Christ the King Catholic Church

08/31/2026

Current Altar Servers and potential Altar Servers....mark your calendar

08/31/2026

Today is the day! We ask that all Parish Religious Education students by registered by today (8/31) in order for those who coordinate classes and the volunteers who give freely of their times to prepare for classes. Register with the QR code below or come by the parish office today. Open till noon and then 1:30 - 4:30 pm. If you know someone who may not attend Mass at CTK but their students attend PREP here, please send this to them. Thank you!

08/31/2026

08/30/2026

WHY BEING PRESENT MATTERS
In last Sunday’s bulletin, I shared Pope Leo XIV’s recent catechesis on the Liturgical Year and the importance of Sunday in the life of the Church. In that catechesis, in speaking of the assembly of believers which gathers at the altar of the Lord, especially on the Lord’s Day, the Holy Father says, “This assembly cannot be substituted by a solely virtual presence, nor can it be reduced to a merely passive gathering”.
“Cannot be substituted by a solely virtual presence”. One of the ways that the Evil One took advantage of the 2020 pandemic was the shutting down of public Masses and worship worldwide, depriving the faithful of the sacraments. The day that Masses starting being restricted to “live-streams”, the Devil and his minions no doubt leapt for joy.
Virtual “worship” doesn’t bother non-denominational Christians because for them, worship is not sacramental. The sacraments, which all involve physical matter and form, require a real physical presence. One cannot be absolved or anointed over the phone. A man and woman cannot get married over facetime, and they certainly cannot consummate the marriage virtually. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the wedding feast of the Divine Lamb of God. A feast involves eating, something that cannot be done through a screen.
One of the consequences of the widespread livestream Masses that occurred during COVID and that have persisted long after is that too many Catholics never came back to in-person worship and celebration of the sacraments. There are still so many Catholics who go to the grocery store, the doctor, bingo, and the casino but who think watching Mass on tv cuts it. It doesn’t!
Those who are legitimately homebound, bedridden or in nursing homes are not obligated to attend Sunday Mass, but those of them who are truly devoted truly miss the days when they could. Watching Mass remotely is a way that they can pray and feel connected to the rest of the Church. Nevertheless, it is still not the same as being there. It’s like watching a cooking show, you’re still going to be hungry after.

