L'Angolo di Girolamo Savonarola: Catholic homiletics in lean times

WHO IS CHRIST THE KING AND WHAT IS TRUTH ?

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The ironic question, "What is truth?», Today it no longer resonates into the common hall of Pontius Pilate, unfortunately it resonates for years inside the visible church, where you risk losing the truth to run after our egocentric cravings individualistic made fables.

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Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo.

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Jesus Christ be praised !

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Byzantine icon depicting Christ the King

This XXXIV Sunday in Ordinary Time, with the narration of Blessed John the Evangelist, the Holy Gospel gives us the dialogue between Christ the Lord and the Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate [cf. GV 18, 33-37], focused on kingship and truth [see text of the Liturgy of the Word, WHO].

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The feast of Christ the King It was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 with the intent to manifest the lordship of God over the world in contrast to the forms of modern atheism and to all “ismi“ arisen between the nineteenth and the twentieth century. Of the “ismi“ that humanity is dragged back to the dawn of the third millennium without having them processed yet, but above all without having them resolved. It deserves to clarify that I am referring to the enlightenments, al liberalismi, socialism, of communism, to fascism, to materialisms, of capitalism, to hedonism, to relativism and religious syncretism, to continue with the false ecumenismi until you get to pauperismi and to misericordismi …

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If the Blessed Pius IX realized the consequences of liberal capitalism indifferentist and Marxism during gestation, Pope Pius XI touched the concrete fruit of one and the. Therefore he wanted to propose to humanity the mystery of the cosmic Christ-faith: Christ, the only king of the universe.

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Hence the Supreme Pontiff Pius XI tries again to put Christ on the throne from which he had tried to oust him before, during and after the French Revolution, which extolled so fraudulent three principles far from being invented by the Enlightenment, because they have always been the pillars on which rests the Christian message: freedom, equality and fraternity. But if freedom, which is the greatest gift of God to man, and that is a carrier suffix mystery of creation [cf. Gen 1, 26-31]; if equality, brought to life by our being free creatures created in the image and likeness of God; if the fraternity, that makes us sons in communion with God; But take away the eternal and unchanging foundation that is the Creator, will not be born any Age of Enlightenment, but only the darkness of the alleged reason. And this darkness the supposed purpose will be based on the most satanic human presumptions: You can do without God and to eliminate God from the history of mankind.

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For us Christians, the real reason is Christ the King that recapitulates in himself all things, as expressed by the Blessed Apostle Paul in his letter to the faithful of the Church of Ephesus [Ef 1, 10]. Faced with this opera that encompasses the entire deposit of faith, we are called to penetrate and to let ourselves be penetrated by the mystery of the incarnate Christ, dead and risen. Christ is not a part of our lives, It is the totality of our being and existence, or as he liked to call Bishop Augustine of Hippo and Doctor of the Church: the Christ Allus.

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In the Gospel story of Blessed John the Evangelist, contains the conversation between Jesus Christ and Pontius Pilate focused on the concept of kingship. A conversation that takes place after the Jewish authorities had judged Jesus Christ punishable by death, and brought him into the judgment hall before the Governor of Judea so that they ratify their judgment translating it into a death sentence. Like this, Pontius Pilate, He entered into the judgment hall question to Jesus Christ if he is really the king of the Jews. Meets Christ the Lord: "You say this to you, or have others told you about me?» [GV 18, 34]. And here it should be noted that while in the three Synoptic Gospels Christ the Lord responds indefinable "you say it ', in the Gospel of Blessed John the Evangelist He responds very clearly using the greek word reign, basel, which means kingship [in the Holy Gospels with: the kingdom of heaven, It indicates the kingdom of heaven]. A quel point, the King of the Universe Divine, He tries to make it clear to your partner that his kingship is not of this world. Pontius Pilate, but it is a practical military, in its own way a materialist, He continues to interloquire wondering: "So you are a king?». To which Christ the Lord answers: "You say: I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world: to bear witness to the truth. Whoever it belongs to the truth, hears my voice ".

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What the kingship of Christ is not of this world, it must not lead us to believe that it is only and exclusively over the ground, otherwise why, the Word of God, He would incarnate being born on this earth? That God of Christ the King is indeed a divine kingship, which, however, it is fully embedded in the ground world to be exerted on humanity, albeit in different ways and forms quite different from those that characterize the kingdoms of the earth.

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Pontius Pilate, practical and materialistic military, He can not follow the speeches. What interests him is only to know if Jesus Christ is the king of the Jews; So in part does not want, and partly it is not even able to follow the conversation of Jesus Christ, because from good Roman wants to know the facts and know if that man is the king of the Jews.

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Blessed John the Evangelist, in presenting the key question of Pontius Pilate, so the formula: "You are a king?» [GV 1,37]. With this formulation completely different from the question "Are you the King of the Jews?"That emerges instead in the Holy Gospels Synoptic [Mt 27, 11; MC 15, 2; LC 23, 3] the kingship of Christ transcends the very simplistic concept of "king of the Jews", In fact he is not king of a small region of this land, but of the whole universe, one who - as he writes the Blessed Apostle Paul -, by divine will, once raised from the dead was seated at the right hand of God the Father in heaven, above all rule and authority, of each power and domination [cf. Ef 1, 20-21].

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The kingship of Christ, God has then a much larger scale compared to what they think or trying to figure Pontius Pilate: it is placed in a universal dimension in which the royalty of the Redeemer has much broader scope. Christ the Lord is king because through the Incarnation of the Word of God in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, He came into the world "to bear witness to the truth" [GV 18, 37]. It is not by chance, continuing its interrogation, Governor of Judea begins with the question: «What Estin truth», in the Latin text "What is truth?», which translated means "what is truth?» [GV 18, 38]. Question where you could take and interpret a desire to understand, so you know, whereas it is only a rhetorical question formulated in purely ironic way.

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This reflection that will leave you on the Solemnity of Christ the King is that unfortunately it resonates for years inside the visible church, where you risk losing the truth to run after our egocentric cravings individualistic made fables. And this too, two millennia ago, He had said and prophesied the Blessed Apostle Paul in his letter addressed to his disciple Timothy:

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«The day will come, indeed, when they will not endure sound doctrine;, ma, having itching ears they, will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, refusing to listen to the truth to turn to fairy tales " [II Tm 4, 3-4].

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The way they save themselves and save the visible Church from this destructive danger, there it then instructs the Apostle himself:

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“If we ourselves or an angel from heaven preached a different Gospel to you than the one we preached to you, is anàthema! We have already said it and now I repeat it: if any man preach a gospel other than what you accepted, is anàthema».

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there, what is the truth: iThe throne on which is seated Christ the Lord, the King of the Universe, he who recapitulates in himself all things, things in heaven and things on earth [cf. Ef 1, 10]. And if anyone, whoever it is, should preach a different gospel: is anàthema!

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the Island of Patmos, 25 November 2018

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