Princes and Princesses of Christ the King!

We continue to realize our role living in His Kingdom, remaining in His love, every present moment.  Our inner and outer deportment must reflect the refulgent facets of His love.  We must learn and demonstrate, within and without: patience, kindness, humility, gentility, generosity, docility, compassion, long-suffering and selflessness. 

As princes and princesses of Christ the King, we represent Him as emissaries of His Kingdom.  Thus, we do all we can with our inner and outer appearance and bearing to reflect the nobility and grace of which we share in His Person, created in the image and likeness of God.  

The inner reaches of our souls are scrubbed clean in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, souls refreshed and as new as in our Baptism, for sacramental confession is a re-baptism as rains washing afresh a parched earth.  Freed from sins, over and over, our souls worthily may receive Christ's true Body and Blood in the Sacrament of Eucharist.  All, His love.

We are men and maids in waiting of the Queen, the Blessed Virgin Mary.  She prepares us for His royal service.  The Queen is the dispenser of all graces, and from her we develop from the depth of grace, into willing subjects eternally transformed in His love.  Not only do we learn virtues but also how to work hard at our temporal tasks, to gain discipline and obedience, loyalty and respect, to grow in wisdom and stature so that we may represent the King and His Kingdom with ease and decorum.

When we comprehend that we are the princes and princesses of the King of Kings, and begin responding to the responsibility and honor bestowed upon us--to think that He considers us for such inclusion into His love forever--we cannot help but rejoice in His love, His will, His truth!  Jesus thanked the Father for giving us to Him, and He called us gifts!  He so loves us, His gifts, that He wants us with Him where He is, always.  Imagine!  So we willingly cooperate, those of us who desire, more than anything, even ourselves, to remain in His love, to obey His command to love, to live in Christ in every present moment...His love, His will, His truth.

This is the first Solemnity of Christ the King in which I have experienced from remaining in His love and as prince or princess.  I perked when the priest mentioned recent world news of a prince and his princess, and who the world considered the greatest king, the wealthy King of Thailand.  The priest, of course, explained that is of the world, and in the Kingdom of God, Christ is our King!  Yes, and my heart exclaimed, and we who belong to Him, who remain in His love, are His princes and princesses forever!  We do not belong to the world but to the Kingdom of God!

In this morning's Office of Readings, Origen writes of this and more.  The kingdom of God, in the words of our Lord and Savior, does not come for all to see; nor shall they say: Behold, here it is, or behold, there it is; but the kingdom of God is within us, for the word of God is very near, in our mouth and in our heart. Thus it is clear that he who prays for the coming of God's kingdom prays rightly to have it within himself, that there it may grow and bear fruit and become perfect.  For God reigns in each of his holy ones.

Pinch ourselves, those who are remaining in His love!  And those who are not yet grasping, pinch yourselves with the reality that we all can actually be His holy ones!  Believe in Him, obey His commands, remain in His love!

Origin continues his discourse. Note this too about the kingdom of God.  It is not a sharing of justice with iniquity, nor a society of light with darkness, nor a meeting of Christ with Belial.  The kingdom of God cannot exist alongside the reign of sin.  Therefore, if we wish God to reign in us, in now way should sin reign in our mortal body; rather we should mortify our members which are upon the earth and bear fruit in the Spirit.  

There should be in us a kind of spiritual paradise where God may walk and be our sole ruler with His Christ.  In us the Lord will sit at the right hand of that spiritual power which we wish to receive. And He will sit there until all his enemies who are within us become his footstool. 

And so, what is corruptible in us must be clothed in holiness and incorruptibility; and what is mortal must be clothed, now that death has been conquered, in the Father's immortality.  Then God will reign in us, and we shall enjoy even now the blessings of rebirth and resurrection.

So we know this with assurance, that we may remain in His love and all these things shall be added unto us.  And to remain in His love is to remain in His will and His truth.  

But if we find we are not in His love, we call upon His name day and night for help, expressing our desire to remain in His Kingdom now and forever.  Each time we pray...Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven...we are praying to remain in His love, in His kingdom that is for those who believe in Him and obey His commands, who remain in His love, now on earth as in heaven.  

The entire Lord's prayer is a flowering of: Remain in My love.  Ponder, pray, sing anew.  Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.  Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil...for Thine is the Kingdom, and the Glory, and the Power forever! Amen.