Regnum-Christi Memory Turned Painful

I have had a little crucifix for over twenty years. Every morning when I first wake up, I kiss it and say, “Christ our King, Your Kingdom come.” Same thing when I lay down to sleep at night. “Christ our King, Your Kingdom come.” This little daily ritual with the crucifix is one of the customs of the Regnum Christi movement. Regnum Christi means “Kingdom of Christ.” [Spanish]

Everyone knows that we read the same Sunday readings on a cycle of… how many years? Correct: three. Six cycles ago, on Christ the King Sunday, 2002, we celebrated a large Mass for members of the Regnum Christi movement at the Basilica of the National Shrine in Washington, D.C. The Archbishop celebrated the Mass. The seminarian, who was a deacon, chanted the gospel reading. Same gospel reading as this Sunday, the separation of the sheep from the goats in Matthew 25.

Father Marcial Maciel founded the Regnum Christi movement. He turned out to have been a serial sexual predator, protected for decades by higher-ups in the Church. He victimized countless people and ruined many, many lives. The Archbishop who celebrated that Regnum Christi Mass at the Shrine, Christ the King Sunday, 2002: Theodore McCarrick. The deacon who chanted the gospel: me.

In the gospel passage, the Lord Jesus invites the sheep into the Kingdom of heaven. They have been kind to the weak and suffering. They have acted humbly and gently towards everyone. They’re surprised that the king beckons them, because they never thought of themselves as anything great. They lived obscure lives of daily kindness.

Maybe you know that the Vatican published a “McCarrick Report” last week. For thirty years, the higher-ups in the Church left us seminarians, young priests, and young people at risk. They knew that McCarrick posed a serious danger to us, but they did nothing.

On that Christ the King Sunday, 2002–when McCarrick and I stood next to each other at the altar in that huge church filled with eager Christians–the higher-ups already knew about him. McCarrick had already destroyed a lot of lives. The pope knew it; Cardinals and bishops knew it.

They did not think of the suffering wounded. They thought only about their own reputation. They had comfortable lives with servants at their beck and call. They wanted it to stay that way. It never so much as crossed their minds to seek out the lost souls whose lives McCarrick had destroyed. Most of the prelates who knew the dirty secret hated McCarrick—not because of what he had done to defenseless, innocent people, but because of the danger he posed to the stability of their own coddled lives. They just wanted everyone to shut up about the whole thing.

What if the King has this to say to the goats, before he sends them to hell: “A sexual predator manipulated, demeaned, and abused me, and you did not care. A powerful Church careerist crushed my faithful, innocent soul, and you worried about your own reputation. I tried to tell you that this man is a dangerous criminal, and you said it was all my fault. The predator threw me out on the street for refusing to give into his advances, and I appealed to you. You never even wrote me back.”

My print-out of the McCarrick Report appears to be missing the last page. The page where they all say: “We are terribly sorry. We clearly do not know what we are doing. We have wronged the innocent and defenseless victims for decades, turning a deaf ear to their cries, treating them as the problem. We still have no earthly idea how to handle what they say. We have failed you, dear earnest Christians. You deserve much braver, more honest leaders.”

I cannot tell you how much it hurts to think about that Christ the King Sunday eighteen years ago. Now that I know how the hierarchy betrayed us. They betrayed all of us who were there because we kiss our crucifixes every morning and every night, and long to get to heaven, and just want to treat everyone kindly. We’re no saints or heroes, but we would have known what to do with McCarrick, if we had the information and the power.

The hierarchy offers excuses, rather than take responsibility. The McCarrick Report is 449 pages of “It’s someone else’s fault.” No churchman has ever been willing to own the McCarrick problem. Not for the past 35 years, and not now.

What if the king says, “I came looking for encouragement in living an upright, responsible life, and you passed the buck. I needed someone to give me an example of courage, and you called a lawyer to protect yourself from liability. I came to church hoping to find someone who believes enough in Christ crucified to admit his sins, and you insisted that you have no memory of any conversation having to do with that issue.”

