The Crown is a Cross is a Work of Mercy
The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe – Year A
I have a special love for Christ the King Sunday. Almost a hundred years ago, Pope Pius XI instituted today’s solemnity to address society’s growing suspicion of commandments and obligations – the crucial actions of a king and his subjects. Submission, authority, and obedience have become increasingly foreign concepts in our world. Today the Church asks us to cultivate these necessary features of piety most especially at the closing of the liturgical year.
I love a good British period film – these movies are probably my first and best introduction to the concept of kingship. Today’s solemnity makes me think of the coronation of Queen Victoria in The Young Victoria or Queen Elizabeth II in the first season of “The Crown.” After the crown is placed on the queen’s head, everyone else puts on their coronets and tiaras. All royalty, nobility, and authority stem from the one crown, and without it no one can bear the weight and title of authority.
I find royalty entertaining, at least in part, because it fails. Arrogance, pride, and greed follow a crown as if those terrible qualities glittered among its jewels. We will not serve. We are too strong, intelligent, scientific, and independent to need another to tell us what to do. Until it all collapses; until, like the sleek sheep in Ezekiel 34:16, we are destroyed.
Every human will fail. Every human dies. Christ the King, never fails and destroys death (1 Cor 15:26). Truly, He is the king worthy of worship. Instead of a coronation, He choose a crucifixion. Rather than a crown, he bore the weight of the cross.
Christ circumvents all human failings and illuminates a path of humility for us to follow. As his subjects, we can wear our crowns just like He does. And so, on this noble path, a royal journey all the way to Heaven, the cross becomes our most precious jewel and the guiding force of our lives.
In Quas Primas, the encyclical instituting Solemnity of Christ the King, Pope Pius XI wrote, “not one of our faculties is exempt from [Christ’s] empire. He must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to him alone. He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls.”
Our minds, wills, hearts, and bodies must bear the imprint of the cross. We will attempt to give Christ everything we can and yet it will always be less than what He gives us. All our worship and all our works are like so many handmade cards given with love from the child to the parent, lopsided hearts showing our devotion to the Perfect One.
The imperfections of our piety are not a reason to give up trying. Jesus tells us what the jewels of our crowns should be made of in Matthew 25: 31-46. We give food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, comfort to the sick and the oppressed, and, in these corporal works of mercy, we carry our cross. Our whole lives can become a work of mercy if that is our prayer and intention. The only real failure is the unwillingness to try, to lose the hope that our efforts matter.
We tend to think of God as though He were like our human structures. We think of big human organizations, the IRS or the DMV, and we see only their ineffectiveness. Their bigness means they can’t meet us in our needs. Jesus isn’t like this. Paradoxically, the bigger He is, the smaller He cares. The more we honor and understand the meaning of the cross, the easier it becomes to see, with His eyes, the honor in the crosses we bear. With a foundation of reverence for His cross, we begin to see the glory in our own.
On Christ the King Sunday, I think through what the past year has been and what the next year might hold. Then, I submit it all at the foot of the altar, at the foot of my King.
This year, parenting has been the most obvious and insistent way I carry my cross – these children of mine that I feed and clothe and comfort every day are the dearest jewels in my crown.
I also had the opportunity to be ill and need surgery this year. And while I struggled and suffered in the midst of that, Jesus came close. In my better moments, being ill became a work of mercy; I experienced the service of my community in my humble trial.
In January, my family and I enthroned the Sacred Heart in our home, and we continue to develop our devotion to Christ’s kingdom in our daily prayers for His Heart.
There are real needs in my family. We aren’t sure how the next year will settle financially for us. By this time next year, my oldest son will have chosen a post-high school path. My homeschool will have shrunk by one more student. I hope to be stronger and healthier physically, more able to contribute to the upkeep of our daily needs.
But none of these submissions matter unless Christ is King. None of this matters unless it flows from His mercy received in the sacraments of the Church. None of it matters unless He took the cross as his crown and redeemed us.