24).
Woody Guthrie and Pope Pius seem to agree
that our private and public lives would be better
if Jesus were in charge.
While we might take some comfort in the fact
that we seem to have navigated the last century
without the world falling into utter ruin,
we ought also to be sobered
by how the ills enumerated by Pope Pius
find such familiar echo in our own day.
We still see seeds of discord
sown far and wide;
we still see bitterness and rivalry
between and within nations;
we still see the pretense of patriotism
used as cover for greed and selfishness;
we still see families struggling to stay together
amid political, economic, and cultural forces
that would tear them apart.
And we might add to this a global pandemic
that has not only killed 1.4 million people worldwide,
but has also revealed, as it runs its course,
some of the darker aspects of human nature,
as well as a presidential election that promises
to leave people in this country
ever more divided,
ever more entrenched in their ideologies,
ever more unwilling to presume
good will in their neighbors.
that we seem to have navigated the last century
without the world falling into utter ruin,
we ought also to be sobered
by how the ills enumerated by Pope Pius
find such familiar echo in our own day.
We still see seeds of discord
sown far and wide;
we still see bitterness and rivalry
between and within nations;
we still see the pretense of patriotism
used as cover for greed and selfishness;
we still see families struggling to stay together
amid political, economic, and cultural forces
that would tear them apart.
And we might add to this a global pandemic
that has not only killed 1.4 million people worldwide,
but has also revealed, as it runs its course,
some of the darker aspects of human nature,
as well as a presidential election that promises
to leave people in this country
ever more divided,
ever more entrenched in their ideologies,
ever more unwilling to presume
good will in their neighbors.
But this feast of Christ the King
offers us more than simply an occasion to reflect
on the dreary catalogue of the world’s ills and failings.
It also offers us a vision of a world renewed
by the royal power of the risen Christ,
who presents to his Father,
as our liturgy today says,
“a kingdom of truth and life,
a kingdom of holiness and grace,
a kingdom of justice, love, and peace.”
This feast proclaims Christ’s kingdom
present even amid the sorrows of our world.
Indeed, this is a kingdom
that is present most intensely
in the places of greatest sorrow.
It is present in the hungry homeless person
waiting for a meal.
It is present in the convicted criminal
confined in isolation.
It is present in the unwelcomed refugee
waiting at our border.
It is present in the Covid patient
struggling to draw a breath.
It is present in these places of sorrow
because Christ is present there.
offers us more than simply an occasion to reflect
on the dreary catalogue of the world’s ills and failings.
It also offers us a vision of a world renewed
by the royal power of the risen Christ,
who presents to his Father,
as our liturgy today says,
“a kingdom of truth and life,
a kingdom of holiness and grace,
a kingdom of justice, love, and peace.”
This feast proclaims Christ’s kingdom
present even amid the sorrows of our world.
Indeed, this is a kingdom
that is present most intensely
in the places of greatest sorrow.
It is present in the hungry homeless person
waiting for a meal.
It is present in the convicted criminal
confined in isolation.
It is present in the unwelcomed refugee
waiting at our border.
It is present in the Covid patient
struggling to draw a breath.
It is present in these places of sorrow
because Christ is present there.
This is the great scandal of the Gospel,
over which so many of us stumble.
We think that Christ the King
must be sought among the sleek and strong
and cannot possibly identify himself
with the wayward, the wicked, or the weak.
But that is precisely what he does
throughout his ministry.
As the prophet Ezekiel foretells:
“The lost I will seek out,
the strayed I will bring back,
the injured I will bind up,
the sick I will heal,
but the sleek and the strong I will destroy,
shepherding them rightly.”
And we who would be servants
of Christ our King must seek him out,
not in places of power
but in those places of sorrow:
by feeding the hungry,
visiting the captive,
welcoming the stranger,
caring for the sick,
seeking to share their lot
so that we might have a share in Christ.
For it is in doing these things
that we find ourselves heirs to his kingdom:
“Come, you who are blessed by my Father.
Inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world.”
As Pope Pius writes, the Kingdom of Christ,
“demands of its subjects a spirit of detachment
from riches and earthly things,
and a spirit of gentleness.”
Those who serve Christ as King,
“must hunger and thirst after justice,
and more than this, they must deny themselves
and carry the cross” (Quas Primum n. 15).
The great scandal of the Gospel
over which we stumble,
both as individuals and as societies,
is that true power and authority
are not found in the sleek and the strong
but in the crucified and risen one,
the one whose glorified body
still bears the marks of torture
so that he might unite to himself
all those who suffer
the torments of hunger and thirst,
of rejection and captivity,
of illness and deprivation.
To embrace the Kingdom of Christ
is to embrace such weakness;
it is to deny ourselves and carry the cross,
serving Christ in those places of greatest sorrow.
This is the way to true life in Christ’s kingdom,
for Christ our king has come
to vanquish death by his cross,
and has been raised up
as sign and promise of that victory.
So let’s have Christ for president,
let us have him for our king,
let us ask him for the grace
to seek him out in places of sorrow
so that when he comes to judge the world
we might hear him say to us with joy,
“Come, you who are blessed by my Father.”
And may God have mercy on us all.
let us have him for our king,
let us ask him for the grace
to seek him out in places of sorrow
so that when he comes to judge the world
we might hear him say to us with joy,
“Come, you who are blessed by my Father.”
And may God have mercy on us all.
