Installation of Father Hildebrand GARCEAU, O. Praem., as Rector of the Shrine Church
Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
Church of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe
La Crosse, Wisconsin
November 24, 2024
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The kingship of Christ, which we solemnly celebrate today, is like none other. It had a beginning, when Christ died on the cross and rose from the dead for our eternal salvation, but it has no end. Christ, seated in glory at the right hand of the Father, reigns forever from His Heart pierced by the Roman soldier at His death.[1]
What is more, the extension of Christ’s kingdom is universal; it is not limited to one people or nation, but extends to every human heart without exception. From His glorious-pierced Heart Christ pours forth, without measure and without cease, the grace of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, into the hearts of the faithful members of the Church which is His Mystical Body. We are the living branches inserted into Christ, the Vine. From Him alone we receive the grace to bear the good fruit of a holy life.[2]
We come to understand the wonder of the kingship of Christ through the vision of the Prophet Daniel who declares: “[A]ll peoples, nations, and languages serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”[3]
The unusual, the truly unique, features of the title, king, when applied to Christ, flow from His divine Person and mission. Christ is God the Son, coequal with the Father and the Holy Spirit, Who became man to free us from sin, to free us that we may love God and one another. In Him, we are called to holiness of life, to participate in His royal mission. Therefore, He is rightly the object of our worship, and He rightfully claims our total allegiance.
Christ Himself described the true nature of His Kingship in the dialogue with Pilate during His Passion and before His Death, His greatest royal act. Christ declared that He is indeed a king because He testifies to the truth, the truth of God’s justice and love.[4]
His public ministry, His preaching of the Kingdom of God and His miraculous works, especially the forgiving of sins, testify fully to the truth. That testimony reaches its consummation in His suffering and dying for us on the cross.
In the Book of Revelation, Saint John the Apostle offers a beautiful acclamation to Christ the King, which expresses fully the nature of His Kingship and of our response to Him as our King:
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.[5]
At every celebration of the Holy Eucharist, we witness the Kingship of Christ continually at work in the Church as He renews sacramentally the Sacrifice of Calvary, pouring out His life for us anew. At every Eucharist, we offer our most perfect act of worship of Christ, acknowledging Him as our King Who alone brings us God’s truth and love. At every Eucharist, we unite ourselves in obedience to the mission of Christ, the royal mission of service to God and our neighbor in selfless love, and we receive into our hearts from His glorious-pierced Heart the nourishment of the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit, first received at our baptism, to carry out the mission. In the words of Blessed Columba Marmion,
Jesus came in us as King on the day of our baptism, but sin disputes this dominion with Him. When we destroy sin, infidelities, attachment to the creature; when we live by faith in Him, in His word, in His merits; when we seek to please Him in all things, then Christ is Master, then He reigns within us; as He reigns in the bosom of the Father, so He lives in us. He can say of us to the Father: “Behold this soul: I live and reign in her, O Father, that Thy name may be hallowed.”[6]
As we lift up our poor and sinful hearts to the glorious-pierced Heart of Christ the King in His Eucharistic Sacrifice, He reaches down to draw us into His glorious Royal Heart, in which He purifies us of sin and gives us rest and strength. The Kingship of Christ clearly extends to the individual human heart, calling forth the obedience which frees the individual to become all that God has created him or her to be. The Kingship of Christ over human hearts is not some ideal to which all are called but only a few can attain. It is, rather, a reality of divine grace which helps even the weakest and the most tried among us to attain a heroic degree of virtue, if only he or she cooperates with divine grace. The image of the Royal Heart of Jesus, His Most Sacred Heart, reminds us to seek always in Him – above all, in His Eucharistic Presence – the inspiration and strength for our daily living which is rightly called the royal way of holiness of life.
The image of the glorious Sacred Heart of Jesus is the symbol of Christ’s Kingship and of our participation in His royal mission. Before the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we place our hearts once again totally into His Heart, as we do at every Mass, and we ask to be purified of anything in our lives which prevents His truth and love from penetrating every fiber of our being. Before the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, our desire to be one with Christ in the Holy Eucharist is confirmed and increased. As we honor Christ the King today, let us renew the consecration of our hearts and homes to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. After the conclusion of the Holy Mass today, we will make anew the Act of the Consecration of the Human Race to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, promulgated by Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclical Letter Annum Sacrum,[7]
which Pope Pius XI, in his Encyclical Letter Quas Primas,[8]
establishing today’s feast, ordered to be renewed each year as an integral part of the observance of the feast.
