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	1st Reading
	Psalm
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Some of you might have seen here in Skokie, flags, on cars, drove by Jewish people that have a rown, a blue crown on it, with a sort of golden background -- yellow/gold background.

And words in Hebrew.

Those words are:
( ? ? ? ? ? ?)
and...which in Hebrew, means, Christ the King.

It's the ( ? ? ?? ) who .. half the ( ? ? ? ) who believed that rubbish ( ? ? ) was the messiah.

But, it doesn't it on the banner.

But everytime I seem them go by, and I don't see them as much as I use to...

( ? ? ?? ), I think, Chris the King... well..

I can salute that.

This a great feast, and it's reveivlity recent feast.

I don't think people realize that.

It's a feast that began in to 20th century, it is not of great antiquity.

Which does not deminish it's importance.

It was a feast that established in Solidarity with the suffering, Mexican, Catholic Church.

The catholic churck in Mexo, from 1970-on was widely persecuted ... so much so, that later in the 1920's, in the middle of the 1920's...it burst out into violent revolution.

And people who resisted the government, whether violantly or non violantly, were called ( ? ? ? ) .... or, I suppose in English, "Christers"... it doesn't make any sense in English...

but ( ? ? ?? )... and we don't know about that period.

And ther eisome talk about complicity, even on our own part, in this talk about Catholoism.

I don't know, I have to research that further, but it certainly is true... that Mass in many parts of Mexico was certainly prohibitated.

In one state in Mexico, one priest was allowed to serve the entire Catholic population of the entire state...

And the penalties for resistance was death...

There was some ( ? ? ) who askd a little boy to hold their horses, and the little boyu knowing who they were, held their horses... and then they hopped on their horses, and the police were hot on their trail..

And the police took that little boy, and I think just a child, I don't think he was not even of ten years of age.

And they took that little boy and made him dig his own grave... and with the mother watching, they shot him.

And his mother, as she watched her child dig his own grave, she encouraged him not to give up the faith.

And to die, nobally of a solider of Christ.

And the little boy, I believe, if I remember the story correctly... held out his arms, as they all did..

Saying ( ? ? ?? ), "Long live Christ the King."

As he was shot...

We hear of the great father ( ? ? ) doing the same... the government executed him for daring to be a priest who said Mass publicaly in Mexico, and he ewas constatly on the run from the government.

They wanted to photograph his execution, so that people could see him cringing and cowering, but as soon as that picture was shot, but he too held out his arms and said ( ? ? ? ) and that picture is up on many households.

Now the story of the little boy I didn't read in a history book, I was told that by a deacon ( ? ? ) who was a deacon at st. ( ?? ) parish. because you see, his godfather was a priest, whose best friend had been that child, when he was a child himself.

And inspired by that maurder, he became a priest, and was the godfather for Rev. Deacon ( ? ???), who a very godly man..

These things happend on our boarders.

And within the living memeory of many people.

And they were forgotten by us.

ANd this feast day, was established to aknowledge what the Mexico people, aknowledge with their lifes blood, that no matter what the governent , and no matter how opposed the government is to the truth of the catholic faith, We willl have no king, but Christ.

Now, lats week, in the gopsel, we had the story of the talents... and a lot of people don't understand that parable, because it seems to end very badly. Becaues the master seems to take from the servant, I a gold... a silver, I think it was a golden talent...

And gives it to the one with the most.. and throws the lazy servant out. and it seems unfair.

The word that is usually tranlasted servant, is not servant, the word is "slave".

And in the ancient world, there's a number of kind of slavery.

There's debt-slave, there's political slaves, and there were slaves captured in war...

And those fates were truly horrible.

But most slaves were debt slaves, especially in the middle east.. that if a person who in debt, he'd be sold into debt , and it were as if a social contract, he was working off his debt.

Then there were actually people who volenttarly sell himself into slavery..

It was common for a well-educated Greek to sell himself into slavery because he could be very well educated and starved in some little poor town in Greek... but if he were attached to a wealthy, Roman household, as the tutor of children, he would live well and with tips and bonuss, he coudl buy his freedom and retire prosperty into old age.

So slavery wasn't quite what we assumed...

It wasn't the horrific racial slavery that we witnessed in this country.. there are numbers of slaverys.

But the word is slavery.

So that's important to understand.

The word talent.. is a messure, it isn't an amount of money, it is a measure. a weight.

and in todays money, a golden talent comes just under a million dollar...

So this master calls in his slaves, to one he gives 4.5 millions, to another he gives 1.8 million dollars, and to the other he gives about... 8.5 million..

Can you imagine? Giving millions of dollars to a slave?

As you're leaving town?

Well he comes back and says, "Where's my money?"

And one present more, the other presents more, and the third, well...

the 8.5 mililion dollars, and he says "I knew you were a hard man"

So the master takes from that slave, the almost million dollar that he had given to him, and gave it to the one who did a good job.

