Brief thoughts on Christ the King, Son of the Immaculate Conception!

Christus Rex. Christ the King. Today’s Feast Day in the Ordinary Form Calendar. In the Extraordinary Form, this falls on the last Sunday of October. I suppose that the reasoning of the transposition of the feast for the ordinary form has to do with the end of the liturgical year, a summary, if you will, of all that the Lord Jesus, Son of the Immaculate Conception, has done for us, and continues to do from heaven.

There is no designation about how it is that Christ is Christ the King, just that He is the Universal King, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Prince of the Most Profound Peace.

Throughout my life of preaching, I have, on this day, related the thoughts of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, that Christ is King, reigning from that throne of love, lifted on high, from which He draws all to Himself, that throne of the Cross.

And then I might have added some bits from events occuring at the Epiphany, with the wise men presenting their gifts of gold, frankincense and myhrr in honor of the little King of angels and men, the little Priest, Himself in the manger[!], the little Prophet, who, like all prophets, must be rejected and put to death, the body being prepared for burial with that aromatic oleoresin of the Middle East. This was — mind you — before I knew that the last Sundays of the liturgical year in the Extraordinary Form took their inspiration from the Sundays after Epiphany. Yikes! The faith is univocal, is it not?!

Here are some meditations on the Last Supper, the Birth of our Lord, and the Baptism, with the meditations on the Last Supper and the Baptism being aimed at my fellow priests and bishops of the Priesthood of Jesus. Yikes!

Today, I’d like to stick with the image of the infant King. Was He not the Universal King of the Universe, of angels and men, of the Church Triumphant, the Church Suffering, the Church Militant, and even of the damned, who He hands over to the justice without mercy that they so desire? Yes, He is. In fact, He is so from the very beginning, from the very first moment of His conception in the womb of His dear Virgin Mother by the power of the Holy Spirit.

This reminds me of something I wrote on everything you ever wanted to know about the exclamation in Lourdes Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou: “I am the Immaculate Conception”:

This perfectly reflects what’s happening in Luke 1,28, where we read of Mary perfectly continuing to be perfectly transformed in grace from the first instant she could begin to live her vocation to the Mother of God, that is, at her conception, her Immaculate Conception.

How very humble of Mary. Instead of pointing to her being the Mother of God, she instead emphasizes the glory of being the Mother of God, which is doing the will of God, which she did perfectly, by the way, at the time of her being immaculately conceived. She was always, from the first instant, utterly transformed in grace, just as she is today as Queen of heaven and earth, angels and men, the Virgin Mother of God assumed soul and body into heaven. It is God’s life within us that counts the most, doing his will.

Jesus, always obedient to His Heavenly Father, as much King as an Infant, indeed, in the womb of Mary Immaculate, as He is now, gloriously reigning in Heaven and among us in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

Such a King we have, who is concerned with the likes of us, each of us, each one of us. He loves us, He being just that good, just that kind.