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08/30/2026

EVERY BAPTIZED CATHOLIC IS A PRIEST. Homily for Twenty-Second Sunday
Ps 63/Rm 12:1-2
For today’s homily, I would like to do a little lectio divina—a sacred reading of the very short Second Reading from Romans. It’s only two verses, but there is a lot there to reflect on.
“I urge you, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God” (Rm 12:1).
Let’s begin with a show of hands. Raise your hand if you are a priest. Raise your hand if you are baptized. All of you with your hands up, you should have raised them the first time. Every baptized man and woman is a priest, not in the same way that I am, but priests nonetheless. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in describing the different graces or effects of the Sacrament of Baptism, states “the person baptized is incorporated into the Church, the Body of Christ, and made a sharer in the priesthood of Christ” (CCC 1279). The Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, teaches that there are two ways of sharing in the one priesthood of Jesus Christ. They are the common priesthood of all the faithful and the ministerial (ordained) priesthood. This reality of all the baptized sharing in the Priesthood of Christ comes from the first Pope, St. Peter. “…like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pt 2:4-5). He is saying basically the same thing that St. Paul was saying to the Romans, “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship”. From time immemorial, what has been the chief function of priests? To offer sacrifice.
In the middle of the celebration of the Mass, immediately after the gifts of bread and wine are placed on the altar, and the ordained priest has washed his hands, he turns to the common priests and instructs them Orate fratres, “Pray brethren that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the Almighty Father”. My sacrifice and yours. Why not just say “our” sacrifice? Because we share in the Priesthood in two different ways and so our manner of offering sacrifice is different. Also, the sacrifice itself is different. The ordained priest is standing in persona Christi and is about to offer the sacrifice of Christ. It is Christ the High Priest, through the hands of the ordained priest, offering Himself. The one and the same sacrifice that He made on Calvary as priest and victim is offered on every altar in every Catholic Mass from the time of the apostles until Christ comes again. And Christ is ALIVE. He is crucified AND risen. It is not a co**se that is offered, but the living, breathing God in the flesh. In the third Eucharistic Prayer, immediately after the consecration and the Mystery of Faith, the ordained priest prays to God the Father that “we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and LIVING sacrifice”.
So, the ordained priest offers the sacrifice of Christ to the Father. The baptized lay priests offer the sacrifice of themselves. You cannot offer what is outside of you. You cannot offer to God what is not yours to give. Joseph Ratzinger wrote, “the only real gift man should give to God is himself”. Thus, St. Paul urges Christians to offer themselves to God as a living sacrifice.
Paul starts with the body. Human beings are creatures of body and soul. The body is not bad in itself. There is a common misconception that Catholicism sees the body as bad. This is not true. If the body were bad, why should we be offering it to God? Pope St. John Paul II did a multi-year catechesis in the early 1980s on the beauty and goodness of the human body as created by God. This became known as the “Theology of the Body”. So, the body is good, but it can be corrupted by sin.
There are three deadly sins that directly involved the body. Gluttony, Lust, and Sloth. They all occur when we misuse (or even abuse) the body God gave us, the body that St. Paul calls a temple of the Holy Spirit. The misusing of the body is a sin, not because the body is not good, but because it is. When committing these sins, we’re not treating the body as good.
The psalmist sings of the thirsting of the soul for God, but the body of course thirsts as well. The two are not mutually exclusive. The body thirsts for sustenance in the form of food and drink, without which it cannot live. It thirsts for s*x, without which the species dies. The body thirsts for pleasure and rest to keep it from falling apart. It’s when we misuse these as ends in themselves instead of as true nourishment as God intended that we sin, and instead of nurturing the body, we slowly kill it. For instance, the drunk who quenches his thirst not with good ole H2O but with liquor, slowly kills his liver. “…offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God”. An early Church Father wrote, “…for bodies subject to sin are considered not to be alive but dead, since they have no hope of obtaining the promise of eternal life”.
Now we move on to the second verse. “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind”. “…of your mind”. If the body is to be a living sacrifice, it does not happen apart from the soul. We human beings are rational creatures with rational souls. The animal sacrifices of the Old Covenant were not only dead, but they were unthinking animals. A fifth century Church Father, Gennadius of Constantinople, wrote “the offering of rational creatures is much more valuable that that of dumb ones”.
“Be transformed”, St. Paul says. He doesn’t say, “come as you are” or “stay as you are”, but be transformed! A change has to be made, and a radical one at that. You may remember my article that was published a few months ago on the problem of Catholics singing communion hymns that express Protestant teaching of the Eucharist instead of Catholic teaching and the damage this has done. I quoted the late Benedict XVI on the difference between the Lutheran belief of consubstantiation and the Catholic belief of transubstantiation. Consubstantiation says that the Body and Blood exist alongside the bread and wine. But this is not what Catholic believe. We believe in transubstantiation, that despite all appearances, the substance of bread and wine is transformed—changed—into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. This speaks to the very essence of the Christian life. To be a Christian requires a change, a conversion, a transformation of the whole person.
Allow me to give a brief real-life example. This person gave me permission to use his story in this homily. A regular Sunday-going Catholic who is a very faithful member of his church parish recently went on a True Presence Retreat. Much of what he learned there, he already knew, but being immersed in the retreat experience, it really hit him hard. This man had been living in a situation of what the Catechism calls “manifest grave sin”. This is a sinful situation that is both ongoing and by its very nature, public. This prevented him from worthily receiving Holy Communion. On that retreat, he made some hard, life-changing decisions. He realized that if he were to die today, he would die in a state of mortal sin. He realized that he had been “choosing my own satisfaction over my salvation”. He made a decision then and there to live differently so that he would no longer be in that state of sin and could receive the sacraments. This is a transformation.
“Be transformed by the renewal of your mind”. An exercise routine or a diet, while they can be good for the body and lead to good changes for the body, does not necessarily transform the whole person. What needs to be transformed is not just my appearance, what I eat, what I do, but how I think, how I feel, how I live, and most of all how I love.
“That you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect” (Rm 12:2). A mind that is in sin, that is not transformed, has a hard time knowing God’s will, knowing what is good. To paraphrase St. Thomas Aquinas, sin makes you stupid. A transformation is necessary so that we can offer the living sacrifice of our whole selves (body, heart, mind, and soul) to God.
See how rich the Word of God is, all that from just two verses.
We baptized Catholics are priests. Are we going to offer to the Lord a sacrifice that is diseased and dead or a sacrifice that is fully alive? We owe Him only the best.

