“You say that I am a King.”
The language of kings does not appeal to the American mind.
After all, America was built on rejecting the kings and queens
and all that loyalty was done away with.
So this feast of Christ the King is a little more work for us
because we have to break through our own imagination
and how we think of this feast day.
St. Ignatius has some thing that can help us.
I am sure you have heard of Spiritual Exercises somewhere.
It is a 30-day retreat, where you are meant to go away
and pray in silence for 30 continuous days.
It is done also as a 30-week retreat,
living in the every-day world so to speak.
One of the first-week meditations St. Ignatius suggests
is called the Meditation of the Two Standards,
standard meaning a flag, a standard flag-bearer.
It is helpful on this feast day for us.
He says, “Imagine that you are on a battlefield
and you’ve got Jesus and his soldiers on one side.
On the other side, you have Satan and his armies.”
I know we do not use the word “Satan” very often
but just bear with me and use your imagination for this.
Start with Satan and his armies
and imagine yourself going among them.
Satan is a fearsome and fearful person.
He sends forth into the world his minions to divide the world;
and he does not want people to have their hearts open
to listening to Christ or doing God’s Will.
Satan sends them out with temptations;
first to get people consumed with possessions and wealth;
to get them distracted with all the collection of those.
Then to get them consumed with honors;
that they are important; that they need titles;
their egos need to be fed;
and that they are important and
what matters is what other people think.
Finally, pride.
Here they play to their ego,
that they are the center of all attention
and that they themselves are the most important part
of everything in their world.
Satan sends forth is minions to do that work.
St. Ignatius says then meditate on what Christ has to offer;
that Christ is a humble servant and
he calls us to that spirit of poverty;
to let go of collecting possessions and only take what one needs;
and not just take all of what one wants;
and to endure insults and persecutions for that same cause
but then to be a person of humility;
to accept that all the gifts that one has are gifts from God.
And that everything we have, including our health, is all a gift.
And out of humility, we recognize that we too have made mistakes
and that we do things that are wrong;
and we humbly then turn to others and serve others.
Ignatius says “Then stand in the center,
you must choose a side,very dramatic.
You can imagine.
You cannot fight for both sides.
But you must choose a side because there is a battle.”
Now I know that this is a little harder for us
because we do not think in terms of battles, kings, queens and armies
but in fact, there is a battle going on.
There is a battle going on for the soul of America.
Sure, there is a battle going on socially;
there is a battle going on politically
but the biggest battle that is going on is the battle for our souls.
And it is the only battle that we can win.
It is the battle for our own souls.
We, on this feast day of Christ the King, have to choose a side.
We have to choose.
You might say “I would never do any of those things.”
But in fact, you are right, we may not choose it
but how many hours do we spend on Facebook
looking for those likes and those little things?
Social media is all built on our vices.
Please understand all social media is built on vices not virtues.
They did it intentionally because it works.
They know that is what we will go.
The honors. The pride. The possessions.
That is what it is all built around.
We don’t maybe intentionally choose that
but we do in little ways;
each time we choose how we spend our time;
where we put our time each day;
and who we spend our time talking to and listening to each day.
Oh, it’s that little temptation that the armies of Satan
have been doing in our world for eons!
I am asking you to choose Christ.
Stand with Christ.
Today, we call this Stewardship Sunday
and I am meant to ask you for money
and tell you why we need it.
But we already know that from last week.
You do not need me to tell you what wonderful work we are doing
and to thank you for the wonderful work that you have done.
But I am going to ask you to do something more.
Yes, I am going to ask you for three things:
I am going to ask you, as I did last year,
for the one hour of financial stewardship,
which is to give one hour of your time to the Lord in stewardship.
So if you earn $20 an hour then to give $20 a week.
And if you earn $200 an hour then give $200 a week.
Equal sacrifice not equal gift.
And I am going to ask you for something more:
I want two other things:
I want an hour of your time not for me
but for Christ in prayer every week.
I want you to give 10 minutes of prayer every day
for 6 days in a row Monday through Saturday
and then for another hour, you come here on Sunday.
You are here already so I am asking you to commit
to the other hour of prayer every day.
I can get up here and talk all I want, every week
but unless we are learning to listen to Christ in our heart,
we are always going to be tempted by these little minions of Satan
that gets us to do and not choose Christ.
So I am asking you to choose Christ,
dedicating 10 minutes a day at a minimum.
You can do more and some of you already are doing more
but a minimum of 10 minutes of silent prayer,
learning to listen to what Christ is saying to us in our heart each day.
And I am asking you for one more thing:
I am asking you for one hour of your time in service to others.
It is not enough that we just service ourselves.
We are called to stand with Christ out of humility;
out of poverty of ourselves;
but also to serve others.
And to give one hour per week as we go forward.
We have so much work to do.
We have so much that we can be as a parish
but we cannot do that by paying our employees to do that.
We need your labor; and your time; and your talent.
Now there are gazillion things that we need
from tech ministry to help with these Masses;
from children singing to adults to play music and sing; to catechists.
One of the great scandals that we have here
is we cannot get enough catechists to teach our children.
We have to go to another parish to get a parishioner
who is willing from another parish to come to teach our children.
I do not know about you but that doesn’t make sense.
It is crazy that we have 2,000 parishioners and
we cannot find one or two people to teach our children our faith.
If you have a child, can you just give me one hour
and help do this together in this parish
without having to go next door to get somebody to teach our children?
That is not all we need.
We need people to help with St. Vincent DePaul;
the many other social ministries that we need.
We can do this.
We need to do it together.
And we need your time to do it.
I need you to go online to the website and
go onto Time and Talent and
we want you look at the long list and
take the hour of the week to pray and say,
“Lord, where do you want me to serve?
Where are my talents, where are my gifts
that you are calling me to use today
because I want to stand with Christ.
I am going to give myself to Christ.
And that means I am going to give my time and my talent;
and yes, my treasure.”
Today, I am asking us to celebrate, yes
we want to celebrate the gift of Christ in our life
but we also need to choose Christ day after day:
I will choose to be kind.
I will choose to be gentle.
I will choose to be forgiving.
I will choose to love.
I will choose to serve.
Today, I am asking you to stand with me;
and to stand with Christ;
and to choose Christ and give an hour of your time in service;
an hour of your time in prayer;
an hour of your treasure to the Church;
and an hour in public prayer together on Sunday.
We stand together and choose Christ.