I’m going to keep kissing my crucifix and celebrating my Mass. We live in dark, dark days for His Church, our Church. Let’s hold onto our faith and just keep trying to live in the truth.

Prophet Daniel and the Unlikely King

Not exactly the world’s typical picture of a king. A convicted man–scourged nearly to death, a crown of thorns on his head, nailed to a cross. But one supplicant at least recognized the true king. Namely, the criminal crucified next to Him. [Spanish]

This supplicant for royal favor, however, did not request a dukedom, or a large purse, or a military command. Instead, the dying criminal asked this favor of his dying king: Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom.

To which the unlikely crucified king said: Today you will be with me in paradise.

…Now, speaking of the divine kingdom: the second chapter of the book of the prophet Daniel recounts a dream of the Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar. The Lord revealed the dream and its meaning to the young prophet Daniel. Daniel then praised God, saying, “He reveals deep and mysterious things!”

Daniel knew that Nebuchadnezzar had seen in his dream the image of a man. “The head was of fine gold, the breast and arms of silver, the belly and thighs of bronze, the legs of iron, and the feet partly of iron and partly of clay.”

Daniel interpreted the various parts of the figure’s body as a succession of kingdoms: gold for Nebuchadnezzar’s own kingdom, silver for an inferior succeeding kingdom, then bronze, iron— and then a final, brittle kingdom of iron and clay.

But that wasn’t the end. Daniel continued, describing Nebuchadnezzar’s dream: “As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand. It smote the image of the man and broke it in pieces–the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold all together were broken to pieces, and became like chaff on the summer threshing floor, and the wind carried it all away, so that no trace could be found.”

the prophet Daniel, Sistine Chapel

The human figure in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream represents the kings of history, man dominating the earth. Human pride. In the end, it all disintegrates into nothing. We are patriots; we love our country. But we have to face it: The day will come, someday, when the world will forget that the United States of America ever even existed. Just like countless ancient nations have vanished altogether from the earth.

Then Daniel continues: “The stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.” Daniel interprets this: “The God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all the other kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever.”

Now, of course, we understand this as a prophecy of the reign of Christ. God intervened directly in the political organization of mankind. He established a unique community, His chosen people, united under our unique king. The Christian Church, united in the faith and love of Christ, has fulfilled Daniel’s prophecy.

The fact that, in the dream, no human hand cut the rock that became this mountain, the everlasting kingdom of Christ: Surely this represents the absolute “otherness” of God. The fact that He exercises His omnipotent power on His terms alone. We little human beings can never pretend to grasp the inevitable divine plan. We can only submit ourselves to His rule with humble faith, saying “Our Father in heaven, Your kingdom come; Your will be done.”

So: Daniel 2 gives us a pretty stunning prophecy about God’s eternal kingdom. But it actually does not paint the whole picture. One crucial aspect got revealed later, when the fullness of time had come.

The rock not cut by human hand does indeed represent the transcendent awesomeness of God Almighty. God’s sovereignty nullifies every human conceit, every presumption on our part to understand on our own terms the ultimate meaning of the events of history.

But: in the fullness of time, God revealed that this crushing rock is, in fact, a human being. A humble man. A man of gentle love, Who does not break even a bruised reed or quench even a smoldering wick.

The divine rock that crushes all of mankind’s delusions of grandeur: He came as a man with no delusions of grandeur. He submitted to scourging and crucifixion even though He committed no crime. He promised paradise to the penitent man dying beside Him. An impossible, preposterous promise for a dying convict to make. Which this perfectly honest, crucified king then proceeded to fulfill.

Christians, rejoice! It turns out that the rock that crushes the pride of man and establishes the endless domain of God has fallen from the sky. Not with violence, but as the king Who died for us on the cross, so that we could reign with Him forever.

