A Kingship Of The Heart
Michiel Peeters - Bishop Hurkmans has asked me to prepare today’s sermon. This gives me the opportunity to preach for once myself at our Parish Feast. But I shall be brief! Today’s feast, Christ the King, was instituted in 1925 by Pope Pius XI. Since then, in many Brabant towns and villages, you find a Christ the King statue, triumphantly expressing Catholic self-consciousness.
The one on the Heuvel reads: Regi Suo Cives, the citizens to their king. Which implies: where northerners are devoted to the Protestant royal house, we Catholics have our king, Christ! It was in those years that our university was also founded.
When Bishop Bekkers created this student parish, he made today’s Solemnity its annual feast. What is a king? As the most important and significant political function, that ensures unity and order in a given society, it is less felt today. However, in student parlance, the term lives on. “Je bent een koning! [You are truly a king!],” means something similar to you are great, you move through life in a uniquely free, sovereign way!
A way that is enviable! I want to be your friend because I desire to become like you, as free and sovereign as you are. The epithet was also used for Jesus of Nazareth, that “teacher” with no official appointment, who two thousand years ago traveled around what today is called Israel and Palestine. People were so impressed with him that they called him king. In fact, that was one of the main charges brought against him in the summary trial that led to his execution: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. Governor Pilate— who represented Roman power—understood the concept in political terms.
But Jesus declares, as we have just heard: “Yes, I am a king, but my kingship is not from this world, οὐκ ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου,” is not from this “cosmos”; it is from another “cosmos,” from another “order,” mine is a kingship of another order. It creates order not with power and external laws, but by awakening, potentializing and attracting the heart of man.
Those who allow their humanity to be aroused, awakened, attracted by that exceptional presence, discover to their surprise a freedom they did not have before: a free and sovereign way of standing in life. For Christ lets us share in his kingship: not as power, but as a new, free way of being in reality, within the circumstances, a way that is also attractive and fruitful. Pilate executed Jesus. But Christians say that was not the last word.
They say he resurrected, and remains present, in a company, a sign of unity; in which I can become myself, free, if I allow the message it carries to speak to me, that is, if I treat it “critically”: if I compare it with the deep needs and evidences of my heart. Is this an old fairy tale? It is a fact that while two hundred years ago the whole world talked about Napoleon and all imaginable power was at his feet, at present nothing happens in Napoleon’s name.
Whereas today, people all over the globe gather, and change, because of that Jewish rabbi with no official appointment. He is, if he works, if he changes. Christ’s being a “king” can interest us if his presence among us today allows us to share in his free, sovereign way of being in reality, whatever our circumstances. A fruitful, way that creates “true order,” not by force, but by attraction. A place like this exists to allow us to verify that.
The author did not review the text and its translation.
English.
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Fr Michiel Peeters serves as the Student Chaplain at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. Fr. Michiel Peeters is a thoughtful and engaging spiritual leader who encourages students to delve deeper into their faith and personal growth while navigating their university experience.
