As we celebrate the great Solemnity of Christ the King, I have two very different Saints on my mind–St. Elizabeth of Hungary and St. Jose Sanchez del Rio. They couldn’t be more different in many ways. Their lives are separated by centuries–St. Elizabeth of Hungary was born in 1207 and St. Jose Sanchez del Rio was born in 1913. St. Elizabeth was a queen born from a royal family, St. Jose was an ordinary boy born to a humble family. But both show us what it means to live our Christian lives under the Kingship of Christ.
St. Elizabeth became queen in Hungary at the young age of 14, and she loved her husband Ludwig IV of Thuringia. During her reign, Elizabeth dedicated herself tirelessly to feeding the hungry and caring for the poor and sick. She refused to wear the sumptuous clothes common to the nobility of her time, instead devoting the wealth of her position toward serving those in need. It is said that one time when she was taking a basket of bread to the poor, she was accused of stealing treasures from the castle. When forced to reveal the contents of her basket, she opened her cloak and the bread had miraculously turned into roses. That is why our statue of St. Elizabeth depicts her carrying a basket of flowers.
St. Elizabeth spent her life in service of those most in need. Deeply inspired by the Franciscan friars she met at the age of 16, she followed the example of St. Francis in her life, regularly giving all she had to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. When there was a terrible flood and outbreak of disease in her kingdom, St. Elizabeth funded the building of a hospital to care for those in need. A couple of years later, she founded another hospital in honor of St. Francis and personally ministered to the sick there. She died at the age of 24, but her short life served as a shining example of Christ’s charity.
Saints like Elizaeth of Hungary very obviously lived according to the standard set by Jesus in the Gospel today. Christ the King will judge each of us based on our charity towards those most in need: “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.” St. Theresa of Calcutta called this her “five finger Gospel:” You–did–it–to–me. Elizabeth of Hungary and many other saints have set examples of holiness throughout the history of the Church; their hearts so formed by Jesus’ love and Kingship that they spent themselves tirelessly in the service of the poor. We are called to imitate their charity in our own ways. Each of us has the capability to help relieve the physical sufferings of others, and in so doing we serve Jesus and let Him work through us.
St. Jose Sanchez del Rio lived a very different life than St. Elizabeth of Hungary, but his was no less a life of deep charity in union with Christ the King. Jose Sanchez del Rio lived in Mexico during a time when the Communist government had outlawed the public celebration of Mass in an attempt to curb the influence of the Catholic church in the country. But Jose and his family weren’t deterred. They had a deep love and devotion both to Jesus and His blessed mother, especially under the title of Our Lady of Guadalupe. From a very young age, Jose would attend Mass and pray the rosary with his family in opposition to the unjust laws against religious expression. He was inspired by the Christero movement, an armed uprising against the Communists to free Catholics from the persecution they faced.
Even though he was very young, Jose begged his parents to allow him to join the Christeros. He told his mother: “Mama, do not let me lose the opportunity to gain Heaven so easily so soon.” Even though he was just a young teenager, Jose was taken with the idea of the martyrs he heard about who were unafraid to die for Christ the king. His parents finally relented and allowed him to join. Jose worked as a flag bearer with the Christeros and often took to shouting their battle cry: “Viva Christo Rey!”–”Long live Christ the King!” The older men nicknamed him Tarcisius, after St. Tarcisius, the young roman martyr who died for his faith in the Eucharist at the age of 12. When Jose was just 14, he found himself next to one of the generals of the Christero army whose horse had been shot. Jose gave him his own horse and fled to cover, where he fired at the enemy until his gun ran out of ammunition. He was then captured by the Communist forces.
Under threat of death, they ordered him to renounce his faith. Over the course of several weeks they tortured Jose and continually tried to break his resolve, but couldn’t. Finally, after injuring his young feet, they forced him to walk to a cemetery and made him stand before a freshly dug grave. Once more, they told him if he would simply say, “Death to Christ the King,” he would be spared. St. Jose looked at them and proclaimed: I will never give in. Long live Christ the King and the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe!” He was then executed and buried there.
What we see in these two saints, different in so many ways, are two sides of the same coin, two people totally dedicated to Christ the King and living for Him alone. Both of them show us different ways of living out that Charity that Jesus tells us will be the measure by which we are judged at the end of time. St. Elizabeth looked upon those around her with the eyes of faith and recognized a desperate need to serve Christ in the physically poor. She cared for them faithfully until her death because of the charity burning in her heart ruled by Christ the King. St. Jose Sanchez del Rio looked upon the people of Mexico and recognized the great spiritual poverty of those who were trying to stamp out the life of faith in his country. He saw the danger it posed to the eternal well being of all people. So he dedicated his young life to fighting for people’s freedom to express and live their faith. He was unafraid to die for Christ the King.
When we talk about Jesus’ kingship, it is all too easy to pit these things against each other–the serving of the spiritually poor and the serving of the physically poor. But in reality there is no difference between them. These two saints show us clearly that service to the poor, in whatever type of poverty they are experiencing, is the way to live under the Lordship of Christ the King. For each of us, the Lord will enlighten our eyes to recognize those poor that He wants to reach through us. Some of us He will call to serve the spiritual needs of others, some He will call to serve physical needs, but in both cases, this service will help people see Jesus in us. And that, ultimately, is what service is all about, not just doing something good for another, but allowing ourselves to be conformed to Christ, allowing our encounter with the risen Lord to change us to the extent that we can say, with Saint Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
Having that foundation of faith is key in our lives of service, because otherwise our service can tend to be overly based on feelings. We tend to look for those opportunities to serve others because we like the way it makes us feel. The more consistently we choose to serve the poor, the less those feelings will be there, because feelings come and go. Our call is to serve even on those days when we don’t feel like it. I am certain that both St. Elizabeth and St. Jose Sanchez del Rio got to the point where the service they were giving no longer felt “fun,” but they persevered, because their hearts weren’t ruled by feelings, but by the firm choice to love Christ the King and serve from that love.
I pray that each of us encounters Christ the King in such a way that He truly becomes the King of our hearts and lives, that we would allow His love to burn away within us whatever is selfish and self-serving so that we can offer consistent and courageous love in action for the poor who are all around us, so that we can say, both with our words and our lives: “Long live Christ the King!”
+ Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us your son to be our King. Jesus, King of the Universe and of our hearts, allow us to see where you are calling us to serve. Holy Spirit, enflame our hearts so that all of our service might be for the sake of Jesus and His glory. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our risen King. Amen. +