Do you know how many people there are in the world today? (Audience answers) 7 billion? Higher than that. There are 8.2 billion people in the world today. All peoples will serve him. How many nations are in the world today? 193. This will be the toughest one: How many languages are in the world today? (audience answers) Thousands. 7,111 languages. All people, all nations, all languages will serve Christ the King.
This is the promise that he has made to us. Back in 1925, Pope Pius the 11th instituted this Feast Day of Christ the King, and he did so for a very important reason. He realized at that time that there was a growing secularism and a growing atheism, and during that realization he wanted to have this Feast of Christ the King so that we would know that He is the King of the world; actually, he’s the King of the Universe as we heard in the opening prayer.
He said at that time he recognized that society was attempting to thrust Jesus out of public life and he knew that that would result in discord among the peoples and nations. That anytime Christ is thrust out of a nation, that nation will crumble. The Solemnity of Christ the King reminds us that while nations crumble, Christ’s Kingdom will never crumble. The church acknowledges that Christ is King of all of our lives. So, Pope Pius the 11th said, “Because he’s King for us he must reign in our minds, he must reign in our hearts, he must reign even in our bodies.”
In the first reading today, we hear this powerful message from Daniel. He sees a profound vision of the Son of God coming forth from the sky, on the clouds and Jesus promised that just as he ascended, he said that he would come back again in a similar way.
Let’s talk briefly about three kingdoms that have fallen. One of the earlier ones was the Roman Empire. Now this is different than the Roman Catholic Church, this was the Roman Empire when Rome was ruling. It was 117 years after Christ, and the empire had reached a great extent: Over 50 million people were part of the Holy Roman Empire, one-fifth of the world’s population were members of the Roman Empire and lived under Roman rule. Their engineering marvels were unbelievable; 250,000 miles of roads were paved by them. They built aqueducts that came and brought water all over the city. They really were a phenomenal structure. But by 476, Rome would fall; internal corruption, economic crisis, and a plague brought them down to their knees.
The next one is the Mongolian Empire. This was a huge one; think of Genghis Khan. The largest land empire in all of history. Their military innovations were extraordinary. They conquered more territory in 25 years than Rome did in 400 years. But, just 140 years after its foundation, in 1368, it splintered and fell.
Finally, the British Empire, in 1922, covered 24% of the earth’s landmass. Their Navy dominated the sea, the sun never set on their territories, yet by 1997, this empire too, would dissolve.
I think about our country, the United States of America; we’ve been around for 245 years. When you think about some of the empires throughout the world, that’s a rather short time. And we’ve been hearing, especially this during the election cycle, that if either party is not put into position, our country could be lost forever, our constitution could be lost forever. But the truth is the most dangerous thing that we have in our culture is secularism. It’s the complete turning away from God and removing God from anything that’s important in our country. But today’s Gospel shows us a different way, that Jesus is King and his Kingdom is everlasting.
Right now, we have wars in Russia and Ukraine, Palestine and Israel, and we’re watching the possibility of those being fallen. The Catholic Church, promised by Christ, was built upon Peter; Christ said that the Catholic Church will never fall. And now we have 2000 years, over 2000 years, that the Catholic Church has withstood while all these other kingdoms fell.
Today, let us just reflect on the importance of our Faith and the importance of keeping Christ as King, not only of our lives but of our country, because any nation that turns its back on Christ or that becomes secular and removes Christ from that country is doomed to fail. And while all earthly kingdoms will fail at some time, Christ’s Kingdom will never fail.
