THE KING COMES TO ESTABLISH HIS KINGDOM

“The King Comes to Establish His Kingdom”
Homily: 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time
June 12th, 2005, by Fr. David Michael Engo

We call to mind the story of Moses, who grew up as an Egyptian, and then, after committing murder, fled to Hebron. There he lived for forty years as a shepherd. When he was eighty, he encountered this bush that was on fire but not consumed by the fire. From this burning bush, Moses heard the words of pity and mercy from God. “I have visited my people and heard their cries.” Moses is then sent into Egypt as emissary of God to do battle with the Egyptian gods and rescue God’s people from slavery. After the contest of signs and wonders, God performs the ultimate sign by sending the angel of death through Egypt who will kill the first born of those who did not follow the prescriptions given through Moses. The battle is finally over when God drowns the entire army of Pharaoh in the Red Sea. He then leads His people through forty years in the desert, forty years of dependence on God and battles with surrounding nations, to the Promised Land.

This story of Moses is the foreshadowing of what God had intended to do in the future. Centuries later, God, again visited His people. He heard their cries and saw the sufferings imposed on them by the original sin of Adam. He witnessed their captivity and chose to mercifully rescue them from the slavery of sin and death.

This time the Angel of the Lord comes to the Blessed Virgin Mary. He announces to her God’s desire to save His people, to establish His kingdom. The Blessed Mother gives God the permission to become Man. She becomes the new burning bush, on fire but not consumed. She is Virgin and Mother as she brings forth the Word of Salvation, the savior, Christ our Lord. Forth from her is sent the deliverer Who will rescue His people, not from a physical slavery, but from a far more serious slavery, the slavery to sin and death.

God comes to His people. He sees their sufferings and He heals them. He sees their demonic possession and He delivers them. He sees them in death and so He raises them. Today we read in the Scriptures how our Lord saw the people’s sufferings and so he had “pity on them”. This is no ordinary pity. This is Divine Pity! This is Divine Mercy! It is not the pity of: “Oh, you poor thing!” But the pity of a Father Who loves His children and desires that they suffer from sin no more. He is one who pities with the ability and power to change the pain and free the soul.

Jesus calls to Himself twelve Apostles. He calls them by name. He calls them to be His emissaries. Their mission, we see in the Gospel today, is to announce that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. In other words: “Step aside, Satan; your kingdom is at an end”. The Apostles are sent out in order to let the people of Israel know that their salvation is at hand. God is among us. The King is here to do battle against the kingdom of this world.

In order to give proof to His words, Jesus bestows upon the Apostles the power to do in His name what He has the power to do. He confers upon them the power He has as God. They are to drive out demons, heal the sick and raise the dead. By their works they give living proof that a far more powerful King than the ruler of this world has come to overthrow him.

Christ will fight on the great day of battle. Sin, suffering and death will engage the King of Kings in a raging war. The King, Christ Jesus, will fight gallantly as he embraces the sins of humanity, past, present and future. He will accept lovingly the sufferings for every sin no matter how big or how small. And, He will battle with death right down to the very tomb. To all others it will seem as if the King of Kings has lost. But not so! He buries sin in the grave and tramples death as He rises. The victory over sin and death is won. Now the battle for each and every soul begins.

Jesus, after rising, but before ascending, now sends out the Apostles with new power, new authority. He confers upon them the weaponry to save each soul: the power to cleanse and claim souls through the waters of baptism, the power to feed the spiritually starving with the Holy Eucharist, the power to heal the spiritually blind through the preaching of the Truth, the power to free those imprisoned by sin by the forgiveness of sins in the sacrament of reconciliation. A power that did not cease with the Apostles, but a power that continues on through the Apostolic succession of our bishops and priests. This battle against the evil one of this world continues to be waged by the Church. She has the authority of the King; she is His Kingdom on Earth. We are not only emissaries of Christ but we are also warriors for the Kingdom. We are the Church Militant. This is why the bishops used to give kids a smack at confirmation. It was a liturgical way of calling that young person to the battle over sin and death.
Although the authority of Christ to bring forth the sacraments lies in the bishops, the successors of the apostles, we are not exempt from the mission to bring every soul to redemption. The call of the Second Vatican Council was a call for us to engage in the mission of the salvation of souls. Indeed, John Paul II, and now Pope Benedict XV,I call us to that same mission, to infiltrate this world and rescue the lost.

