Dear Parishioners:
This Sunday is the last Sunday of the liturgical year and the celebration of the Solemnity of Christ the King. Pope Pius XI instituted this feast in 1925 with his encyclical Quas Primas ("In the first") to respond to growing nationalism and secularism. Pope Pius recognized that these related societal ills would breed increasing hostility against the Church. His encyclical reminds the faithful that while regimes and philosophies come and go. Christ reigns as King forever.
Secularism divides our public selves from our private selves. When governments limit the rights to freely minister according to our faith and restrict our religious liberty, secularists claim that religious freedom is unharmed because we still have freedom of worship. However, while we are free in private, we are restricted in the public square. Yet the Kingdom of God calls us to a whole life of worship and service in the public square. We cannot worship on Sunday and then deny Christ, and His teaching, as we provide ministry throughout the week.
Nationalism, on the other hand, divides our loyalties. It is good to love one's country, but ultimate loyalty is due only to Christ and His Kingdom. Ideologies that ask us to put our nation above Christ and his Church are incompatible with service to the kingdom.
With the help of the Holy Spirit, we must work every day to draw closer to Jesus. In our increasingly "post-Christian" society, we cannot be complacent in our spiritual lives and acknowledge Christ's Kingship only in Church. To recognize the Kingship of Christ means that we should dedicate ourselves to prayer and worship, building up our families and our parish, proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ, and bring healing to a broken world. Jesus inaugurates a Kingdom that grows through humble acts of service. Even as the Church's freedom to carry out Her ministries with authenticity are under threat, the Church must patiently continue to serve the poor, educate the young, care for the elderly, welcome the migrant, visit the prisoner, heal the sick, bury the dead, and love others.
In Quas Primas, Pope Pius XI states: "Once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony. That these blessings may be abundant and lasting in Christian society, it is necessary that the kingship of our Savior should be as widely as possible recognized and understood.”
As I write this column, it's looking more like Thanksgiving Day celebrations might be small and very muted this year. The COVID-19 infections continue to rise, as do hospitalizations across the country. The Governor is likely to issue directives that people stay home on Thanksgiving Day.
Some may ask, what do you have to give thanks for in 2020? We are suffering through a pandemic, witnessing social unrest and violence, and bitterness and political divisions, along with lockdowns and isolation, further eroding community bonds and national unity. Who can give thanks?
President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving Day a national holiday in 1863. At that time, our nation was bitterly divided, and in a Civil War, where thousands of Americans were dying. African-Americans remained shamefully enslaved in the southern states. It would be another two years before the war's end and the restoration of peace and freedom. Even with the nation divided and at war, Lincoln understood that the country should give thanks to God for the blessings and bounty it enjoyed despite the state of the union. He declared it a day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father." As President, he urged all Americans to "fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and Union."
Bishop Evans is to celebrate our Thanksgiving Day Mass at 9:00 AM on Thursday. Join us as we give thanks to God and pray for peace and harmony, tranquility, and unity in our nation. Happy Thanksgiving! Stay safe. Be Well. Do Good. God Bless. God Bless America
