Two Kingdoms

Title: Two Kingdoms

Date: Monday, April 11, 1988 - Stanislaus, Bishop & Martyr

Readings: Acts 4:23-31 / Psalm 2:1-3,4-6,7-9 / John 3:1-8

Today, we celebrate the memorial on behalf of St. Stanislaus who in a most spectacular way illustrates the struggle which Christ began and which we continue. There are two kingdoms and they are both competing for our loyalty. In the story of Christ, we recall from our Lenten observances the occasion when he is challenged for being a king. He responds that his kingdom is not of this world. This is true; however, there are elements of it now breaking into the world. This is the Church. It is like an invading army into a hostile land. Christ who is our king did not spare himself from the battle and indeed, he became the war's first casualty. However, quite ironically, he turned what appeared as a momentary defeat into the means by which he would win the war. By his rising to new life, sin and death were conquered, thus ensuring that the kingdom of the world, despite incessant skirmishes, could never overcome us.

St. Stanislaus was born on July 26, 1030 in the diocese of Cracow, Poland. He was a well-learned man who offered wonderful sermons inspiring people to reform their lives. In 1072, he became bishop. The king at the time, Boleslaus II was living a life filled with infamy and excess. St. Stanislaus reproached him. No one, not even a king, was above the scrutiny of God. Finally, in 1079, the bishop's patience was exhausted and he excommunicated this worldly king. The story of Christ's encounter with the king of the world would be repeated. While he was praying in a small chapel outside Cracow, the king and his guards entered. The guards hesitated to carry out the evil king's demand. Further enraged, he himself murdered the good bishop with his own hands.

This pattern as we have seen was not new. It happened to Christ, it happened to the apostles who in our first reading even remarked about the resistence they were encountering; it happened a thousand years ago to St. Stanislaus; and it happens to modern martyrs today. Our consolation is that the part of the pattern we witness is incomplete. If our witness should take us into persecution and into various kinds of dying, then we also believe that we will rise with Christ.