“If you love me”, said Our Blessed Lord to his Apostles in the Upper Room, “you will keep my commandments”.  And he added, “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me…” (NRSV, John 14: 15,21).  And there lay the answer to a question which two years before he had put to a great crowd drawn from all parts of Palestine and beyond, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’, and do not do what I tell you?” (NRSV, Luke 6:17,46).

So our response to Our Blessed Lord as our King is something more than mere loyalty – it is loving obedience and it will be expressed and revealed in our daily life.  What does that mean in practice?  It means honesty, truthfulness, integrity, in little things and in great.  It means purity of mind, patience and self-control, active good will towards all and a forgiving spirit towards those who have wronged or injured us.

And it also means that our motive for thinking and speaking and acting like that is just that we may please Our Blessed Lord and be pleasing to him; not loyalty to principles, but loving obedience to him.