08/28/2026

Step inside the future Christ the King

08/28/2026

RISE and REBUILD. Now is the time to be a part of Christ the King’s future. See the comment section for link to pledge to the Rise and Rebuild Capital Campaign to make sure this project gets finished. St. Joseph, pray for us!

08/24/2026

SACRED MUSIC
“O sing a new song to the Lord; sing to the Lord, all the earth. In his presence are majesty and splendor, strength and honor in his holy place” (Psalm 96)
Resuming our series on liturgical matters, today we tackle sacred music.
Getting Catholics to sing at Mass is about as hard as getting them to sit up front. Singing, nevertheless, is part of worship and has been even long before the birth of the Church. The late Pope Benedict XVI wrote, “The importance of music in biblical religion is shown very simply by the fact that the verb ‘to sing’ is one of the most commonly used words in the Bible. It occurs 309 times in the Old Testament and thirty-six times in the New. When man comes into contact with God, mere speech is not enough”.
The Church, therefore, has always employed music in the Liturgy. For the ancient Israelites, their main reason for singing was the Exodus from Egypt. For Christians, our main reason for singing is the New Exodus, our salvation through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The Resurrection is a wholly new event, hence the need for a “new song”. The mysteries that we celebrate in the Liturgy are so great that mere speech is not enough.
What is sung at Mass and in the celebration of the other sacraments? From the earliest centuries, the Church has always relied heavily on the Book of Psalms which was the “sacred music” of Israel. Jesus Himself prayed the psalms, and as the Messiah, He was the subject matter of many of the Psalms. In singing the psalms, we are singing the prayer of Christ Himself. For this reason, the primary source of Sacred Music in Christian worship is found in the proper antiphons of the Roman Missal and their accompanying Psalms. In singing the texts of the Mass (the antiphons, Kyrie, Gloria, Responsorial Psalm, Gospel acclamation, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, etc), we are not so much singing “at” Mass as singing the Mass.
With regard to hymns that are sung at other parts of the liturgy, over the last 60 years, there has been a growing movement to incorporate almost anything and everything, but this is not what Holy Mother Church intends. There is a difference between “religious music” and “sacred music”. All sacred music is religious, but not all religious music is sacred. Just because a song has a religious theme does not necessarily mean that it is fit for worship. “By sacred music is understood that which, being created for the celebration of divine worship, is endowed with a certain holy sincerity of form” (Musicam Sacram – Second Vatican Council’s Instruction on Music in the Liturgy). Just because a song is played on K-LUV doesn’t make it sacred music “created for the celebration of divine worship”. Francis Cardinal Arinze, when he was Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship said, “People don't come to Mass in order to be entertained. They come to Mass to adore God, to thank him, to ask pardon for sins, and to ask for other things that they need. When they want entertainment, they know where to go — parish hall, theater—but not Mass”.
In closing, I again turn to the late Benedict XVI, “The singing of the Church comes ultimately out of love. It is the utter depth of love that produces the singing. ‘Cantare amantis est’, says St. Augustine, singing is a lover’s thing.”

