Christ Is King

The Church year guides us into inexhaustible mysteries. External riches are opened up to us and "in some way made present for all time." We "lay hold of them and are filled with saving grace" (Vatican II, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 102).

Today the Last Sunday of the Liturgical Year, the Feast of Christ the King. The Feast of Christ the king is relatively new since it was only established in 1925 by Pope Pius XI. The feast is intended to proclaim in a striking and effective manner Christ's royalty over individuals, families, society, governments, and nations.

At the Crucifixion Pilate proclaimed Jesus King of the Jews by having the words affixed to His Cross. We see it today whenever we look at a Crucifix, INRI, Iēsus Nazarēnus, Rēx Iūdaeōrum, Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews. Pilate, a pagan ruler who had no use for Jews or Christians was able to proclaim Jesus as King. Do we?

Does Christ reign in our heart? "For where your treasure us, there your heart will be also." Matt 6:21

Does Christ reign in our mind? "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God." Rom 12:2

Does Christ reign in our wills? "Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know weather the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own" John 7:17

Does Christ reign in our bodies? "Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it." 1 Car 12:27

So Pilate said to him, "Then you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world,to testify to the truth (John 18:37).

Awesome

The definition of Awesome, an adjective according to the dictionary is
1."inspiring an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, or fear; causing or inducing awe: anawesome sight."
2."showing or characterized by reverence, admiration, or fear; exhibiting or marked by awe.
3. "Slang. very impressive"

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction." Prov 1:7

Fear of the Lord is a deep reverence for God, to be in awe of God. As we get to know God, to learn more and more about Him we get to see how Awesome He is. 

God has no beginning and no end. He created us purely out of love not because He needs anything from us. Even after we turn our back on Him again and again He keeps coming to save us. He keeps loving us even when we refuse to love Him, He does great and wonderful things for us even when we don't deserve it.

God breathe life into us - Gen 2:7-8

We all turned our backs on Him - Rom 3:23

He still gave us His Son to be be our mediator, our Saviour - John 3:16

Testing Your Faith Produces Endurance

....That is James 1:3 and the topic of our 1st talk on Saturday morning (3rd of the weekend). It was the most powerfully delivered talk of the weekend and there were some really powerful talks over this weekend.

Fr Cornelius is a dynamic, powerful speaker, he speaks easily to all ages. He speaks easily to the youths without cheapening the message and the adults don't feel like they are being dumbed down.

The scripture verse calls for us to be strong in trust. If you want to build muscles then you go to the gym, put in the time and effort and sweat. If you want to be a great athlete then you train, you persevere through failures, if you fail then you get back up and try again. That's how we need to be about our Faith, we need to put in the time and effort to build our relationship with God. If we don't put in the effort or put in a half effort we can't expect to have a strong Faith or to stand strong in trust.

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His power. Put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able stand against the wiles of the devil." Eph 6:10-11. How do you grow strong in the Lord? Get to know Him. Fr C said if you want to know about someone you can google them and you can find out all kinds of info but if you want to get to know them then you spend time with them, develop a real relationship. Therefore you need to develop a relationship with Him, pray, read your bible, attend Mass regularly, frequent the Sacraments, learn about your Catholic Faith.

God is bigger than everything - our troubles, worries, problems, persecution, trials and the devil. We just need to persevere and don't give up. We easily persevere with everything in our life but in our Faith we easily give up on our Faith with the slightest change in the wind.

"and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved." Matt:22