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St. John the Baptist & the Social Kingship of Christ

Laudetur Iesus Christus! Today June 24 is the solemnity of St. John the Baptist, the greatest of all prophets and precursor to Christ.

The commemoration of this great saint actually began yesterday with the Vigil of St. John the Baptist, which carries its own Mass & customs: http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2020/06/the-vigil-of-nativity-of-st-john-baptist.html

Feast of St. John the Baptist

Today’s feast day occurs around the summer solstice just as the days begin to grow shorter, symbolizing the words of this saint in St. John 3:30  “He must increase, but I must decrease.”.  6 months later, Our Savior Jesus Christ is born at midnight, at the darkest time of the year, just as the daylight increases after the winter solstice.  According to Fisheaters.com, this feast is one of three birthdays celebrated in the Church calendar (the others are Blessed Mother, September 8, and Our Blessed Lord on December 25) as they were all born without original sin. To learn more about this feast day visit: https://www.fisheaters.com/customstimeafterpentecost3.html

In light of last week’s Supreme Court decision which denies the Church the right to employ workers who agree with the faith, it appears providential that this week the Church honors St. John the Baptist – martyred for defending God’s moral law before the state (King Herod).  As Fr. Reid noted in his sermon on Sunday: we may soon be called to defend our faith publically: …as the evil one appears to get a firmer grasp on the world, more and more Christians are going to be called to speak and act prophetically in very public ways. We each have to be ready for that.

Mass for Feast of St. John the Baptist

St. Ann will offer its normal Wednesday 6pm Low Mass tonight for this feast day. Reminder: There is no longer a Wednesday Latin Mass at St. Thomas Aquinas parish.

Respect Life Latin Mass returns this Saturday

This Saturday June 27, St. Ann will resume its 4th Saturday 8am Latin Mass followed by a Rosary at Planned Parenthood (or a Holy Hour of Reparation in the Church – lead by a deacon).

Bishop Schneider’s latest interview with Sensus Fidelium:  We are pleased to share that Bishop Schneider’s recent interview on the Social Kingship of Christ with our friend Steve Cunningham, over at Sensus Fidelium. His Excellency also shares his warm greetings and blessings to all the people he met in Charlotte back at St. Ann in 2017. Here is the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWay9Il7imA&feature=youtu.be

Religious Freedom vs. Social Kingship of Christ

Speaking of defending God’s law in public, this week the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) commemorates “religious freedom week”. Sadly one has to admit, based on recent major court decisions & lockdowns, this campaign has largely failed and the Church continues to lose ground on her rights.

Besides the possible influence of modernism in this campaign (a topic for another day), a key reason for this failure could be the total absence of the traditional teaching of the Social Kingship of Christ. As you may recall, this teaching is where Christ, His doctrine and His Church have priority rights in society and government. The Feast of Christ the King was established to emphasize this doctrine (see Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas in 1925). This is why we, the CLMC, promote a magnificent celebration of this feast day each October. Only when this teaching – and the liturgy that fully promotes it – is fully embraced by dioceses and parishes can the tide be turned on these court losses.

To learn more on the Social Kingship of Christ visit:

Lastly, we close with Pope Gregory XVI’s beautiful 1832 encyclical Mirari Vos which helps explain why error has no public rights in society:

Now We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care… 

…This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. “But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error,” as Augustine was wont to say. When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin.