The liturgical year comes to a close as
it always does, with the Solemnity of Our
Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.
This is much more than a passing nod to the kingship of Jesus as we move
into Advent. If we take the time to
truly reflect on it, we are called to choose between making Jesus our sovereign
king, or going on our merry way, doing as we please and making all of life’s
myriad decisions based on what’s convenient at the moment, and how we feel at the
time. It is the choice between being a sovereign individual with radical
autonomy , versus accepting the wisdom of Jesus and following His leadership
and loving example. Of course there are
many gradations of this sovereignty; times when we follow Jesus, times we
rationalize our actions, and times we outright commit sin. The danger in all this is that we are
creatures of habit, tending to repeat ourselves for better or for worse. Ironically, sinful habits inevitably lead to
unhappiness and disappointment, but we continue them all the same, hoping for a
better outcome, or to merely to feel good momentarily, even knowing we will
regret it in the end.
The Solemnity
of Christ the King, is above all a call to conversion. It is an appeal to cast off the yoke of
slavery to sin, and enter into the love of Jesus. To the extent that we accept His sovereignty,
His Love and forgiveness, and begin to make all our decisions on the basis of
His law of Love, we discover true happiness.
Any area of life we withhold from Jesus will continue to be a source
disappointment and unhappiness. But we
are easily deceived when apart from Jesus, and fall readily into the trap of
thinking we are capable of achieving happiness all on our own if was just
discover the right combination. Everybody wants to be happy, so it should be
an easy choice, but of course it isn’t.
And that’s because it is so difficult to throw off our pride and other
sinful habits which make it so hard to recognize the Truth, even when it is
right in front of us. The gospel for
Sunday’s Solemnity has Jesus before Pilot saying, “You say that I am I
king. 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.” (John 18:37)
Every one of us is a sinner, making it
difficult to hear and accept the Truth that Jesus reveals. Fortunately God has thought of that too, because
we are incapable of pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps and out of sin. In His Divine Mercy, Christ forgives our sins
and makes it possible to finally “hear His voice,” the voice of Truth. This call to conversion is a call to accept
forgiveness and finally understand the wisdom of living under the reign of
Jesus, to live under the dominion of Our Lord, rather than under the domination
of sin.
In much the same way our country has
lost its moral compass, and seems incapable of perceiving truth. The prevailing liberal/progressive ideology
harkens back the Marxist notion that mankind is intrinsically selfish, that
liberty, the rule of law, and high cultural standards aren’t inevitable or even
natural, and therefore society must be
controlled for its own good. This
argument gained credibility during the Industrial Revolution and massive
immigration to America resulting in numerous human rights abuses, especially
among the labor class, women, children, and immigrants. During the past 150 years liberals have been
guided by the conviction that every aspect of American life has had to be meticulously
managed by strict regulation. As we
progressed from farming to industrialization, to the information age,
regulations kept getting more complex and pervasive. Moreover, regulatory authority has moved far
beyond business and banking laws to control every aspect of life, making the
federal government the final arbiter on everything from the environment to
education, to health and safety, to voting rights. In doing so, the feds have usurped the State’s
and local government’s rights to self-governance. It is as if we’ve set up the “philosopher
kings” Plato warned us about, because people can’t be trusted make decisions on
their own. Even more nefarious, in the
past 40 years, and especially the most recent six years, the government has
been dictating morality. Starting with abortion
rights and culminating in the right to homosexual marriage, the government demands
by force of law that everyone participate by paying for abortion as an employee
benefit, or with tax dollars, and even requires business services to be performed
without regard to the conscious rights of individual citizens. In this respect, the Constitution is being
ignored with respect to the right to life, and the right to exercise freedom of
religion, while new rights are being attributed to the constitution that do not
exist. The trouble is that this liberal
ideology isn’t working. It is suppressing
economic growth, contributing to poverty by making the welfare trap harder to
escape, hampering job-creation, inhibiting innovation, and impeding trade. Socialism is failing big time in Europe, as
it is in States and cities run by liberals, and yet they plod on, as if they
will eventually hit on the right combination bureaucracy that finally solves
the immense puzzle. They cannot see the Truth
of this situation.
Conversely, conservatives are seeking
to decentralize decision-making, reduce the immense burden of convoluted
administrative laws, and restore our constitutional rights. Doing so would unleash economic growth,
including job-creation to stem poverty. They would defend religious freedom and the
right to protect families from the assault on moral values in our educational
system, and defend children’s right to be raised by both a father and a mother.
In a sense, the 2016 election is also
about a conversion. Do we want an
America dominated by our government and the values they impose? Or do we want to live under the dominion of
leaders who will free us to act responsibly within the original rule of law
that made our nation a great powerhouse, and gave us the moral authority to
defeat Communism and Fascism? Has the
pendulum swung so far to the left that people will finally become aware of the Truth
of the situation and “right the ship” before it gets any worse?
