The Kingdom of Christ on Earth
Is a Preparation for Heaven

In the Middle Ages, the Crusaders shed their blood to liberate the Sepulcher of Our Lord Jesus Christ from the hands of the infidels and to establish a Christian Kingdom in the Holy Land.

Thenceforth, the blood of the children of the Church flowed many times under different persecutions. For what purpose?

To liberate Christendom from the yoke of the Antichrist’s Revolution, and to restore the Kingdom of Christ to the world. But what is the Kingdom of Christ, the supreme ideal of Catholics, and, therefore, a constant objective of this fight?

What is the Kingdom of Christ?

The Kingdom of Christ is what we will try to define by enumerating certain principles that serve as the guiding beacon of our activity.

The Catholic Church was founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ to perpetuate the benefits of the Redemption among men. Her purpose is, therefore, identical to that of the Redemption itself: To expiate the sins of men through the infinitely precious merits of the God-Man; to restore to God the extrinsic glory that sin had stolen from Him; and thus to open the gates of Heaven to men.

This purpose is fully realized on the supernatural plane and is ordered toward eternal life. It absolutely transcends everything that is merely natural, earthly or perishable.

This is precisely what Our Lord Jesus Christ affirmed when He said to Pontius Pilate: "My Kingdom is not of this world" (Jn 18:36).

Earthly life, a novitiate for Heaven

Earthly life thus differs – and profoundly so – from eternal life. Yet these two lives do not constitute two planes completely isolated from one another. In the designs of Divine Providence, there is an intimate relationship between earthly life and eternal life. Earthly life is the path; eternal life is the end. The Kingdom of Christ is not of this world, but it is in this world where lies the path by which we shall arrive at it.

Just as military school is the path to a career in the Armed Forces, or the novitiate is the path to  taking the final vows in a Religious Order, so also is earth the path to Heaven.

We possess an immortal soul, created in the image and likeness of God. This soul is created with a treasury of natural aptitudes for the good – aptitudes that are enriched by Baptism with the inestimable gift of the supernatural life of grace. During our lives, it is mandatory for us to develop these aptitudes to their plenitude for the good of ourselves and others.

In doing so, our likeness to God – which was in some sense still incomplete and merely potential – becomes full and realized.

Likeness is the source of love. By becoming fully like unto God, we become capable of loving Him fully and of drawing down upon ourselves the fullness of His love. Thus, we are prepared for the contemplation of God face to face and for that eternal, fully blissful act of love to which we are called in Heaven.

Earthly life is, therefore, a novitiate in which we prepare our soul for its true destiny: to see God face to face, and to love Him for all eternity.

Earthly life, a germinal stage of Heaven

Expressing this same truth in other terms, we may say that God is infinitely pure, infinitely just, infinitely strong and infinitely good. To love Him, we must love purity, justice, fortitude and goodness.

If we do not love virtue, how can we love God, who is the Good par excellence? Conversely, since God is the Supreme Good, how can He love evil? Since likeness is the source of love, how can He love one who is totally unlike Him, one who is consciously and voluntarily unjust, cowardly, impure and evil?

God must be adored and served, above all, in spirit and in truth (Jn 4:25). Thus, it is essential that we be pure, just, strong and good in the innermost depths of our souls. And if our soul is good, all our actions must necessarily be so as well, for a good tree cannot bear anything but good fruit (Mt. 7:17–18). Thus, it is absolutely necessary – if we are to attain Heaven – not only that we inwardly love the good and detest the evil, but also that, through our actions, we practice the good and avoid the evil.

But earthly life is more than merely the path to eternal blessedness. What shall we do in Heaven? We shall contemplate God face to face in the light of glory – which is the perfection of grace – and we shall love Him wholly and without end. Now, by Baptism man already enjoys the supernatural life here on earth. Faith is a seed of the Beatific Vision. The love of God – which a man exercises by growing in virtue and avoiding evil – is already that very same supernatural love with which he will adore God in Heaven.

The Kingdom of God is realized in its fullness in the world to come. But for all of us, it begins to be realized in a germinal state even in this world – just as in a novitiate the religious life is already being practiced, albeit in a preparatory stage; and in a military academy, a young man prepares for the Army by already living the actual military life itself.

So also the Holy Catholic Church is, even in this world, an image – and more than this, a true anticipation – of Heaven.

For this reason, everything the Holy Gospel tell us regarding the Kingdom of Heaven may, with all propriety and precision, be applied to the Catholic Church, to the Faith she teaches us and to each of the virtues she instills in us.

This is the significance of the Feast of Christ the King: a Heavenly King, first and foremost, but a King whose rule is already exercised in this world.

Continued