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TKC!
Christ the King!
Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral, Houston
November 20, 2011
 It’s a pleasure for the Legionaries of Christ and the friends and lay
members Regnum Christi member to celebrate the Solemnity of
Christ the King at Sacred Heart co-Cathedral.
o Grateful to: Fr Lawrence for accommodating us as he did so
graciously last year.
 Today is a very special day for Legionaries and Regnum Christi
members in Houston and around the world.
o Today the Church proclaims that Christ is King.
o He is King of not a little chunk of turf; it’s not a continent, it’s not
the world; it’s all creation and the heavens.
o Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him
the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and
under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord” (Phil 2: 9-11)
o The Regnum Christi translates to: the Kingdom of Christ
o The Legionaries of Christ and the Regnum Christi members are
a spiritual family who love Jesus Christ and therefore what He
loves: His Church and souls. We commit to live out our
baptismal call to holiness and to engage in apostolic action; that
is we get involved. We commit to establish the Kingdom of
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Christ in every person and in society through the transformation
of culture in justice and love.
 Catholic lay movements are fairly new to the Church, basically
they’ve taken off in the last 30 years and truly inspired by Vatican II.
It’s another effort of the Holy Spirit to shape culture.
 The Church has done so much for society over the centuries.
o Hospitals
o Education
o Work for the poor
o Inventions
 All these works of apostolate, and so many, many more, transformed
culture form the 1st century on…
o First, we must understand and describe what culture is.

We can say that culture is the set of actions, reactions,
thoughts and ideas of a group of people that becomes a
certain kind of collective subconscious.
 Culture is not only what happens but also how people
evaluate what happens. It encompasses one’s philosophy
of life, priorities, values and ethics: how one views the
family, human life, responsibility, sacrifice, one’s elders,
authority, and so on.

Culture is also a system in which concepts are not
isolated but interrelated.
 Culture is concerned, therefore, with public
consciousness: a mentality, a way of thinking, judging,
reacting and acting. We may ask, “What are the factors
that shape culture and influence it, for better or for
worse?”
o Culture is always in flux; it must be continually educated, but in
what?
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 Will the philosophy of materialism reign?
 Will secularism be the choice of our age putting God into
a box and the gospel of utilitarianism be our lord?
Utilitarianism: only that which is useful is good…what
about the aged? What about those with special needs?
 How about a complete redefinition of marriage and family
that would’ve simply surpassed one’s imagination 15
years ago?
 Does the Gospel of Jesus Christ have a place in this
world? Of course!
 He has come to establish his Kingdom and that Kingdom
are men and women, boys and girls who know, love and
live the Truth.
 Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
o Our country is founded upon the truths of the Gospel:
 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights,[74] that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
 What holds therefore a country together? It’s culture,
which is the expression of her inner principles.
 Samuel Adams said, “A general dissolution of principles
and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of
America than the whole force of the common enemy.”
o The Kingdom of Christ is his Church on earth and all the saints
in heaven.
 Catholics from all ages have felt an inner drive to extend
the Church, that is by inviting someone to Jesus.
 As Blessed Pope JPII said, “Love for Jesus and His
Church must be the passion of our lives!”
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o You and I believe with all our heart and soul that Christ and His
Church are one.
 That truth has been passed on to us from our
predecessors, the apostles, especially St. Paul, who
learned that equation on the Road to Damascus, who
teaches so tenderly that the Church is the bride of Christ,
that the Church is the body of Christ, that Christ and His
Church are one.
 That truth has been defended by bishops, priests and laity
before and yet even today, at the cost of “dungeon, fire,
and sword.”
 That truth -- that He, Christ, and she, His Church, are one
-- moistens our eyes and puts a lump in our throat as we
whisper with De Lubac, “For what would I ever know of
Him, without her?”
o The Church is alive!
 She isn’t some cumbersome, outmoded club of sticklers,
with a medieval bureaucracy, silly human rules on fancy
letterhead, one more movement rife with squabbles,
opinions, and disagreement.
 She isn’t a system of organizational energy and support
that requires maintenance.
 She is alive!
 The Church is Jesus -- teaching, healing, saving, serving,
inviting; Jesus often "bruised, derided, cursed, defiled."
 The Church is a communion, a supernatural family. Most
of us, praise God, are born into it, as we are into our
human families. So, the Church is in our spiritual DNA.
The Church is our home, our family.
 Our urgent task to reclaim “love of Jesus and His Church
as the passion of our lives” summons us not into
ourselves but to Our Lord. Jesus prefers prophets, not
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programs; saints, not solutions; conversion of hearts, not
calls to action; prayer, not protests: Verbum Dei rather
than our verbiage.
 Jesus Christ is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. If he is on our
side, who can be against us!
 Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.