Homily for Christ the King

This Sunday we pledge allegiance to Jesus Christ, the divine King. We believe in Him. We believe in the Incarnation. [Spanish]

In other words: We admire Jesus of Nazareth and pledge our allegiance to Him, not just because He was a man of great wisdom, but because He is a man of divine wisdom. We admire His love—not just great love, but divine love. We entrust ourselves completely to Him, not just because of the stunning nobility of His death, but also because of the indubitable certainty of His resurrection from the dead.

He is our good and kind king. Our allegiance to Him sometimes falters, but His worthiness to have our total allegiance never does. We forget sometimes to Whom we belong, but He never forgets us. We get confused about how to live, but He always stands ready to comfort, guide, and support us. All we have to do is remember the truth: Without Him we have nothing, are nothing. With Him, we have everything, including our true selves.

Allegiance to our divine King means: trust, respect, acknowledgement that He is great and big, and we are small. We each have just a little part to play in the grand plan that He alone fully understands.

Allegiance also means taking rightful pride in who we are: chosen members of the royal household of the King of the universe. Consecrated children of eternal glory. Freeborn sons and daughters of the Kingdom that will never pass away.

Allegiance to Christ means measuring every other allegiance by this allegiance. We have one absolute rule that governs all our other associations with our fellow human beings: we are Christians first. Yes, we have families, to which we owe deep allegiance. And we owe allegiance to the institutions that made us who we are. And of course we owe our allegiance to our beloved nation.

But: We measure all these allegiances by our absolute allegiance to Jesus of Nazareth. He is God. He is the one Savior. He is the sole Champion Who has conquered death itself. He enlightens the cosmos with the only light that will never fail, will never fall into darkness.

To Him, to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the alpha, the omega: To Him all glory and honor unto the ages of ages.

The Human-Size Divine Rock

Titian, Christ and the Good Thief

Not exactly the world’s typical picture of a king.  A man–scourged nearly to death, a crown of thorns on his head, nailed to a cross–conferring an honor upon a supplicant.  And not exactly the typical royal favor, either.  Not a dukedom, or a large purse, or a military command.  “Today,” this unlikely crucified king said to the repentant criminal, “today you will be with me in paradise.”

The second chapter of the book of the prophet Daniel recounts a dream of the Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar.  The Lord revealed the dream and its meaning to young Daniel, who then praised God, saying, “He reveals deep and mysterious things!”

Daniel knew that Nebuchadnezzar had seen in his dream the image of a man. “The head was of fine gold, the breast and arms of silver, the belly and thighs of bronze, the legs of iron, and the feet partly of iron and partly of clay.”

Daniel interpreted the various parts of the figure’s body as a succession of kingdoms: gold for Nebuchadnezzar’s own kingdom, silver for an inferior succeeding kingdom, then bronze, iron— and then a final, brittle kingdom of iron and clay.

Not sure if the transition from the Obama to the Trump administration fits into this anywhere.  But that’s not my point. Because:  After the prophet Daniel has described all this, another, completely foreign element enters the picture.

Daniel in the Sistine chapel

So far, we have the figure of a man.  Yes, it’s strange that this figure is composed of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and clay.  But the form itself—a man standing—that form easily finds a home in our imagination.  Anyone can picture a man standing.

But Daniel continued, describing Nebuchadnezzar’s dream: “As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand.” A stone cut out by no human hand.  Sounds like a big avalanche, or an asteroid falling from the sky.  Impossible for us to imagine clearly.  Then what happened?

“It smote the image of the man on its feet, and broke them in pieces, then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold all together were broken to pieces, and became like chaff on the summer threshing floor, and the wind carried it all away, so that no trace could be found.”

Again, not exactly easy for us to picture in our imaginations.  For me, it calls to mind the spectacle of the shiny Twin Towers in New York collapsing into a huge, noxious pile of dust.  The human figure in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream–“mighty Man,” the kings of history, man dominating the earth—it all disintegrates into nothing.

