The Voice Of Truth – Homily for the Christ The King Solemnity – Sermon by Father Levine

Fr. Joseph Levine; Holy Family Catholic Church and Missions, Burns, Oregon; November 24, 2024

The Son of man received dominion, glory, and kingship; all peoples, nations, and languages serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not be taken away, his kingship shall not be destroyed.

Son of man, taken from this passage is the title that Jesus, during his earthly life applied to himself. He cited this passage at his trial before the High Priest, when asked point blank if he was the Christ, the Son of the Blessed one. (Mk 14:61) To which he replied, I am; and you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven. (Mk 14:62) These words brought about his condemnation for blasphemy. (cf. Mk 16:64)

After rising from the dead, Jesus said to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? (Lk 24:26)

The prophecy of Daniel and the words of Jesus were fulfilled with his Ascension to the right hand of his Father. The high priests witnessed him sitting at the right hand of power when the Apostles stood before their tribunal, bearing witness to Jesus: The God of our fathers, raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him. (Acts 5:30-32) Such was the power of Jesus, seated at the right hand of God, that the high priests now found themselves powerless against him.

Jesus entered into his kingdom at his Ascension; since then he has reigned as king. The prophecy of the Psalmist is fulfilled: Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. (Ps 2:8-9)

Well, that seems strange!  We are not accustomed to think of Jesus as ruling by force and compulsion, nor does it even look like he is – or has been – ruling over the nations of the earth.

We must remember, however, that in his own time God was only known in Judah (cf. Ps 76[75]:1), but now believers in Christ are found in every part of the world.

Further, when Jesus began his reign, it meant that henceforth God, the Holy Trinity, the creator and ruler of all creation, exercises his rule through the man Jesus Christ, who is indeed one of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God. The kingship of Christ is the kingship of God exercised through the man Jesus Christ.

God does not rule by coercion, but his rule is irresistible. Judith sang, there is none that can resist your voice. (Jdt 16:14; cf Est 13:11) The words of the Psalm show this same irresistible power being shared with the Messiah. So just as all men and nations are subject to God, willing or not, so all men and nations are subject to the rule of Christ, willing or not.

History has seen nations willingly subject to the rule of Christ as when kings like St. Stephen of Hungary (d. 1038AD) or the Emperor St. Henry (d. 1024AD), used their royal power to promote the evangelization of the people subject to them.

History has seen nations subject to Christ unwillingly when persecuting the Church; persecuting the Church they have accomplished Christ’s purpose, sending martyrs to his heavenly throne and serving to purify the hearts of the faithful on earth. In the time of the Apostles, the protomartyr, St. Stephen, as he was being stoned, bore witness saying, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God. (Acts 7:56)

Further, as individuals who reject the rule of Christ will go before his judgment seat after their death, nations, whose existence is tied to this passing world, are judged historically through their ultimate failure, like the builders of the tower of Babel, to achieve their ambitions. In the end, the greatness of any nation that has refused the rule of Christ has met with disaster and ruin. Even the Ottoman Empire, which for centuries served as the scourge of Christian Europe, met with its demise.

As for those who willingly submit themselves to the rule of Christ the King, he is the one who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and has made us a kingdom, priests for his God and Father. Here, at the holy sacrifice of the Mass we taste of his love, offering our own lives through, with, and in him, while receiving from him communion in his Body and Blood.

He is the King who is meek and humble of heart, who would refashion our hearts like his. (Mt 11:29) His yoke is easy and his burden is light because it involves his presence and strength to help us carry our cross, while we experience the sweetness of sharing in his Cross. (cf. Mt 11:30; 20:22)

To submit ourselves to his rule, though, we must listen to and obey him. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.

Truth and love are inseparable. The kingdom of Christ is not a dreamworld but is the real world. To listen to him, to receive his Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love, and to obey him, is to live in reality; it is the highest realism.

We should ask, though, how we can hear his voice so as to obey him?

We live in a world of illusion as we are bombarded by countless images divorced from all reality; we live in a world of noise, in the midst of a resounding din, a cacophony of voices that by means of television and the internet reach even the most remote regions of the desert.

To the left and to the right there are any number of gurus, media moguls, and podcasters ready to tell us what is really going on, ready to reveal to us the great secrets of life, of health, of beauty, of science, of politics, of history, of the universe, maybe even of God, secrets never known before, secrets they have just discovered.

In the midst of this cacophony some will say that is just a matter of reading the Bible, the word of God. And just how many English translations of the Bible are there? The myriad of translations reveals the myriad of interpretations. One person says the Bible means this, another that. There are no lack of people claiming to make known the real meaning of the Bible, never before known since the time Jesus himself walked on the earth.

Now, all these voices have something in common with “cancel culture,” they reject the past, they reject tradition, which means they are rootless. Plants do not grow well without roots; without roots there is no life. The din of contemporary voices, however, declares that the solution has only just now been discovered, created new, from scratch, without roots.

For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.

Now, if 2,000 years ago Jesus bore witness to the truth before Pontius Pilate, has his testimony been lost? We are not talking about words, but about the meaning and truth of those words. Has the one who has been crucified, rose again from the dead, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father, been powerless during the past two millennia to preserve the voice of his truth in the world? Has the one who promised to send his Holy Spirit and who did send his Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, saying that the same Spirit would lead you to all truth, been powerless to preserve that truth in the world? (cf. Jn 16:13) By no means.

That means, then, that to hear the voice of Christ above the cacophony of voices claiming to reveal the newly discovered secret, we must rather listen to the voice that has consistently resounded in the world since the time of Christ, though it may seem new and surprising to us.

We must listen to the voice that has taught the same thing in every age, holding a steady course amidst the din of every age, rising above all the confusion. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (He 13:8) His truth has not been lost and cannot be lost. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. (Mk 13:31)

That voice, echoing through the centuries, is found in the tradition of the Catholic Church, confirmed and propounded by the teaching authority or Magisterium of the Church. Yes, that voice is found in the Bible, but it is not found in the Bible apart from the voice of Catholic tradition and the voice of Church teaching.

At the heart of the tradition, begun before the New Testament was written, repeated countless times through the ages are the true words of Christ, this is my Body and this is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal testament.  They are found in the Bible, but their true meaning and import, the conversion of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, offered in sacrifice and received in communion, is made evident and firm by their context in the celebration of the Mass, the continual witness of tradition, and the constant teaching of the Church. They are the true words of Christ that give to us the supreme gift of his love. We submit ourselves willingly to the reign of Christ by submitting ourselves to the gift of his love.

Any voice that does not sound in harmony with the voice of Catholic tradition, any voice that does not sound in harmony with the gift of Christ’s love in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, is not the voice of Christ, is not the voice of truth, but belongs to the cacophony of the world, belongs to the new Babel.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever (Is 40:8). All the voices of novelty, the newest fads, quickly give way to something newer, withering like the grass, fading like the flower. The word of God, which gives us the Body of Christ, is always ancient and yet always new, never out of fashion, and always life-giving. As the word of God stands forever, so also shall stand all those who stand in the word of God and in whom the word of God is living and active; so also shall stand all those who live in the truth of Christ and in whom his truth lives and reigns, as it has lived and reigned in the saints.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not be taken away, his kingship shall not be destroyed.