On Thursday of this past week, we celebrated the feast of St. Elizabeth
of Hungary. I like to think of her feast
as a prelude to today's Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of the
Universe. She was born in 1207, the daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary and
Queen Gertrude who was the sister of our beloved Cistercian oblate, St.
Hedwig. At the age of 4, she was sent to
Germany to be educated and prepared for her arranged marriage (which took place
14 years later) to the princely lord, Ludwig the Landgrave of Thuringia. Despite her exalted station in life—or
perhaps because of her Christian insight into what true rulership is---she
devoted much of her time and eventually all of her own wealth to personally
feeding and clothing the poor and to nursing the sick poor in the hospitals she
founded. When her beloved husband Ludwig died she was unceremoniously thrown
out of the castle with her newborn baby in her arms by Ludwig's stuck-up and
horribly cruel relatives. Her devotion to the poor—personally serving them,
clothing them, nursing them—was too much for these so-called “nobles” to
stomach. Elizabeth had taken to heart the gospel teachings on the corporal
works of mercy and had seen in them the only way that an authentic Christian
ruler reigns legitimately and so gives honor to the King of Kings, Jesus Christ
the Lord. Even among the saints, she is
one of the most perfect examples of a person being conformed to the image and
likeness of Christ—to the point of accepting in her own life the stark
experience of His rejection and His suffering in her own life because she chose
to follow him so radically.
Jesus himself never uses the title “King.” He knew it would confuse people into
thinking he was leading a violent political movement. His own chosen designation is “Son of Man”
which so identifies him with us and yet hints also at his divine nature through
the prophecy of Daniel. However, when
others use the title “king” about him, he does not deny it. In the last chapters of St. Luke's gospel,
Jesus ascends the mountainous road from Jericho to the Holy City of Jerusalem. At Jericho, a blind man with spiritual
insight calls out to Jesus and his royal status, “Son of David, have mercy on
me.” Jesus does not correct him and
responds to the man wholeheartedly, curing his blindness and granting him the
grace to follow him. As Jesus enters
Jerusalem, He is riding on the colt of a donkey in fulfillment of the prophecy
of Zechariah of how the messianic King would manifest himself to Israel and all
the nations. Seeing him, the people cry
out, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest
heaven!” Hearing the crowd so hailing
Jesus, the Pharisees order Jesus to tell his disciples to stop what they
consider blasphemy. Jesus answers, “I
tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” Yes, the very stones would shout out that He
is the anointed, the messianic King come to save us. In the trial of Jesus, Pontius Pilate asks
him straight out, “Are you the King of the Jews?” To which Jesus answers with subtlety, “You
say so!” The matter is settled by Pilate
when, with great irony, he writes out the inscription above the Cross, “This is
the King of the Jews.” This is the
Gospel in miniature--first written by a pagan--because we know from the words
of Jesus in John that “Salvation is from the Jews.”
Recently, we heard that King Charles III would be firing 100 of his servants from one his residences to save on
costs to the Royal Treasury. This
confirmed in my mind, at least, the worldly notion that kings are people who
are served by their subjects and their legions of servants. Christ the King turns that notion on its
head. He tells us, “The Son of Man did
not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” The life of that royal person St. Elizabeth
of Hungary echoes the life of Christ in her stripping away from herself all her
possessions and wealth for the sake of the poor. But the original sound of which that was the
echo was the sound of Jesus letting himself be stripped of his very life as he
is nailed to the cross for the life of the world. We see him as the true King in today's
gospel nailed to his crucifix throne with the banner over him proclaiming his
identity, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS and so of all the nations on earth, as
the prophet Zechariah foretold. As the
King of kings, he issues forth the decrees most proper to truly noble kings,
namely, pardon, forgiveness, and mercy not only to the ignorant men who crucified
him and to the repentant thief but to all people of all times everywhere. May we surrender to his reign of love and
mercy! Surrender to his reign of love and mercy!
In the lifting up of King Jesus on the
throne of the cross, he drew all people to himself to such a degree that those
who surrender to the grace of the Redemption won by the cross, themselves
become kings and queens in his Kingdom.
As the prophet Daniel foretold: “The holy ones of the Most High shall
receive the kingdom to possess it forever and ever.” Paragraph 786 of the Catechism of the
Catholic Church sums it all up it so beautifully, “... the People of God share
in the royal office of Christ. He
exercises his kingship by drawing all men and women to himself through his
death and resurrection. Christ, King and
Lord of the Universe, made himself the servant of all, for he came 'not to be
served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.' For the Christian, 'to reign is to serve
him,' particularly when serving 'the poor and suffering in whom the Church
recognizes the image of her poor and suffering founder.' The People of God
fulfills its royal dignity by a life in keeping with its vocation to serve with
Christ.”
Royals are noted for their sumptuous banquets. Jesus the King has prepared this Eucharist for us his royal adopted sons and daughters—a banquet to sustain us on the Way as we serve with Him and divine food to transform us into living icons of Christ the King. He calls out, “The banquet is ready! Come to the feast!” Today's homily by Father Luke.
