November 22 (Celebration mobile)
Martyrology: Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe: to him alone the power, glory and majesty in the endless ages of ages.
This festival was introduced by Pope Pius XI in the encyclical "Quas Primas" 11 December 1925, a culmination of the Jubilee was celebrated in that year.
is little known and perhaps a bit 'forgotten. Once elevated to the papacy in 1922, Pius XI condemned liberalism first explicitly "Catholic" in his encyclical "Ubi mysterious Gods." He understood, however, in an encyclical that disapproval would not be worth much, given that the people Christian did not read the papal message. That wise pontiff then thought that the best way to teach him was to use the liturgy. Hence the origin of "Quas primas," in which he showed that the kingship of Christ meant (and means) necessarily the duty of Catholics to do everything in their power to strive towards the ideal Catholic state: "Speeding and hasten this return [to the Social Kingship of Christ] with the action and coll'opera them, would be the duty of Catholics. " Stated, therefore, to establish the feast of Christ the King, explaining his intention to oppose it "a very effective remedy to the plague, which pervades the human society. The plague of our age is the so-called secularism, with its mistakes and its wicked incentives. "
This holiday coincides with the last Sunday of the liturgical year, this showed that with Christ the Redeemer is the Lord of history and time, to which all men and other creatures are subject. He is the Alpha and Omega, as sung by the Book of Revelation (Rev. 21, 6). Jesus before Pilate, has categorically stated his kingship. To the question of Pilate: "Then you are a king?", The Divine Redeemer said: "You say, I am a king" (Jn 18, 37).
Pius XI taught that Christ is truly King He alone, in fact, God and man - he wrote his successor, Pius XII, encyclical "Ad Caeli Reginam 11 October 1954 -" in the fullest sense, and its absolute ... is king. "
His reign, Pius XI explains, "primarily spiritual and (that) relates to spiritual things," is opposed only to that of Satan and the powers of darkness. The Kingdom of which Jesus speaks in the Gospel is not, therefore, of this world, that is, it has its origin in the human world, but in God alone, Christ has in mind a kingdom is not imposed by force of arms (not If he tells Pilate that his kingdom if it were a reality of the world his people "would fight because it was not delivered to the Jews "), but through the power of truth and love.
men enter, prepared by repentance, by faith and baptism, which produces an authentic interior regeneration. This requires King to his subjects, says Pope Pius XI, "not only a spirit of detachment from riches and earthly things, the mildness of manners, hunger and thirst for justice, but also that they rinneghino themselves and take up their cross" . United
This, however, already present in mystery, he will find fulfillment at the end of time, the second coming of Christ, when, as the Supreme Judge and King, is to judge the living and the dead, separating as the shepherd, "the sheep from the goats" (Mt 25, 31 et seq.). It is a fact revealed by God and has always professed by the Church and, most recently, the Second Vatican Council, who taught in that regard that "here on earth the Kingdom is already present in mystery, but with the coming of the Lord , will come to perfection "(constitution" Gaudium et Spes).
With his second coming, Christ will sum up all things, making a "new heaven and new earth" (Rev. 21, 1), wiping tears of sorrow and consoling each and banish sin, death and all injustice from the face of land. Also, the Council wrote that "In this kingdom creation itself will be freed from slavery to corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God "(Dogmatic Constitution" Lumen Gentium ").
This is why Christians call of all time, even with the Our Father, the coming of His Kingdom ("Thy Kingdom Come") and, especially during Advent, they sing in the liturgy "Maranatha", ie "Come Lord", to express so impatient waiting for the parousia (cf. 1 Cor 16, 22).
Pius XI also adds that, however mistaken the man who denied Christ in man-power over all things temporal, "since he received from the Father's right absolute in all things created. " However - clear - Christ, when He was on earth, completely refrained from exercising his dominion, allowing - even today - that "the owners use them properly."
