Spirituality of the Readings

Spiritual Revolutions

In the western world there was once a king named Arthur. He was the one who invented the famous Round Table and had Lancelot as his knight and Guinevere as his wife.*

Long before Arthur became a king—in fact when he was just an infant in the cradle—a strange thing happened. The nurse stepped out for a moment and quick as a wink Merlin the magician appeared.

Then disappeared and took the little boy with him.

He was now the foster-son of Sir Ector, and he was given the unpresumptuous name Wart.

This was not really a kidnapping, because Merlin was a kindly old magician. Alright it was a kidnapping, but it was for a fond purpose. This magician did not want this boy to grow up in a sumptuous court, spoiled, pampered and “royal.” Rulers can be miles above the tiny precious specks of beauty in life.

So Merlin whisked young Arthur to a bedraggled castle of a third-rate Lord, Sir Ector.

Ector’s castle was coarse and dirty but the people were ordinary and nice, and the nooks and crannies were perfect for a little boy to run around in and to hide in. All the servants and lords and ladies were his friends. Naturally.

There was no jealousy about Arthur’s being heir to the throne because, thanks to Merlin, no one knew that he was. Even the boy did not know! He was now the foster-son of Sir Ector, and he was given the unpresumptuous name Wart (which in those days rhymed with Art, which is short for Arthur).

Merlin, funny old character, decided to educate Wart in an odd, special way. Merlin’s idea was to transform him into various and sundry animals so that the Wart would find out first-hand the wonders packed into, say, the life of a hawk. Or of a fish. In fact, especially of a fish, because fishes go around in schools, and Wart the fish could go to class!

Now, Jesus was not called Christ during his whole lifetime any more than Wart was called King. He was called “Jesus,” a name that in Hebrew was Joshua, which probably meant “God is salvation.” He was a normal Jewish boy, playing with toys, helping his dad, getting his hands dirty and watching birds fly.

Like the Wart, Jesus identified with the lowliest, most ordinary people in the world. Granted, there was no Merlin to turn Jesus into a fish or a hawk, but there was someone better, the Holy Spirit.

At the last, Pilate asked Jesus if he were a king. Jesus was a King, but not in any way a Pilate could understand.

Smallness was his power.

Christ the King.

I almost forgot to tell you: I typed a wrong key when I began writing this reflection and hit a “d” instead of a “g” at the end of the word King. It came out “Christ the Kind”!

Why should Christ the Kind, one of the people, have to suffer? Because he was one of us.

Why do we have to suffer? Because that is the way of the world.

And why didn’t Christ the King change the world and make things perfect? He did, but not in the way we had expected.

He did it as Christ the Kind.

John Foley, SJ

**From Saint Louis University