08/24/2026

WHEN OPINION POLLS DON'T MATTER. Homily for Twenty-First Sunday
Mt 16:13-20
“But who do you say that I am?” (Mt 16:15).
Polls and surveys. They have become so much a part of Western culture that they permeate every aspect of life. I can’t open the calendar on my phone without being asked to take a survey. You can’t pay a bill at a restaurant or pay for anything for that matter without being asked to take a survey. Opinion polls are a staple of American culture, especially around election season. The presidents and politicians have approval ratings that go up and down and when there is an election, there is so much time and money poured into the polls that you have to wonder why do we even need to vote? Americans are polled on almost every opinion out there from favorite sports teams to favorite foods and on more important moral issues such as abortion and immigration. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with polls and surveys. Having a snapshot of public opinion can be helpful. But where we go wrong is when we make public opinion the standard for truth. The soon-to-be Blessed Fulton Sheen said, “truth is not determined by a majority vote”.
In today’s Gospel, Our Blessed Lord is conducting an opinion poll. “He asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’” (Mt 16:13). The disciples report a wide variety of public opinions. “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets” (Mt 16:14). What do all of these opinions have in common? They are all wrong. That’s the bad thing about public opinion. It can be wrong.
Our Lord did not need to ask that question. He knew what people were saying about Him. Remember, He’s God. He is setting up the second question. “But who do YOU say that I am?” You can imagine the long, awkward silence as they all look at each other and avoid making eye contact with Jesus. One commentator (Leroy A. Huizenga) explains, “Jesus then asks them directly, and the two questions suggest that Jesus is asking them whether they’ll side with the popular opinions of the crowds or with the truth”.
Simon Peter then answers on behalf of the Twelve. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:15). Finally, we have a correct answer! This was not Peter’s opinion. Our Lord says as much. “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father” (Mt 16:17). The truth was revealed to Peter. He did not invent the truth of who Jesus is—he recognized it. It was revealed to him. Divine truth is never the product of man’s opinion. It must be revealed by God Himself. This is called Divine Revelation. The Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, teaches:

“By this revelation then, the deepest truth about God and the salvation of man shines out for our sake in Christ, who is both the mediator and the fullness of all revelation…Through divine revelation, God chose to show forth and communicate Himself and the eternal decisions of His will regarding the salvation of men. That is to say, He chose to share with them those divine treasures which totally transcend the understanding of the human mind.” (DV 2,6).

What does all this mean for us? Who Jesus Christ is does not depend on mine or anyone else’s opinion! No matter what I think, He is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father”. It is astounding how many Catholics do not know who Jesus Christ is! Like the Galileans of old, many think he’s just another prophet, another religious leader, a nice guy who did some nice things. They have no clue what it means to profess with Peter, and with Peter’s Successors, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”. Being a true follower of Christ means first being able to identify Him. If we refuse to identify who Jesus really is, then there is no definitive commitment on our part. But if we identify who Jesus is, if we accept this and believe it with all our hearts, then we will also identify with His Church which He founded on the rock of Peter.
It is the Church’s Magisterium (the Successors of Peter and the Apostles) who interprets and hands on Divine Revelation. Not you, not me, and not Billy Bob down at the barber shop or self-appointed theologians on facebook. I was once asked to give a talk on “Who is Jesus to me?”. It doesn’t matter who He is TO ME. It matters who He says He is. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hb 13:8).
Jesus Christ is truth itself. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). Truth is therefore not subject to opinion polls. While many things in life are relative, truth is not. Something is either true or it is not. 2+2 will always equal 4. The truth of what is morally good or evil does not depend on public opinion, but on Natural Law. As an example, it does not matter what percentage of the population thinks that abortion should be legal. Abortion is always the taking of an innocent and defenseless human life. This is basic human reason.
A few other examples. Back in the 1960’s, at the height of the “s*xual revolution”, many inside and outside of the Church were thinking that the Church was going to “update” it’s teaching on birth control to conform with the times. Did she? No. Even though the pressure from within and without was extreme, Pope St. Paul VI (Peter’s Successor) issued Humanae Vitae which reaffirmed the doctrine of the Church that married love must be open to life. The Pope did not change the Church’s teaching. Why? Because he couldn’t. It was not within his power to alter the truth.
In a similar way, in the 1990’s, there was intense pressure on the Catholic Church to make the priesthood open to women. Those who want this do not understand the nature of the priesthood and it’s not within the scope of this homily to get into all of the theological reasons why Jesus Christ chose only men to be his first priests. That’s for another day. Suffice to say that Pope St. John Paul II (another of Peter’s Successors) held fast to what Christ had established. He did not attempt to alter the nature of the Sacrament of Holy Orders because it was not within his power to do so.
There are endless examples of public opinion seeking to sway the Church to conform “with the times” and with public opinion. We do not conform ourselves to the changing times. We conform ourselves to Jesus Christ! The truth does not change to conform itself to our way of thinking. Instead, we need to conform our way of thinking (and acting) to the truth.