SOLEMNITY OF CHRIST THE KING
SUNDAY 20TH NOVEMBER 2022
QUARR ABBEY
In his Rule, saint Benedict organizes the psalmody so that “Sunday Vigils always begins with the 20th Psalm” (18, 6). We know how our Blessed Father stresses the point “that the whole psalter of one hundred and fifty psalms should be recited each week and that the series should start again on Sunday at Vigils” (18, 23). In this monastery as in many other ones, we sing the 150 psalms every week in a different order, but anyway we start the week with this Psalm 20, not at Vigils, but during the first Vespers of Sunday.
Why does saint Benedict give such importance to this Psalm? In our books for the Office, the title of Psalm 20 is “Thanksgiving for a King’s victory”, and the text starts as follows: “In your strength, O Lord, the King rejoices; how greatly your salvation makes him glad! You have granted him his heart’s desire; you have not withheld the prayer of his lips” (v. 1-2). Of course, when we sing these words, we think of Christ Jesus, who is our King who saved us by his pascal Mystery, which gladdens his heart and the heart of his Church every day, but especially on Sundays: we rejoice in his strength.
This strength comes to him from the Father who sent him for the salvation of the world. Giving us his only Son, the Father, as the Psalm continues, “blesses him with blessings of sweetness, setting on his head a crown of pure gold” (v. 3). When the Father sends his Son in his strength, he blesses him with the sweetness of the Holy Spirit, in order to fulfil the Scriptures unto death on the Cross. We have just heard in the Gospel that “above him was an inscription that read: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (Luke 23, 38).
“Are you the King of the Jews?” asked Pilate before the condemnation of Jesus. He replied: “My Kingdom is not from this world. My kingdom is not from here” (Jn 18, 36). Jesus, our Saviour, wins his victory by his death out of love for us, for the world; he rose on the third day as the living King of the universe. And with Psalm 20 we go on singing: “O Lord, arise in your strength, we shall sing and praise your power” (v. 13). That is what we are doing during this Solemnity of Christ the King”.
In this country, we know of the beloved Queen Elisabeth and we pray now for our King Charles. In latin, for King we say Rex; this word comes from the verb regere, which means to lead, to govern. A king is a leader, a guide. Close to Psalm 20 is the 22nd in which we pray: “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul. He leads me on right paths for his name sake” (v. 1-3). A king leads his people to peace, to a common well being, which is a very difficult task nowadays, especially in the context of the war in Ukraine, of the recent G 20 in Bari.
If we need leaders, symbols and normally makers of unity, in the world, in this country, in a diocese and in this monastery, these leaders need men and women devoted to the common good, “ a people eager to do what is good”, according to the words of saint Paul to his disciple Titus (3, 14). We all are servants of the common good in this “common house”, as says pope Francis speaking of our sick earth.
Do we like to be led? In his great chapter 8, just in the middle of his letter to the Romans, Paul writes: “All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God” (8, 14). That sentence is in my eyes one of the most important in the Bible. If Jesus Christ is our King, we must let him lead us day after day, following him in his ways to reach the Kingdom of his Father. Monks like to be led as saint Benedict writes on the chapter on obedience: “They live not to serve their own will nor to give way to their own desires and pleasures, but they submit in their way of life to the decisions and instructions of another, living in a monastery and willingly accepting an abbot as their superior” (5, 10).
Recently, we have been celebrating the feast of saint Martin. His biographer, Sulpicius Severus, writes that Totis visceribus diligebat Christum Regem: “He loved Christ the King with all his heart”. There was something very deep and personal in his link to his King, the beloved Jesus Christ. As for us, what are the dimensions of our love for Christ? The Psalm 44 sings to him: “You surpass all others in beauty; gracious words flow from your lips” (v. 2).
Last Wednesday at the beginning of lunch in the refectory, we heard this marvellous promise from the prophet Isaiah: “Your eyes will see the King in his beauty” (33, 17). Let us wait for him, using the very last words of the Bible: “The Spirit and the Bride say: Come. Amen; come, Lord Jesus!”