Fr. Michael Williams

Today’s feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Universal King, was established by Pope Pius XI in 1925. It was the same Pope who suggested that this Cathedral should be dedicated to Christ the King, when it’s foundation stone was laid in 1933.

The reason that Pius XI was so keen to emphasise Christ’s sovereignty, was because he lived at a time when various godless ideologies were taking root in people’s hearts. Communism, which tried to build a civilisation without God, had swept across Christian Russia; Nazism built on the cult of Hitler tried to wipe out God’s first born people, the Jewish race.

These ideologies were to wreak havoc across the world. History tells us that the Twentieth Century was the most bloodthirsty century in the history of the human race. More Christians were martyred for their Faith in the Twentieth Century, as a result of these ideologies, than were martyred in all the previous centuries put together. Pius XI believed, “these manifold evils in the world were due to the fact that the majority of people had thrust Jesus Christ and His holy law out of their lives”. In other words people had rejected Christ, and turned to follow false gods.

Are the times we live in any different to the time of Pope Pius XI? At the beginning the Twenty First Century the old godless ideologies of Nazism and Communism may have diminished, but they have been replaced by new ideologies, equally as virulent. In our country consumerism is the god most people will be worshipping this Christmas, not Christ; and hedonism- the endless pursuit of pleasure- will also be on many people’s Christmas list this year.

Yet this yearly Feast reminds us that Christ is the King.

Christ’s kingship is diametrically opposed to the rule established by the powers of this world, who rule by force, violence and greed, because Christ the King is also the Prince of Peace who came to serve, and not be served. The gospel reveals to us that Christ the King identifies himself with the powerless, the weakest members of society- the hungry, the thirsty (Jesus cried ‘I thirst’ from the cross), the stranger, the naked, the prisoner, and the sick.

Jesus identifies Himself so closely with the weak that when we minister and care for them, we minister and care for Christ Himself. Jesus tells us in the gospel, “I tell you solemnly, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me”. (This Cathedral reminds us that Christ the King identifies Himself with the poor, as this Cathedral was itself built on the former poor house of Liverpool).

St John of the Cross says, “At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love”. Today’s gospel reminds us of this reality. The Bible “repeatedly affirms that each person will be rewarded immediately after death in accordance with their works and faith” (CCC1021). The kind of life we live now will have consequences for eternity.

Let us pray that we will be worthy servants of Christ in this life, so as to enjoy His Kingdom of light, joy and peace in the next life.