Sunday Homily 11-21-10, Christ the King & Thanksgiving
Readings: 2 Samuel 5, 1-3; Psalm 122, Let us go Rejoicing to the House of the Lord; Colossians 1, 12-20; Luke 23, 35-43.
History of the Christ the King Feast: date, author, reason it was declared
Date: Not during the early church, not during the time when Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Empire, not during the time of Luther & the Reformation, not during the time of Pius IX with the Italian Resorgiamento & his Infallibility statement (1870), but in 1925. Fairly Recently.
Author: Pius XI, pope 1922-39
Reason(s): at least 2 factors–The Times and Modernism/Secularism
1. The Times:
a) End of WW I and build up to WW II
b) Mussolini & Hitler: the same year Pius XI became pope, Mussolini became prime minister. By 1925 he had become a dictator. The feast was to counter the dictatorship. "Christ is king, not you."
2. Modernism & Secularism:
a) Modernism. Despite being scholarly and pro-scientific methods, Pius XI was suspicious of biblical scholarship which questioned, for example, biblical inerrancy, the nature of bible miracles, the virgin birth, the resurrection, the atonement theory that God demanded his son suffer & die for a single sin by a human.
b) Secularism coming out of the Enlightenment said that all people were equal, people should have a say in government as in democracy, and backed the separation of church/state, like proposed by Jefferson. The Catholic Church was against democracy.
Sources: Living with Christ, Nov., 2009; Wikipedia
Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Woods
| And sorry I could not travel both | |
| And be one traveler, long I stood | |
| And looked down one as far as I could | |
| To where it bent in the undergrowth; | |
| Then took the other, as just as fair, | |
| And having perhaps the better claim, | |
| Because it was grassy and wanted wear; | |
| Though as for that the passing there | |
| Had worn them really about the same, | |
| And both that morning equally lay | |
| In leaves no step had trodden black. | |
| Oh, I kept the first for another day! | |
| Yet knowing how way leads on to way, | |
| I doubted if I should ever come back. | |
| I shall be telling this with a sigh | |
| Somewhere ages and ages hence: | |
| Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— | |
| I took the one less traveled by, | |
| And that has made all the difference. | |
Robert Frost
A few weeks ago this past fall Rosemary and I received a special gift. We were given two tickets to a Notre Dame home football game, a game against Pittsburg.
This had special meaning for me because when I was 18 I was enrolled in Notre Dame for college. I had even bought some winter clothes. Until I changed my mind and joined the Jesuits, to my mother’s rather lengthy irritation.
Never in the following 50 odd years of my life did I ever get to visit the campus where my life might have been totally different.
In the spirit of Thanksgiving I want to give thanks for three things connected with this event.
First, I finally had the opportunity to reunite with one of my best old buddies from high school and even grade school, Pete Wacks. He has spent almost all of his adult life in Chicago working as an F.B.I agent.
There is an amusing quality to this. Here are two kids who seemed to get into trouble together and who spent some evenings in the University Park jail. One ends up a Jesuit priest & the other works as an F.B.I. agent.
After 50 years it was like we just picked up where we left off. Rosemary & I spent the whole weekend with Pete & Margie. We stayed at their house and they drove us to South Bend and joined us at the game. One of his buddies even met us when we arrived at the campus and toured us around in a golf cart.
I am really grateful for this.
Secondly, I was grateful for the opportunity to visit what I had heard was one of the beautiful campuses. I got to meet touchdown Jesus, to witness a game in a fabled stadium, and to walk the campus. The trees were just changing colors and it was a beautiful, warm fall afternoon. It was fun and touching to walk around imagining how my life could have been different had I ended up there for 4 years.
Thirdly, I was grateful that I had chosen the second road the summer of ’58. It has been a good road.
As we look forward this week to Thanksgiving, I invite you to reminisce. Look back. Not often in life do we encounter two roads in a wood. How grateful are you for the roads you have chosen?
Picture 1: Curtis guarding our food drive
Picture 2: Ryan & his mom, Michelle
Picture 3: Connie & her family
Picture 4: Mark & Isabella & Donuts
Picture 5: Wendy & Ray