The money was not the property in the first place to the slave, the slave himself was the property of the master. He took nothing that belonged to that slave.

And that slave had not lived up to the deal.

He had no served his master well.
Who had in fact, paid his debt.

You know what the slaves punishment is?

he was given his freedom.

Remember the parable from last week?

He was put out of the house. Where there was grinding and smashing of teeth.

He was put out of the household, he was given his freedom.

And allowed to fend for himself.

And the master himself in effect said, "Because you dont' want me to take care of you, I will no longer take care of you"

And when Jesus was brought up before Pilot, the crowds said, "We have no King, but Ceaser..."

And it was not many years after that, that Jurslam was destroyed..

There's an aurthor, probably one of the most ancient texts reference we have to Christ.

I talk about it in the bulletin.

The Rev. Know it All, in next weeks bulletin.

( ? ? ) was writing a letter to his son, in Egyptan, "Because they refused to recognize their wise King, they lost their nation."

That was written in 70 A.D

It's the earliest reference outside Christian literature, at least hwe have ( ??) to Jesus.

Because they refused to recongize their wise King...

Throughout history governments had said, and nations have said, we will not submit.

It is the very sin of Satan.

Who said... at least miltion has them saying, "I will not submit. Better to stand tall in hell then to bend a knee in heaven."

You know, the paslm, that we sing... we sing about the sheperd, and we have readings about the sheperd, because in the ancient world, the king was often refered as to a shepered... his responsiblity was to pasture the sheep.

To bring them to place that they could be nurished.

I don't know if you ever delt with sheep, they are not the smartest of animals. And they are not that coroperative.

If anyone was a sheperd, tell me.... I remember I was at a priest meeting, we were going around, talking about what we've done before we were priests, and there was an African there, and said, "I was a shepered". He was a shepered in Kenya before he had eventually come to this country and heard the call from the Lord to be in the priesthood.

But, sheep are not the brightest of animals. I remember once, it wasn't quite a sheep, it was a donkey.

The first time I had the priviledge to go down to Juruslem.. I was walking down the streets with an old professor , he was staying at the place I was staying, and he was showing me the sights.

So..suddenly behind us, there was a commotion, and we see a little Arab boy on a donkey, and he was yelling in Arabic, I can't remember now... but he was yelling at the top of his voice, "look out, look out, look out"

And he was just banging this donkey on the head with a stick.

And of course, he went by, and I said to the presffor, that seems really cruel..

He said, "no no, that's the steering ( ? ?? ) on a donkey..."

Apparently, the donkey gets going, and will just ram into a wall. He too is not very coporative.

The only way the boy had to encourage the donkey to go into the proper direction, in the winding streets that is Jurerslam,  was banging him on the side of the head..

Well, you'r rod and your staff, give me courage.

For what does a shepered use a rod and staff, one to hit, the other to grab.

That it is the diciplin of the Lord that gives us comfort.

Parents, you know, what is the word that it said with more love.

Yes or no.

I'm sure I"ve told you thi sstory, when I came up to my mom when I was about 4 or 5 years old, and I thought it was a great idea to start a bon fire underneath the front porch...

And she said, "Richard, are you out of your mind?"

"No, obviously mother doesn't love me, she won't let me set a bon fire from under the front porch."

You know, I often thought my father would diciplin me, so he didn't love me.

If my father didn't love me he would have gotten a very large insurence policy and said, "Kid. Have a good time."

But...

but he said no!

And you parents understand that it's so nice when you can say yes to one of your kids.

But your rod and your staff give me comfort.

If this ist rue for you, how much moreso for our Heavenly father.

And His son who He has given Us to be our King.

But we as a nation, have said loudly and clearly, we will have no king!

Well...

God's response to us... will it be different than his reponse to that ungrateful servant.. that lazy, and worthless slave...

Will God say to our nation, "If you wil lhave no king, then I shall not be your king."

To be a Catholic, is to have a king, no earthly king, no ( ? ? ) no sinner, but the very son of God.

Who will teach us what the meaning of life is.

We are in a great crisis, in the country, you may have noticed..

And everone is carefully watching their four oh one keys, and thanking god for having a job, and hoping they will keep their job.

How have we gotten to this past? We have gotten to thi spast because we Americans have told ourselves that the sky is the limit..

It does not matter if I do not have the money, I will spend it.

It does not matter I do  not have the house, the car, the money, the luxuary, I will have it.

Commcials on television drive me crazy.

Get the credit you deserve.

I deserve?

When I was a kid, when the wooly mamoth roamed, the only people who got credit cards were people who didn't need them.

We have lived beyond our means.

Well morally it is worse to live beyond our moral means.

We will have no king

We will have no one to say "Nay"

And God's punishment is let us have our own way.

We Catholics claim that God is king, no matter what the government says, no matter what the culture says, we will have Christ as King, and be comforted by his rod and staff..

And we pray we can keep the flame of Faith alive amongu us, until this great Country comes back to it's sesnse.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.