In A Post-Christendom Age

Christ the King
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Much ink has been spilt of late on the idea of Christendom, or a worldwide or Western-wide Christian kingdom reality.  In case you’re wondering, we’re not in it.  Christendom often describes a reality where Christian values are the norm, and may even be the major underpinning of the legal system.  In the US, people often think of the 1950s as demonstrating the height of Christendom for Americans.  Certainly, in Europe that history goes much farther back, but also frayed during the time of the so-called Enlightenment, until its collapse probably around World War I, when many in Europe wondered how a Christian ethos could produce the “War to end all wars” between Christian countries.
    Again, in case you’re wondering, we’re not in a time of Christendom.  While our court system, perhaps the last bastion of sanity in our otherwise crazy political system, has upheld our rights as a church against the assaults connected with especially the Obama and Biden administrations (think of Little Sisters of the Poor, the redefinition of civil marriage, and the promotion of gender dysphoria policies), society generally has walked away from a Christian worldview.  
    And in some cases, we’re to blame.  When our lives as Catholics no longer act as salt and leaven, but rather are part of the rot and flatness of society, is it no wonder that others would not want to continue with Christians providing the overarching theme of society?  Two extreme examples from the past century stand out as acute reminders that simply being Christian doesn’t mean you live a Christian life: Hitler and Stalin were both baptized Christians: Hitler a Catholic and Stalin a Russian Orthodox.  But many more stopped living the faith in their work and in their homes, which had an even greater diminishment of trust in a Christian worldview.  
    So, as we celebrate Christ the King this Sunday, what do we celebrate in a post-Christendom world?  This is an important date for the Traditional Latin Mass community of Flint, but how do we celebrate Christ the King when He seems to reign less and less in our country and in our world?  
    In the first place, we have to ask ourselves if Christ is truly king in our lives.  Can people tell that I am Catholic when I work?  When I invite friends over to my house?  When I go on vacation?  The first and most important way to spread a Christian and Catholic culture is to live it ourselves.  If we do not live the Gospel at its roots, that is, in a radical way (from the Latin word radice, meaning root), then no one is going to listen to me encouraging them to become Catholic or to live with Catholic values.  One thing that people look for today is authenticity.  While we all fall short of our goals at times, living something in integrity convinces others.  Living Catholicism only as a mask does not convince others, and strengthens the point that it’s not worth trying, since even those who profess it don’t live it.  May our lives not reflect the quote from G.K. Chesterton: “The Christian idea has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”  If we don’t do what we can to live up to the standard Christ sets, why would we expect others to do so?

    Secondly, Christ told Pontius Pilate that His Kingdom was not of this world.  That doesn’t mean that we don’t advance the Gospel and Christ’s way of life, but that it will always be opposed.  Christ is King, whether we and the world accept Him or not.  And at the end of time, that kingdom will come in force.  But until that happens, our goal is to encourage others, by proposition, not imposition, to join in the kingdom, so that the inauguration of the full reign of Christ will be a day of joy for them and us, not a day of wrath.  The blueprint for this is what is called the Apostolic Model (in distinction from the Christendom Model).  Our key is to live like the Apostles did: filled with the Holy Spirit; committed wholeheartedly to Christ; willing to suffer persecution joyfully for the sake of the Name.  The first disciples were not theologians.  Maybe St. Paul could claim that title, but most of the first disciples simply opened themselves to Christ’s grace and were willing to die for their belief that He is God and saved them from sin and eternal death.  They lived in a way that showed they were ready for Christ’s return at any moment, not growing drowsy from the wait.  

    Living in such a way, and dying in such a way, transformed the first-century world.  The first generations of Christians did not participate in the all-too-common debauchery of public life.  They did not concern themselves with doing anything to gain power and prestige.  They loved those who persecuted them.  They lived innocent lives, but did not disdain to be martyred when confronted with false charges of treason or heresy against the Roman pantheon.  This convinced everyday people to convert and follow Christ then, and it will work to convince and convert everyday people now.  In a world that lacks logical consistency; in a world gone made by lust and power, those who live the truth (not their truth but the truth) stand out as beacons.  Yes, some will persecute those who are not mad.  St. Anthony of the Desert saw this some seventeen hundred years ago when he wrote, “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attach him, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.’”   So we need to be ready for greater persecution, if it comes.  But when neighbors recognize that we are not buying into the cultural madness, and that we are even willing to suffer because we do not buy into it, they will slowly come to our side, and sense the power of the Gospel, just as ordinary Romans did in the first three hundred years of the Church.
    Christ is King.  And while His Kingdom has not advance in this world recently, and in fact has receded quite a bit, His Kingdom cannot, in the end, be stopped.  In the meantime, our goal is to live the faith in its fulness, doing all we can to follow Christ with all of who we are.  When we do this, we live as faithful subjects of so great a King, and can expect to be welcomed into the mansions prepared for us when His Kingdom comes in all its fulness at the end of time.  To Christ be honor and glory for ever and ever.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.