Reflections on the Solemnity of Christ the King

As we come to the last Sunday of the Liturgical Year, it is always the celebration of the Solemnity of Christ the King. And I would like to share with you an interesting clip I saw that highlights the Kingship of Christ. It is from the movie 300, which is about Leonidas, king of Sparta, who led 300 men to defend his land from an invasion by the Persian army led by their "god-king" Xerxes. In this clip, we see a negotiation between Leonidas and Xerxes.

The video clip can't be embedded, because it is copyrighted. So click on this link to view it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXaTcZWBfC0

There are a few points in the dialogue between the two which struck me, highlighting the contrasting ideas of what kingship was. And I found that I could relate Leonidas' kingship with Christ's kingship of love, self-sacrifice and freedom. In contrast Xerxes kingship can be equated to the devil's kingship of false promises, fear, oppression and pain.

Xerxes / Devil	Leonidas / Christ
- would gladly kill any of his own men for victory	- would die for any one of his men
- has slaves	- has warriors who were free men

What Xerxes does, is like what the devil did to tempt Jesus after his forty days in the desert: a promise of power and fame, if Jesus would only bow before him. And just as Leonidas stood up to Xerxes, Jesus stood up to the devil, because he knew who was the true source of power and good.

This is what we need to reflect on today - Is Jesus really our king? We know that he was willing to die for any one of his men, to free them from the hands of the evil one. Have we then experienced his kingship in our lives? Are we marching in his army, under his banner, following his lead? Are we as Leonidas says, free men who stood against a tryant, the evil one?

Let us then today truly acknowledge Christ as our king, bending our knee before him, pledging our allegiance, following his commands, and be his army in establishing God's kingdom here on earth.

Offering video by eXcess

The eXcess Youth Ministry in Christ the King recently posted up a video that was made by their Media Team. Quite a simple theme and very catchy background song.



Youtube Link to watch the video

It brought to mind the movie Pay It Forward where one act of kindness results in another act, and it goes on and on. Ironically I also saw an ad today titled "It all comes back to you", on how our bad acts can eventually come back to haunt us.



Youtube Link to watch the video

So the question is, are we passing on acts of love, care and kindness or acts of hate, anger, selfishness?

World Communications Day

Sunday 24th May was World Communications Day, where the Church reminds us to use whatever means of communication to bring the message of Christ to the world, and to use it to foster closer relationships among each other.

The theme for this year is "New Technologies, New Relationships: Promoting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship.". You can read up more about it in the Pope's Message.

At the Parish of Christ the King where I'm doing my pastoral attachment this year, a group was set up to see what can be done to promote this awareness of World Communications Day to the Parish.

Firstly we decided to do a website with links to various online resources that people can use to grow in their faith --> www.christtheking.com.sg/wcs09

Next we decided to encourage people to send out messages of love and blessings to their friends and loved ones. And since SMS is the most widely used means of communication these days, we printed out 10 different SMS messages onto bookmarks and distributed it at all the sunday masses --> Click here to See SMS messages

This was my favourite design

We also set up a Facebook group for the parishioners to join, with the idea of using it to communicate and promote the various parish activities through it. To date nearly 250 members have joined.

Lastly, we conducted a survey on how people are using various communication technologies and how the Church can more effectively use it to reach out and communicate.

Today as I read this week's issue of the Catholic News I saw that Vatican also did something similar on World Communications Day.

They have a website www.pope2you.net, a facebook app through which you can send the Pope's messages to your friends. Only thing we didn't do was a youtube channel, iPhone app and a wiki site. Well not too bad for a small parish compared to Vatican.