This power embraces all men. This had also clearly stated Leo XIII, encyclical "Annum Sacrum" of 25 May 1899, which prepared the consecration of mankind to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Holy Year of 1900. Papa Pecci had actually written that "Christ's rule extends not only about the Catholic population, or those who are reborn in the baptismal font, they belong, a penalty of law, the Church, although erroneous opinions they depart or dissent from it divides them by the charity, but also includes those without Christian faith, so that all mankind is under the power of Jesus Christ. "
Man, by disregarding the kingship of Christ in history and refusing to submit to his yoke that this is "sweet" and this load "light" can not find no salvation nor find true peace, being the victim of his passions, hatred and anxieties. Christ is the only "source of private and public health," said Pius XI. "Nor is there salvation in any other, nor under the sky is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved "(Acts 4, 12).
away from him before the man has visions and totalizing ideological systems and misleading, not seeking his kingdom and his righteousness, mankind has before him the various "-isms" of the story, diabolically, in the name of a false social progress, economic and cultural degrade every man, denying dignity.
And the twentieth century did not fail to provide their tragic examples with various authoritarian regimes, Nazi and Communist (which the Church has condemned in the strongest), proposing, for the umpteenth time, the great battle between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of Satan which will run until the end of time.
Suffice it here to refer, for example, just the only troubled period of the pontificate of Pope Ratti to have a clue.
With the encyclical "Mit brennender Sorge," March 14, 1937 - one of whose writers there was also the Cardinal Secretary of State and later Pope Pius XII, Eugenio Pacelli - the Roman Pontiff disapproved provocative neo-paganism held sway in Germany (the Nazis ), which was renouncing his Divine Wisdom and Providence, "with strength and sweetness dominates one end of the world" (Wis. 8, 1), and everything runs out; deplored even some modern preachers pursuing the myth of race and blood blamed Finally, the liturgies of the German Third Reich, real pagan rites, described as "false coins."
In Mexico, "totally feud by Freemasonry, where the U.S. had supported - in the name of their economic interests - the emergence of an openly anti-clerical and anti-Christian, heavy laws were passed restricting the freedom of the Catholic Church, establishing the expulsion unmarried priests, destroying churches and even the removal of the word "adios." The fanatic anticlerical governor of the Mexican state of Tabasco, Tomás Garrido Canabal, author of these repressive measures, on his farm, "La Florida", came to call as a sign of contempt, a bull, "God," a donkey gave him the name "Christ," a cow "Virgin of Guadalupe, an ox and a pig" Papa ". His son called him "Lenin" and her daughter "Zoila Libertad." A nephew was called "Luzbel" [Lucifer], another son "Satan".
It then formed an army of people, the "Cristeros," who fought with the cry of "Viva Cristo Rey! Long live the Virgin of Guadalupe! Viva Mexico! ". With the same words on his lips poured their blood in that land also legions of martyrs, while their tormentors exclaimed, filling wicker baskets with the severed heads of Catholics, "Long live our father Satan." It was a real holocaust "gone unnoticed and ignored. Some Christian martyrs of the brave Mexicans, under Pope John Paul II, have reached the glory of the altars, as the Jesuit Miguel Agustin Pro, shot without trial. His last words were right, "Long live Christ the King."
This serious situation of religious persecution was disapproved by Pius XI in the encyclical "Nos Es Muy Conocida" of March 28, 1937 and "Iniquis Afflictisque of 18 November 1926.
A strong opposition was finally shown with regard to Soviet Russia, against atheistic communism, condemned by the encyclical "Divini Redemptoris" of March 19, 1937, and in respect of Republican Spain, avowedly anti-religious.
Here, the Government of the Socialist Republican Azaña Y Manuel Díaz proclaimed that "from today, Spain is no longer Christian", aiming to "secularize" the state. A new constitution was nullified any power of the Church, the Catholic religion was reduced to the status of association, without financial support from the state, without schools, exposed to expropriation by the Decree of 24 January 1932 was declared the extinction of the Society of Jesus and if they confiscated the goods, was introduced in 1932, the divorce and civil marriage and abolished the crime of blasphemy, about six thousand men were massacred. Pius XI reacted strongly with the encyclical "Dilectissima Nobis" of June 3, 1933.
These examples demonstrate the centuries-old conflict, since the foundation of Christianity, between the Kingdom of Christ and that of Satan, and how, even in modern times, the kingship of Christ is challenged, preferring it to the "idols" political, economic, social and pseudo-religious.
