Dear Disciples of Christ at Holy Spirit, St. Helen’s, and St. Mary’s,

Last week I wrote to you about unity and how we are called together as a church to live in charitable harmony with each other. A church is really a collection of believers who assemble for the purpose of worshipping God and serving others as Christ commanded us. “I give you a new commandment, love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34). The people form the Church to put the words of Jesus into action and thus give praise to God for all that the Heavenly Father has provided for us.

This week we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King. It is a time of acknowledgment for all that we are in light of all that has been given to us by the providential God who sent his Son to save us from ourselves. It is an opportunity to show our gratitude for the Shepherding care God has given over the millennia to the People of Israel and now to us. We are governed/loved by/shepherded by a loving, caring, and benevolent Creator who saw our trials due to sin and sent his Son to free us from all those ills.

Jesus did that by offering himself in humility by birth, by living a simple life, and by giving his own life on the cross for each and every one of us. Only by the mystery of the saving nature of the cross and the love exhibited by God, his Son, and power of the Spirit that Jesus could die a horridness death in sheer humiliation could then become the King of the Universe. He did all that and became what the Heavenly Father offered, a seat at his right hand on the throne of heaven. As St. Paul reminds us in Romans, chapter 8:33-34, “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.”

On our part we offer a tribute of Thanksgiving which can be given in three ways:
1. We partake of the Eucharist (thanksgiving) at every Mass we attend, especially on Sunday. When that Sunday is the Solemnity of Christ the King there is added emphasis to the gratitude we offer as we acknowledge the gift Jesus is to us as our King and our Savior.

2. Secondly, we enter into a spirit of thanksgiving when we venerate Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. Our chapel visits to the Eucharist at the tabernacle is truly a gesture of gratitude. Attending adoration is even more so a gift of gratefulness. This weekend’s 40 Hours before the Eucharist in exposition is a tribute of gratitude to God. What a blessing we have to participate in this ancient ritual and to offer our time to the one who offered his life for us.

3. Thirdly, by living an example of gratitude given in the Beatitudes and taking Jesus at his word, “I have given you a new commandment….”

Fr. Tom