Then Daniel continues: “The stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.” Daniel interprets this: “The God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people.  It shall break in pieces all the other kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever.”

Now, of course, we must understand this Old-Testament revelation as a prophecy of the reign of Christ. God Himself intervening directly in the political organization of mankind, establishing a unique community, His chosen people, united under our unique king.  The Christian Church, united in the faith and love of Christ, has fulfilled Daniel’s prophecy.

The fact that no human hand cut the rock that became the mountain: Surely this represents the absolute “otherness” of God. The fact that He exercises His omnipotent power on his terms alone. No human idea, no human conception, no human image can represent the divine sovereignty. No wise man would ever pretend to grasp the inevitable divine plan. We can only submit ourselves to His rule with humble faith, saying “Our Father in heaven, Your kingdom come; Your will be done.”

But the revelation of Daniel 2 does not completely disclose the kingdom of Christ. One crucial aspect of the eternal kingdom only got revealed later, when the fullness of time had come.

The rock not cut by human hand does indeed represent the transcendent awesomeness of God Almighty.  God’s sovereignty nullifies every human conceit, every presumption on our part to understand on our own terms the ultimate meaning of the events of history.

But: in the fullness of time, God revealed that this crushing rock is, in fact, a human being, a man. A humble man. A man of gentle love, Who does not break even a bruised reed or quench even a smoldering wick.

The divine rock that crushes every delusion of grandeur in man came as a man with no delusions of grandeur.  He submitted to scourging and crucifixion even though He committed no crime.  He promised paradise to the penitent man dying beside Him—an impossible, laughably preposterous promise, which this perfectly honest king then proceeded to fulfill.

Christians, rejoice! It turns out that the rock that crushes the pride of man and establishes the endless domain of God has fallen from the sky as nothing more violent that the king Who died for us on the cross so that we could reign with Him forever.

Long Live Cristo Rey

¡Viva!

87 years ago today, Father Pro enfrentó la muerte for holding la fe católica.

Blessed Miguel Pro, ruega por us!

Invisible King Made Visible

How do we grasp the idea that Jesus Christ is our king? After all, the closest thing we have to a king in the United States is LeBron James. We threw a lot of perfectly good tea into the Boston harbor, because we didn’t particularly like the idea of having a king.

Just as well, really. Perhaps you remember how, when we began this particular liturgical year AD 2014, we discussed the three wise men looking for “the king of the Jews.”

Way back before the prophet anointed Saul or David as king, the holy people of Israel served God alone as their king. Hopefully you remember how we discussed this: The prophet Samuel warned the people, Don’t make me anoint a human king. Our king is God, the only true king.

King George III of England, on the other hand, had a lot of pretenses of majestic rule—and not a lot of the genuine article. He had jewels, and powdered wigs, and embroidered footstools, and sterling-silver tea settings, and crystal goblets for his claret. But he did not have penetrating insight, or thoroughgoing reasonableness of judgment, or expansiveness of imagination, or precision of speech, or love for the poor and vulnerable. So no one can blame us Americans for wasting so much of his tea.

The King of the ancient Israelites, however—the king of Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, of Gideon, Deborah, and Ruth—their king had none of the trappings, and all of the real goods of kingliness. He was utterly invisible to the human eye, so there was never any question of diadems or gilded robes. But His absolute wisdom, His all-encompassing government, his universal compassion—all this demanded unqualified obedience, unquestioning loyalty, and unlimited devotion.

The invisible King of ancient Israel, ironically enough, can and does pass every test of suitability as a monarch that we independent-minded Americans could ever throw at Him. Because, really, it’s not that we Americans despise kings, per se. We despise kings who are not truly kingly. We despise kings who fail to be noble. The invisible King of the ancient Israelites not only is truly noble and kingly, He defines what these words mean.

