Happy Feast Day of Christ the King!
Dear Friends,
This apostolate, Biblical Foundations International, has many patron saints: Our Lady of Guadalupe, Empress of the Americas; St. Jerome, patron of Biblical studies; St. Thomas Aquinas, patron of Catholic philosophers and of Catholic education; St. Robert Bellarmine, patron of polemics and doctor of the papacy; St. Francis de Sales, bishop and doctor and converter of countless Calvinists; and many, many more.
But towering above them all is Christ Himself, and of His many titles — Lord, Savior, Redeemer, Lamb of God, Son of God, Good Shepherd, Great High Priest, etc etc — the one nearest and dearest to my heart and mind is that of King … in fact, King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Apocalypse 19:16).
I love absolutely every aspect and every doctrine of the Catholic Faith: the Trinity, the Deity of Christ, the Incarnation, Christ’s atoning death and reconciling resurrection, the Real Presence in the Eucharist, the papacy, purgatory, predestination (the correct Catholic doctrine, not the Calvinist heretical distortion of it), the privileges and prerogatives of Our Lady, the dogma that there is no salvation outside the Church, etc etc.
But the concept and the doctrine I am most enamored of is that of the Kingship of Christ (a much-neglected doctrine in our day, and when not neglected, then much-misunderstood).
Today’s feast is therefore as much an occasion of joy for me as is Christmas or Easter — in some ways even more so, if that doesn’t sound too shocking. I’ll be explaining why.
I’ve been working on a fairly lengthy reflection on this doctrine and how it applies to so many issues and crises of our day. But I’ve been dealing with many of my own issues and crises in the past couple of weeks, which I'll be telling you about, and which have impeded my ability to complete my essay by today.
And so, God willing, I hope to be serializing my essay, starting tomorrow, right here on my website as well as on my public figure Facebook page. Please check back here tomorrow for the first of several installments. I also hope to, at long last, resume my Facebook Live broadcasts this week with a special broadcast on the Kingship of Christ, the date and time of which I’ll give you plenty of advance notice of as the week unfolds.
In the meantime I will leave you with the words of the following hymn, “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed,” based on Psalm 71 [72 in a contemporary, non-Vulgate-based translation] — one of several hymns I plan to quote in my posts every day throughout this week, in an effort to enkindle in you the zeal that should consume every Catholic in the contemplation and celebration of Christ’s Kingship:
Hail to the Lord’s Anointed,
Great David’s greater Son!
Hail, in the time appointed,
His reign on earth begun!
He comes to break oppression,
To set the captive free,
To take away transgression,
And rule in equity.
He shall come down like showers
Upon the fruitful earth,
And joy and hope, like flowers,
Spring in His path to birth.
Before Him on the mountains
Shall peace, the herald, go
And righteousness, in fountains,
From hill to valley flow.
Kings shall bow down before Him
And gold and incense bring,
All nations shall adore Him,
His praise all peoples sing;
To Him shall prayer unceasing
And daily vows ascend,
His kingdom still increasing,
A kingdom without end.
O’er every foe victorious,
He on His throne shall rest,
From age to age more glorious,
All blessing and all-blest,
The tide of time shall never
His covenant remove;
His name shall stand forever,
That name to us is love.
(James Montgomery, 1771-1854)