By Bishop James Conley
On Nov. 23, the Church celebrates the memorial of Blessed Miguel Pro, who shed his blood in witness to our savior, Christ the King.
Father Miguel Pro was a Jesuit priest who provided pastoral ministry and the sacraments to Catholics during a period of religious persecution perpetrated by the government of Mexico during the 1920s.
Miguel was a talented and popular young man, who could have lived a comfortable life working in his father’s business ventures. Instead, he chose to hand his life over completely to Christ and entered the Jesuit order.
He began his novitiate in Mexico, but fled to the United States due to the anti-Catholic governmental persecution of the Church. He eventually entered the seminary in Belgium and was ordained a priest there in 1925.
In 1926, Miguel came back to Mexico to minister to his own people, knowing that in doing so, his life was in grave danger. He served an “underground” Church, where he had to celebrate the sacraments clandestinely.
Miguel was known to his friends and family as blessed with the gift of a great sense of humor—sometimes even as a mischievous prankster. He used this gift to further the Kingdom of God during these tumultuous times in Mexico.
In order to minister to his people he would put on a variety of disguises: he dressed up as a street sweeper, a policeman, and a businessman in order to attend to the spiritual needs of the People of God.
In 1927, Father Pro was accused, falsely, of attempting to assassinate ex-President Alvaro Obregon. Without a fair trial, Father Pro was executed by a firing squad. He forgave his executioners and died proclaiming “Viva Cristo Rey!”—“Long live Christ the King!”
Blessed Miguel Pro knew the true king whom he served—the king whose kingdom will last forever.
The celebration of the memorial of Blessed Miguel Pro is celebrated fittingly this year the day before the Solemnity of Christ the King of the Universe. Blessed Miguel would not yield to the injustice inflicted by an oppressive regime. He knew that Christ was his King.
Our Lord did not exempt himself from injustice at the hands of the powerful. After all, Pontius Pilate knew that Jesus was an innocent man, but he put him to death in an act of cowardice in fear of the mob. Jesus, despite being the King of Kings, succumbed to this punishment with humility.
Jesus certainly speaks of a proper place and respect for civil authority. He said, “Render therefore to Caesar that things that are to Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
Governments are to ensure justice in society; they are to uphold the dignity of the human person. Governments play an integral role in societies working toward the common good. And yet, sometimes governments are unjust.
The witness of Miguel Pro proves that even in oppressive regimes, the light of God’s grace can break through the darkness of injustice.
God calls the bonds of our national unity to be the bonds of a particular kind of love. For that to come to fruition, we must be committed to genuine love of our neighbors—not to loving “mankind” in the abstract, but to regarding our countrymen, our individual neighbors whom we know, and those with whom we disagree, as the beloved children of God. To love in this way, Christians must cooperate with God’s grace.
The Solemnity of Christ the King is an annual reminder for us that Christ must rule our hearts. If we are not his subjects and servants, we will easily find another master.
We ask ourselves the crucial question: Is Christ really my king? The answer may seem like a simple “yes” in the abstract, but what about in the concrete? Do I trust his will in my life more than my will or intuition? Do I trust in him and his Church, above and beyond social norms and conventions?
Joseph Ratzinger—who later became Pope Benedict XVI —once remarked that: “today an illusion is dangled before us: that a man can find himself without first conquering himself, without the patience of self-denial and the labor of self-control.”
Jesus has conquered sin and death. And, paradoxically, he wants to conquer our hearts in order to set us free. When Christ is the king of our hearts, we are free men and women; we are no longer slaves to this world or to our own desires. When Christ is King of our hearts we experience the freedom of being a child of God.
If we look back at the history of the Catholic Church, we note that seemingly invincible empires rise and fall; popular leaders make their mark and fade away; fads and fashions come and go. But, people of faith know that Christ’s reign will last forever. Today, let him reign in our hearts. Viva Cristo Rey!