But we would have the devil of a time obeying this King, and serving Him, and paying Him homage as we should, if He had not done one particularly remarkable thing. The Old Testament shows us how bad the ancient Israelites actually were at submitting themselves to an invisible king. Over and over again, they proclaimed their allegiance. And over and over again, they failed to render it. We would do no better than they did, if we had to reach out into the absolute darkness to find our king.

So the truly wise, truly just, truly open-hearted King—the One Who really does see all, know all, love all, embrace all—He united Himself with our human stock. He became a human king, a visible king—who still had none of the trappings, none of the empty pretenses and affectations—still had no chariot or ivory scepter or chauffeur or personal jet. To the contrary, He had sandals like everyone else; He walked from place to place like everyone else did; He worked with His hands and even knelt down and washed His friends’ stinky feet after a journey.

The invisible King became the visible man who had no visible affectations of royalty, but who did have all the invisible truth of it. The eternal invisible King became the visible human King, Who is the real King and the genuine definition of ‘king,’ namely:

Truly Triumphant King

At Holy Mass for the Solemnity of Christ the King, the first reading and the gospel reading give us two pictures of the King of the Jews. Stunningly different.

First we read from II Samuel about the moment when the prophet anointed David king of all Israel. This moment was the culmination of a thoroughgoing military and political triumph. The Lord had chosen David from humble beginnings. Samuel had discovered a little shepherd boy, who then went on to distinguish himself as a valiant warrior, skilled general, and noble statesman. David successfully united all of the tribes of Israel; he defeated the Philistines; and he conquered the pagan city of Jerusalem to be the capital city of the Jews. David transformed the chosen people from a loose affiliation of beleaguered tribes into a powerful nation.

Then we read about the King of the Jews in the gospel. The renowned teacher and miracle-worker from Nazareth had come to Jerusalem in triumph, arriving to the cheers of throngs of followers. Jesus’ Apostles thought that He was poised to lay claim to the throne of David, to galvanize a revolution against the Roman overlords. But, as we read, that is not what happened.

Knowing what Christ the King Knows

Christ is the faithful witness.

Jesus said, ‘For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.’

Christ has born faithful witness to the great and enduring truth. We need to grasp this truth, if we are to make any sense out of our lives. But we could never have figured it out, if Jesus had not born faithful witness to it and testified to it.

Christ bore witness faithfully. In other words, he testified without swerving, without fudging, without prevaricating, without betraying the truth. That Christ bore ‘faithful’ witness does not mean that He testified to His own personal “faith.” He testified to what He knows and has always known, namely God. Christ knows the great, enduring, and transcendent truth. He knows; we believe. We have faith in the knowledge of Christ.

With me? Good. Now, how did Christ bear faithful witness? How did He testify to the mysterious truth of God?

No King but Caesar?

Pontius Pilate appears to have been genuinely confused by how much the High Priests and the crowd hated Christ.

At first, Pilate did not want to judge Christ at all. Then Pilate tried to appease the people by having Jesus scourged, instead of crucified. But only death would satisfy the angry mob.

Then Pilate asked them a question, full of contemptuous irony: “Shall I crucify your king?”

He received the answer: “We have no king but Caesar!”

We have no king but Caesar.

Meditation on the Call of the King

St. Ignatius Loyola discovered that a person can grow closer to Christ by using the power of the imagination.

As one of his spiritual exercises, St. Ignatius proposes that we first envision the most captivating leader imaginable.

We imagine someone with a clear sense of purpose, a beautiful and noble plan. Someone embarking on an adventure requiring great self-sacrifice. This leader personally invites us to join the enterprise. He promises us an equal share in the labor and in the fruits of its success.

Maybe we could take the fields of business or science as an example. Let’s each imagine our favorite entrepreneur coming to us personally to invite us to join his or her company, right as it was just starting up. It could be Henry Ford, or Walt Disney, or Steve Jobs, or any other great market visionary. “Work with me, share my life, and you will share in the rewards.”