Christ the King

TOWARDS the end of November we keep the feast of Christ the King, a relatively new addition to the Church’s calendar and so not known as such to Saint Anthony. This year, the readings at Mass are taken from the Prophet Ezekiel and the Gospel of St Matthew, the great parable of the sheep and the goats.

In ancient Israel, kings were regarded as shepherds of their people (the great king David had been a shepherd-boy in his youth). The many bad kings who followed David were denounced by the prophets as bad shepherds who mistreated the flock entrusted to them by God. In his commentary on the Gospel for the second Sunday after Easter (often known as ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’), the Saint quotes from the prophet Ezekiel: “I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David, and he shall feed them and he shall be their shepherd.” (Ezekiel 34.23, Sermons I, 274). In the dark days of the Exile, brought about largely because of the sins of the rulers of Israel, God promised his people a shepherd of a different stamp, one who would be the true ‘David’. Anthony explains that this prophecy is fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Jesus, the true shepherd

 

Not long before His Passion, Our Lord gathered His disciples round Him and gave them a vivid picture of the final Judgement, when every soul will be called to account. Anthony refers to this parable in many places, although as in his day it did not form any of the Sunday Gospels we have to look the places up in the Biblical Index to the Sermons. I found twenty-three references!



“When the Son of Man shall come in his majesty, and all his angels with him.” This echoes the great judgement-scene in the Book of Daniel, and Anthony reminds us that the angels are “the witnesses of human actions, done well or ill under their care.” (Sermons I,120) It is good for us to remember at all times the presence of our guardian angel, whose task it is to guide and protect us. Then the nations are first gathered together and then separated into two groups “as a shepherd separates sheep from goats.” This in itself is the Judgement, instant and infallible, when each person knows within their own heart whether they belong to Christ or not. In a sense each person is their own judge.

It is after this separation is made that the King speaks “with a voice of joy, gladness and exultation,” (Sermons I,116) saying, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.” The Messiah-King speaks in the name of His Father from whom He has received authority and to whom He in turn renders His account. To the Blessed He allots their own ‘kingship’. They are not simply subjects, they share in the rule of God’s creation, which has always been God’s plan for them. We hear an echo of Genesis, when God gave to humankind the stewardship of His creation. This is their blessing, their final happiness. Medieval writers liked to speak of our final state as ‘fruition’, a state of completion and fulfilment, God’s harvest.

 

An invitation

 

The word ‘Come’ is an invitation to leave behind the sorrows of earth and to join in the Banquet of God and His angels (Sermons III, 430). On earth we may have been ‘sons of sorrow’, but we are now ‘sons of grace’ and will be ‘sons of glory’ (and daughters too! Cf Sermons IV, 108). The voice of Christ, already described above as full of joy and gladness, is also “sweet and gentle, worthy of praise, loving and kind.” (Sermons IV, 176) It is not a voice of anger or condemnation, but “the whisper of a gentle breeze” telling of His unspeakable mercy. “Welcome to your true home.” (cf. Sermons IV, 283)

Jesus is not simply a Judge, he is a Saviour. Anthony writes, “To be a saviour, six things are necessary,” namely, to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty and so on; which are called “the corporal works of mercy.” (cf. Sermons III, 326) We should not think of salvation in purely spiritual terms: it involves the whole person, body and soul together. God gives us many gifts in this world, both material and spiritual, so that we may help our neighbour. Anthony likens these gifts to a purse filled with money, such as might be carried by a pilgrim: “You are a pilgrim, O man, so carry this purse with you on your pilgrim way.” (Sermons III, 354)

 

The Judgement

 

Returning to the theme of Christ in majesty, coming again as our Judge, Anthony cries out, “I heard you say in the judgement, I was thirsty, etc.; and my eye sees you sitting, terrible, upon the throne of your majesty. I reprehend myself in confession and do penance in humility of mind and affliction of body.” (Sermons IV, 114) Christ says that what we do for the least of our, and His, brothers and sisters we do for Him. We must learn, we must train ourselves, to see Christ in everyone we meet, however hard that is at times.

But if Christ invites the Blessed with the word, “Come!” in the Last Judgement the proud and complacent will be broken and cast down by the dreadful sentence, “Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.” And note this: while the Blessed are called to the place prepared for them, the wicked are sent to the place prepared, not for them, but for “the devil and his angels”. No human being was meant by God to go there; but if they refuse the place prepared for them, where else is there to go?

 

I know you not!

 

Elsewhere, Our Lord speaks of saying to the unloving, “I know you not!” (cf. Sermons II, 50) This possibility, says the Saint, “should always echo in the ears of the heart.” (Sermons II, 294) This is the justice of Christ, applied to the covetous and avaricious especially. Anthony sees those vices, the possessiveness which is the very opposite of the generous love God asks of us, as particularly odious. The Franciscan ideal of poverty is the antidote.

In speaking in such a way of the Judgement (rather alien to our modern outlook), Anthony emphasises the reality of the moral choices we make in this life, and their consequences. What we make ourselves, little by little, in this life, we shall have to endure hereafter. By opening ourselves to love, we hear Christ’s voice as the gentle invitation, “Come!” If we close ourselves to love, we shut Him out; but then we shall be forced to hear Him “like a hailstorm, with thunder and lightning and fire.” (Sermons III, 402) “What an earthquake there will be then, noise and tumult, grief and groaning, gnashing of teeth and weeping,” (Sermons IV, 176), but all those who open their hearts to the Lord will be safe.