The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

Christ is our King not only because He is God and therefore our Creator, but also because He is our Redeemer. We have been purchased not with material things but with the precious blood of Christ.

Pope Pius XI when he instituted this feast desired that we should benefit from it in several ways. Let us consider the first of the benefits that he proposed we should gain from this celebration.

"When we pay honor to the princely dignity of Christ, men will doubtless be reminded that the Church, founded by Christ as a perfect society, has a natural and inalienable right to perfect freedom and immunity from the power of the state; and that in fulfilling the task committed to her by God of teaching, ruling, and guiding to eternal bliss those who belong to the kingdom of Christ, she cannot be subject to any external power. The state is bound to extend similar freedom to the orders and communities of religious of either sex, who give most valuable help to the Bishops of the Church by laboring for the extension and the establishment of the kingdom of Christ. By their sacred vows they fight against the threefold concupiscence of the world; by making profession of a more perfect life they render the holiness which her divine Founder willed should be a mark and characteristic of His Church more striking and more conspicuous in the eyes of all."

Christ is a king and His kingdom here on earth is the Catholic Church. The Church is a perfect kingdom with Christ the King as her head. Christ rules His visible Church through true popes and bishops. The apostolic succession of bishops is essential to her makeup. The four marks of the true Church are: One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. This perfect society established by Christ that will exist until the end of time must always have true and legitimate successors of the Apostles. It is only in true and legitimate successors that Christ visibly reigns His kingdom. False bishops or illegitimate bishops cannot be the visible representatives of Christ the King. They are outside the Church and outside the grace of God and therefore have nothing to do with Christ's kingdom, the Catholic Church.

These false leaders may establish their own kingdoms or societies and be at the head of them, but they are not members, much less heads in the Catholic Church. Modernists who have put on the garb of Catholics and worked their way into positions of apparent authority are not Catholics and do not have any authority in the Church. Such individuals are traditionally labeled as anti-popes, anti-bishops, etc. While they may maintain an appearance of authority and are accepted as such by the majority it does not change the fact that they are outside the Church and those who thus follow them as their leaders likewise end up outside the Church.

It is Christ who is the King and all true Catholics must recognize this and place themselves within His kingdom. This kingdom is above all others, and is our only and last hope both as it regards our spiritual and material society and well being. When we understand this we begin to see what a blasphemy it is to say that the "U.N. is mankind's last hope." This can never be said by a true vicar of Christ. Material societies are necessary but very secondary to the kingdom of Christ and therefore of His Church. It is they that are sanctioned by the Church not the Church by them. The entire world must look to Christ for hope not to material organizations and societies. Therefore the entire world is to enter the Church in order to have any hope but especially mankind's last hope.

In this blasphemy we see clearly that a new religion has been formed right under the noses of the majority of Catholics in the whole world. Those who saw and understood soon fled this spiritually sinking ship. The tragedy was that most of those jumped from the frying pan into the fire. They soon too set up their own churches and became the heads of their new society. Most of them go by a new title "traditionalist".

In this now immense sea of new and different religious societies ("churches") it is becoming harder and harder for people to find the One True Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church with Christ as its head and King. Just as when Christ walked this earth in His Humanity very few found, recognized, believed and followed Him, so it is today with His Church. Very few seem to find recognize and believe the true bishops that He has commissioned to visibly head the Church. There are many wolves in sheep's clothing that have come preaching new and different doctrines and so we must recall what St. Paul tells us that, even if an angel of light were to come and preach a different doctrine we should not believe it. Worldly success is not a measure of truth. Majority of followers is not a measure of truth. Many are called, but few are chosen.

Let us all strive to increase our love for Christ the King and tenaciously cling to His Church and His bishops which as unworthy as they may be or as insignificant as they may appear are true successors of the Apostles and His representatives here on earth, and therefore the keepers of Christ's kingdom, the Church here on earth.

Franciscan Benefactor Seraph Subscription Vocations Have you remembered God?