PARISH NEWS

A Lot Bigger King

Pope Paul VI retitled this feast “Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.” (John 18:33-37) We have learnt better than triumphantly proclaiming, as we once did, Christ the King as the emperor of the Catholic Church to the exclusion of all others. God is a lot bigger than that! We have developed “a consciousness (which) holds that church teachings are modified in the light of science, cultural shifts in consciousness and insights from historical studies” (Treston K. The Wind Blows Where It Chooses, p59). For example, Br Guy Consolmagno SJ, Director of the Vatican Observatory, organised a ground-breaking conference in 2017 at Castel Gandolfo, near Rome which reiterated what past pope’s and theologians have been impressing on all God’s people, that the myth of science and religion being incompatible must be finally ended, and that “there never was anything to fear for religious believers in the theory of evolution.”(Daniel O’Leary An Astonishing p18)

“Yes, I am a King” says Jesus, the Christ. “I was born for this; I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth.” (John 18:35). Pursuing this universal truth in Christ at the centre of the cosmos, we emphasise, “our journey towards the consummation of history which fully corresponds to the plan of his love: “to unite all things in him, things in Heaven and things on earth” (Gaudium et Spes[Vatican II document, “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World”] no.45). Because, as Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed, “In light of the centrality of Christ, Gaudium et Spes interprets the condition of contemporary men and women, their vocation and their dignity, and also the milieus in which they live: the family, culture, the economy, politics, the international community. This is the Church’s mission, yesterday, today and for ever: to proclaim and witness to Christ so that the human being, every human being, may totally fulfil his or her vocation”. (Benedict XVI St Peter’s Square, Solemnity of Christ the King 2005).

Deacon Mark Kelly