Hi everyone, and welcome to Weekly Homilies with Father Mark Suslenko, Pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. We are part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford. I'm Carol Vassar, parish director of communications, and you're listening to Season 4, Episode 37 for the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe: November 21, 2021. Our Gospel reading is from John, Chapter 18, verses 33b-37
Pilate said to Jesus, "Are you the King of the Jews?"
Jesus answered, "Do you say this on your own or have others told you about me?"
Pilate answered, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?"
Jesus answered, "My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here."
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.
Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."
The Gospel of the Lord
“The Indestructible Power of Love” by Father Mark S. Suslenko, Pastor, SS. Isidore and Maria Parish, Glastonbury, Connecticut
I don't know if you share this sentiment with me, but it seems more often than not these days when you encounter someone you know, meet an acquaintance, or even greet someone new, and you ask them how they are, the response that comes back is, "I'm okay. I'm okay." Even if they say that they are good, the good doesn't have the enthusiasm and the joy in it. The expression on their face, their demeanor, how they're presenting themselves really is saying, "I'm okay."
As we journey through this particular pandemic, through all of the tides and comings and goings of our world, we can find ourselves a bit exhausted with life. Rather than embracing it and placing ourselves into it and becoming one with it, we really find ourselves just trying to manage it. We manage it.
If we can get through what each day is requiring of us, accomplish the tasks that are before us, and do so with the greatest amount of ease, then we consider that a major accomplishment. Conducting the basic business of our lives takes so much more energy these days. Even going to the store presents stresses that it never did before. We find ourselves having to deal with inflating prices. We find ourselves having to deal with different protocols. Especially those in the helping profession, the medical professions have to reorganize the whole structure of their day differently in order to accommodate these things and find themselves really frustrated and tired at the end of the day. The world seems to be spinning out of control.
And then there's our own personal lives, our own individual struggles that enter into the mix as well. Many of us find ourselves dealing with very serious illnesses. We have our own journeys that preoccupy us: our own sadnesses, our own losses. Our own personalities that somehow always seem to trip us up. Our weaknesses, our sinfulness, those things that we carry with us, our burdens.
So in addition to the struggles that we witnessed in our world, we have the struggles we are dealing with ourselves. And we wonder as we look at the whole big picture sometimes, where all of this is going to end? Where is it all going to end?
You know, parents who are dealing with the raising of children today are facing struggles that were never even imagined before. Just staying on top of parenting. Of monitoring what our children are exposed to, what they're learning, what they're bringing home, what's affecting them. What's shaping them, is a monumental task. And as we send our children out into this very complicated and very complex world, we do so with worry. Where is it all going to end? What holds it all together?
As you look at your life, what holds you together? You see, if we're taking our cues from the kingdom of the world, then we're going to find ourselves very easily distressed, anxious, fearful, uneasy. We're going to find ourselves just living an "okay" life without dipping into the abundance of joy or anything of any great importance.
If we're taking our cues from the kingdom of the world, we're going to find ourselves walking with sadness, disappointment, because our expectations aren't met; anxiety, because we can't accomplish what we want to accomplish, and anger, because something or someone is standing in my way. And so we witness in our society the escalation of anger, anxiety, almost at times to a fever pitch, where there's greater violence, greater unrest, a greater sense of entitlement of pursuing what I think is due me or owed to me because I can't find that happiness, that peace myself.
The kingdom of the world is not the kingdom that satisfies the human heart as much as may want to believe that that's where we belong. We do not. Because as we look at what's happening around us, as we look at the journeys of our own lives, as we look at what we've accomplished personally, and as a society, as we look at our failures personally and globally at what works and what doesn't work, we begin to see that the glue of that isn't something that we bring. There's something deeper, bigger, more profound. And this feast of Christ the King points us to that.
Because it is through it all, the one thing we cannot give to ourselves, and the one thing we cannot find from the world, and the one thing that no other human being can truly give to us is hope. Hope. This is the greatest gift that Christ the King can bring and does bring to the world: hope.
And it's a hope that is centered in a truth beyond all truth. And it's the truth that the glue of life, what's holding it all together, is the indestructible power of love with a capital "L." The indestructible power of Love.
I know many people who are struggling with very difficult, difficult issues in their life, some of whom are facing their mortality, intense illness. They look at themselves and wonder, where are they going to be? They look at their families, their children, and wonder when I'm gone, where are they going to be? What's going to hold all that together?
Hope, and the indestructible power of Love, and the trust and the assurance that my life has importance, that my life matters, that I am a unique creation that is held in place by this indestructible power of Love that comes from Christ the King, who alone can give me hope.
Hope that in the midst of all of the nonsense of life, hope that in the midst of all of the failures of life, hope that in the midst of all the confusion of life, that when I get up in the morning and put my feet on the ground, I can act and persevere in spite of it all. That there's an energy and a power that's guiding me; that's guiding those I love. And that regardless of how much things changed, no matter how difficult they get, no matter how scary they are, no matter how tenuous they are, that when it's all said and done, it's all going to be okay.
And that's the hope that Christ can bring. It may not be okay here, but the hope beckons us to life eternal. And so, when we put our feet on the ground in the midst of all of this stuff that's going on around us, of all of this stuff that's going on within us, we can act and persevere in joyful hope.
Because there's a power greater than myself at work. There's the power that's holding all of this together. And in the end, it's all going to be okay, because it's not the kingdom of the world that will win out. It's the kingdom of God that will last forever; always and everywhere, without doubt.
And so as I look at my life, as I look at the condition of our world, we can so easily get distracted, we can get confused, our attention can be diverted. We can find ourselves falling into the wrong kingdom. And that's why it's so important, daily and more than daily, to go back to our own individual sacred spaces, where all of this stuff of our lives can be brought before God, and we can reaffirm, in that holy time, that we followed the King who is Christ, the only one who can give us hope, who can turn our despair into joy, who can give us the direction and the love that we seek, that can make sense out of nonsense, and bring things to a place where they are truly, and really okay.
All will be well in the kingdom of God. So there's no need for us to carry excessive burdens through our lives. We can release ourselves from the fears and the anxieties and the obsessions and the addictions, and point ourselves on a path where we act and persevere, one step at a time, knowing that we're guided and led by a power greater than ourselves.
Father Mark Suslenko is the pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Learn more about our parish community www.isidoreandmaria.org. And follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Our music comes free of charge from Blue Dot Sessions in Fall River, Massachusetts. I’m Carol Vassar. Thanks for joining us.