Christ the King

Sunday, 22nd November 2009-11-22

Our Lord Jesus Christ the King.

Community Chapter Talk by Br. Barry (Used to be called Solemnity of Sermon).

SOLEMNITY OF CHRIST THE KING 2009. ‘Armed with the strong and noble weapons of obedience, do battle for the true King, Christ the Lord’. When the Rule of Saint Benedict speaks of Christ, the emphasis is on his divine nature. This can be seen in the Rule’s use of quotations from the psalms; often, where ‘Lord’ or ‘God’ appears in the psalm extract, it is clear from the context that St.Benedict means these words to refer to Christ. This outlook was influenced by historical circumstances: the struggle against heresies which denied the full divinity of Christ. In this day and age it seems that we are back in the same situation. There are many spiritual seekers today who acknowledge Christ as one of the great inspired figures of all time on a par with the Buddha and the like. This is the attitude of ‘all religions and wisdom traditions are all basically the same’. It appears then, that at the present time, an emphasis on the divinity of Christ is once again necessary. That of course is not to downplay or ignore his humanity any more than St. Benedict did – the Rule urges the monk to imitate the humility of Christ - but the history of the Church shows that in any given age one aspect or the other comes to the fore. How does the monk enclosed in his monastery bear witness to the divinity of Christ ? The pat answer is, by being faithful to his vocation. But can something more than that be said ? Cistercians have a special feast which can guide their every approach to Christ: the feast of Martha, Mary and Lazarus, hosts of the Lord. We all know how St.Bernard interprets this in terms of the three types of monks to be found in monasteries. He also points out in the same sermon that ideally all three types should be found in each monk. However, the three hosts are not merely types or personifications or ymbols. They are living persons, saints in heaven who can help us, each with the special grace that marked their lives. Martha will always be associated with work and service. Mary, in her listening to the Lord and in her dramatic devotion helps in lectio and in personal devotions and Lazarus – Lazarus is THE close friend of Jesus, so much so that some Scripture scholars believe that he is none other than the Beloved Disciple of the Fourth Gospel himself. When the monk is about his most characteristic business, the chanting of the psalms, that is when Christ recognises a familiar face just as he did whenever he visited Bethany. In this way, there is no danger that the elements of monastic life will ever seem to be just dutiful steps towards a distant God. They become communion with Christ in the company of his familiar friends. The message that shines out from the household at Bethany, like a lighted window in the night, is the message of monastic life too: the more familiar we become with Christ, the more we are aware of his divine nature. ‘The divinity of the Word Incarnate is the foundation of Christ’s empire over men’ states the Encyclical Letter which ordained today’s feast. When WE act as hosts of the Lord in the daily round, we also see that he is ‘the Immortal King of the Ages’. This is because the daily round in the monastery passes according to monastic time, not ordinary or worldly time. Monastic time is time that is coloured by the search for God. That is why there is so little free choice in the use of time in the monastery. Passing the time just as you please belongs to ordinary, worldly time. Martha, Mary and Lazarus lived their lives within this monastic time. Thus we see Martha making full use of her time. We see Mary oblivious of time in her concern for the one thing necessary and we see Lazarus cheating time in returning from the dead. The feast of Christ the King was instituted specifically as ‘a remedy for the plague of secularism’. One of the symptoms of this plague is that ‘the religion of Christ is likened to false religions and placed on the same level with them’. Those who rate Christ highly as one of the ‘greats’ of humanity but no more than that, well, they are on the right road. If only they would press on to believe in order to understand – as the famous expression has it – instead of trying to understand everything before they will believ