We, too, must have the eyes of Christ, filled with Divine Pity, Divine Mercy. We too must see the sufferings of His people. We too must hear their cries of slavery. Do we see souls that are still imprisoned by original sin and have not found the freeing waters of baptism? Have we heard the cries of those crippled by mortal sin and are in need of confession? Have you visited those who have been crippled by addiction or who have lost their true dignity as human persons through sexual perversions and immorality? When we see them, perhaps it is ourselves we see in this. Do our eyes fill with Divine Pity? Are our Hearts filled with Divine Mercy for them or for ourselves? Do we say:, “Poor thing?” Or do we reach out with the power of the Holy Spirit, given to us by Christ, and dispel the darkness of the lies through the truth of Christ Jesus? Do we offer them baptism? Do we offer to bring them to confession? Do we share with them the saving work of Christ? Do we share the saving work of the cross for the world and the saving work of the cross in our own lives now being offered to them?

All of you have heard me speak on the need for evangelization before. You might be wondering why I make such a fuss about evangelization. Allow me to digress for a moment and end by pulling it all together.

In 1917 we had the most authenticated apparition of the Blessed Mother. The final miracle was witnessed by hundreds of thousands of people including non-believing government officials. Three shepherd children in Portugal were visited by and angel who instructed them to pray and do penance. They were 7, 8 and 10 years old. Then, over the course of six months, once a month, the Blessed Mother appeared to the children and told them many things.

First was that the heart of Jesus was greatly grieved over the sins being committed against His Sacred Heart. She told them that Jesus desired to establish devotion to Her Immaculate Heart and that the offences against their hearts must stop. She called the world to repentance and conversion through the children. She said that the First World War would end, but if man does not repent and change a far worse war will come. And it did! She then told them that, if the world would still proceed to offend Her Heart and the Sacred Heart, Russia would spread her errors through out the world. And it did! She promised that if Russia were consecrated to Her Immaculate Heart, then Russia would be converted. Russia was consecrated and, soon after, Communism died in Russia. But, she also told us that if we still refuse to repent, then wars will continue and entire nations will be annihilated.

Do we understand now the importance of our need to evangelize? Why we cannot keep the saving grace of Christ for ourselves? Do we still need to question the importance of our mission?

In Fatima, Our Lady revealed that Jesus wanted to promote devotion to Her Immaculate Heart. It will be through Her Immaculate Heart that she will prepare the world for the final conflict with the final antichrist. She said, "In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.” This is reflective of the book of Genesis where God tells Lucifer that “the woman will crush your head."
In these last days of battle, the weapon must be our Rosary. We must teach the children how to pray it and you need to pray it as a family. Through devotion to Mary you and your families will be able to endure these days of spiritual war, and the whole family will grow in holiness. Secondly, through devotion to Mary, you will find the grace to know how to bring souls to Christ. You will be given the spiritual gifts necessary to raise souls from the death of sin to forgiveness, to open blind minds to the light of Truth, to heal the diseases of the soul with the gentle soothing mercy of Christ.

Devotion to the Blessed Mother does not draw us away from Christ. On the contrary, she brings us ever closer to Christ. She wants Him known and loved. She wants us saved and healed. She is His mom and ours; she wants what is best for Him and us.

Today as we receive the Lord in the Holy of Holies, the Eucharist, let us commit ourselves to the saving work of Christ. Let us be missionaries of Mary, drawing all souls back to Jesus through Mary. Let us wage war upon the enemy of this world. With the angels at our side, our apostles to strengthen us, and the grace of Christ to embolden us, let us battle to win all souls for the glory of the King of Kings and the honor of His Mother. May we, too, have hearts filled with Divine Pity, Divine Mercy.

May God bless you and Mary keep you.

Father David Michael Engo

 

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