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Reflection for November 14th

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"Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot
For one brief, shining moment that was known as Camelot"

In this third millennium, when whatever monarchs exist are little more than figureheads, it seems out of date to close each liturgical year with a feast dedicated to Christ the King. Kings have been long gone ever since Oliver Cromwell decapitated Charles I and the guillotine did the same to Louis XVI and the First World War resulted in the toppling of Kaisers and Czars and every other absolute kingpin. People are no longer impressed by royalty except as an heirloom to be gossiped about. So why - back in 1925 - did Pope Pius XI decree this annual festival of Christ as our King?

Well, first of all because he liked the whole idea of feast days, of festivals and celebration! He thought them so much better a medium of instruction than the abstract doctrinal and moral directives we expect from the Vatican. Listen to what he says in his encyclical promulgating the feast of Christ the King: "People are instructed in the truths of faith and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of Church teaching. Such pronouncements usually reach only a few and the more learned of the faithful . . .; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year . . . The Church's teaching affects the mind primarily; her feasts affect both mind and heart . . . People are composed of body and soul . . . and need festivals . . . in all their beauty and variety to stimulate them to drink more deeply of the fountain of God's teaching that they may make it a part of themselves." (Italics mine)

So initiating a feast day, an occasion for banners and special events and royal fanfare was in itself a fun thing to do as well as pedagogically smart! And as for this one being about Christ as our true and only King, I wonder if Pius' intent (more as a master of ceremonies than theologian) was not unlike that of the producers of that memorable musical Camelot which even to this day awakens in modern audiences a longing for the return of a legendary King Arthur from his island vale of Avalon to reconstitute in our too, too prosaic times his transcendent kingdom of grace and chivalry.

I mean, perhaps that's the spirit in which we ourselves should approach our festival of Christ our King - as a moment to renew our resolve to think regally; to remember that Christ came to make each of us an aristocrat and never to let anyone make us think anything less of ourselves; to be persistently proud of our genealogical link to God Almighty; to be ever ready to exercise our birthright to behave generously, with a noblesse oblige akin to that of Christ. The feast is not simply about doctrine but about our acquisition of a courtly, courteous life style and the dedication of our lives to a quest for the Holy Grail - which is of course held out to us at every Eucharist we attend.

In Washington Irving's story of Rip Van Winkle we have this comical character who wanders into the Catskill Mountains of New York and after imbibing during a bowling party with some phantom Dutchmen falls asleep for twenty years. When he awakes the Revolutionary War has been fought and won and a political election preoccupies his village. As he stares "in vacant stupidity" at the rallies and debates, he's asked whether he's a Federal or a Democrat. "Alas! gentlemen," he replies with dismay, "I am a poor and quiet man, . . . and a loyal subject of the King, God bless him." Needless to say, he's almost run out of town! But so say I in this world of transient politicians and slogans and perpetual contests of right versus left: "Alas! gentlemen, as to my fundamental allegiance, I am a loyal subject of Christ my King, God bless him."

-- Geoff Wood