Celebrating the Feast of Christ the King, let us renew our devotion to His Royal Heart. Let us keep before our eyes throughout each day, the image of Christ the King Who reigns in our lives from His glorious-pierced Heart. Throughout each day, let us place our hearts totally into His Heart, as we do most perfectly in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Through our devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, may Christ the King reign in our hearts and in our homes. If the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus has already been enthroned in your home, take time today to pray before the image, asking that Christ the King may always reign in your heart and in your home. If the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus has not yet been enthroned in your home, begin today the preparations for the Enthronement.
In the joy of today’s feast, I also have the profound joy of installing Father Hildebrand Garceau, Canon Regular of Prémontré of Saint Michael’s Abbey in Orange, California, as the Fourth Rector of the Church of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe here. In giving thanks for the mission of Father Hildebrand at the Shrine, I ask God’s special blessing upon him, so that he may be a faithful herald of the Church’s teaching, a compassionate minister of the Church’s sacraments and sacramentals, and a trusted moral guide for the many pilgrims whom Our Lady of Guadalupe draws here to encounter her Divine Son. The encounter with Our Lord, under the care of His Virgin Mother, Our Lady of Guadalupe, depends upon the ministry of priests ordained to act in His person for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. As Rector of the Shrine Church, Father Hildebrand has the responsibility of assuring that all priests who serve here are faithful to the Shrine’s high mission: the care of the souls of pilgrims. The pilgrims to the Shrine are profoundly blessed by his faithful and generous priestly life and ministry.
Installing Father Hildebrand as Rector of the Shrine Church, I express deepest gratitude to the Right Reverend Eugene Joseph Hayes, Abbot of Saint Michael’s Abbey, for the mission of the Canons Regulars of the Abbey on behalf of the ever-growing number of pilgrims to the Shrine. Please pray for Father Hildebrand and the other Norbertine Fathers, so that they will always faithfully and generously respond to the divine mission entrusted into their hands.
Christ the King reigns in our hearts from His glorious Sacred Heart, pierced for our sins, from which He unfailingly pours forth the divine life of the Holy Spirit into our hearts. As He now sacramentally renews for us the outpouring of His life for us on Calvary, let us place our frail hearts into His Most Sacred Heart, uniting ourselves completely with Him, offering our lives, with Him, in love of God and of our neighbor, especially of our neighbor most in need.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE
[1] Cf. Jn 19, 34.
[2] Cf. Jn 15, 5.
[3] Dn 7, 14.
[4] Cf. Jn 18, 37.
[5] Rv 1, 5-6.
[6] “Il est venu en nous comme Roi au jour du baptême ; mais sa domination lui dispute par le péché, quand nous détruisons le péché, les infidélités, l’attache à la créature ; que nous vivons de la foi en lui, en sa parole, en ses mérites, que nous cherchons à lui plaire en toutes choses, alors le Christ est le maître, alors il règne en nous, comme il règne dans le sein du Père, il vit en nous ; il peut dire de nous à son Père : « Voyez cette âme : je vis et règne en elle, ô Père, pour que votre nom soit sanctifié ». Columba Marmion, Le Christ dans Ses Mystères. Conférences spirituelles (Montréal: Librairie Granger Frères Limitée, 1946), p. 330. English translation: Columba Marmion, Christ in His Mysteries, tr. Mother M. St. Thomas of Tyburn Convent, 9th ed. (London: Sands & Co., 1939), pp. 295-296.
[7] Cf. https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/la/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_25051899_annum-sacrum.html, p. 5. English translation: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_25051899_annum-sacrum.html, no. 14.
[8] Cf. Pius PP. XI, “Litterae Encyclicae Quas primas, de festo Domini Nostri Iesu Christi Regis constituendo,” 11 Decembris 1925, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 17 (1925) 606-608. English translation: https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_11121925_quas-primas.html, nos. 26-28.