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The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe Mass Readings
First Reading: 2 Samuel 5:1-3
Responsorial: Psalm 122:1-5
Second Reading: Colossians 1:12-20
Gospel: Luke 23:35-43
http://usccb.org/bible/readings/112419.cfm
Greetings on this Solemnity of Christ the King! I’m sure that many of you have heard excellent homilies today about Christ the King, perhaps tracing the history of kingship through Scripture to its manifestation in Jesus Christ, that is to say, in Jesus the anointed. So rather than attempt cover that ground again, I’d like to share with you my reflection about what the kingship of Jesus means.
But first, I’d like to admit that I have been a little bummed. I can’t specifically tell you how long I’ve felt this way, but it’s been a while. “Why,” you might ask? Well, I’ve probably spent a little too much time over the past year on social media. More recently, between politics in several countries and the fallout over the Pan Amazon Synod, I’ve been really bothered specifically by all the negative comments I’ve read.
Very often I’ve composed a response to one post or another, but of course I rarely actually post replies. I try to take a page from President Lincoln who, it is said, would write what he called a “hot letter” whenever he felt the urge to tell someone off. Once he finished emptying his anger into the letter, he would write on the bottom, “Never sent. Never signed.”, and then he’d file it away.
Now he is not the only person in history to write unsent “angry letters.” I have some examples in the notes to this podcast which you can find on the website www.deaconrudysnotes.org. <1> But I’ve got to tell you, the sheer volume of angry, accusatory and hurtful comments cast into cyberspace makes my heart hurt.
You see, it seems no one seems interested in solving problems. Everyone just seems focused on trying to win the argument. “What’s happening to Western society?” I wonder to myself. It can be all so overwhelming. Why does all of this bother me so much?
Well, when my faith teaches me that we are all created in the image and likeness of God, I believe it. I believe that Jesus is the fullness of humanity – everything God ever hoped for all of us. St. Paul tells us that Jesus is in us:
• 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Or do you not realize about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you?”
• 2 Corinthians 4:6-7, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels…”
• Romans 8:10, “But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness.”
• Galatians 1:15-16, “But when it pleased God…to reveal His Son in me.”
• Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”
You get my drift?
This is why some of the mystics and saints go further than suggesting we should be like Jesus. They say, based on Scripture, that we are Jesus – each and every one of us. Think about that! The English mystic, Caryll Houselander describes the most incredible vision that hit her while she was traveling in the underground on a crowded train. Suddenly, she couldn’t see the people around except various form of Jesus Christ. The vision persisted when she emerged on the street and it continued for several days. In some people she found a suffering Jesus while in others a living, vibrant Jesus bursting with love and compassion. And still in others, sadly, a Jesus in the tomb of a lifeless soul. <2> Whoa!
For me, to read the overwhelmingly negative exchanges on various social media platforms, especially between supposed Christians, makes me feel…well it makes me wonder how a disciple must have felt standing in the crowd and watching helplessly as Jesus was convicted; as he carried his cross; as he was hung on the cross and as he died on the cross.
Sadly, the worst is not over yet. I suspect we will be witness to more online cruelty and intolerance as elections play out in the UK and the United States just like we’re seeing in Israel and Bolivia.
How is it that Christians can do this to one another? I think it’s because they haven’t accepted Jesus as King. You see, when we accept Jesus as King, he becomes king over every aspect of our entire lives, over our very souls. And our response to one another must first recognize Jesus in the other person and second come from a place firmly grounded in the Kingdom of God. Does that mean we can’t be patriots of our various nations? No, of course we can be patriotic, but our patriotism – our claim to our respective nations and indeed to everything in this world must come second, perhaps a distant second to our citizenship in the Kingdom of God.
If we are to live like Christ, then we need to realize that our Lord and King comes to us not on a bejeweled throne of gold, but on a wooden cross. His kingship isn’t turned inward toward power, wealth and a desire to always be right, but rather it is turned outward with love, compassion, healing, forgiveness, and non-violence. <3>
As we consider the great challenge of the Kingship of Jesus, I encourage us to use the upcoming season of Advent which is a time of preparation to begin again the business of self-evaluation and self-reflection; to reign-in our egos and to make sure that our lives are in service to Jesus Christ as we find him the people all around us.
Homework! As this liturgical season winds down, I encourage you to reflect on the following two questions:
- How can I be a channel of God’s service, comfort, healing and life in this world?
- Cool off before posting ANYTHING on ANY social media platform.
I think our homework this week might help us recognize Jesus in the people around us. Do you got it? Do you get it? Good! Now go make disciples! May Almighty God bless you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit! +Amen!
Notes:
<1> “Harry S. Truman once almost informed the treasurer of the United States that, ‘I don’t think that the financial advisor of God Himself would be able to understand what the financial position of the Government of the United States is, by reading your statement.’ In 1922, Winston Churchill nearly warned Prime Minister David Lloyd George that when it came to Iraq, ‘we are paying eight millions a year for the privilege of living on an ungrateful volcano out of which we are in no circumstances to get anything worth having.’ Mark Twain all but chastised Russians for being too passive when it came to the czar’s abuses, writing, ‘Apparently none of them can bear to think of losing the present hell entirely, they merely want the temperature cooled down a little.’ Konnikova, Maria. The Lost Art of the Unsent Angry Letter. 22 March 2014. The New York Times Opinion page accessed 22 November 2019 https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/opinion/sunday/the-lost-art-of-the-unsent-angry-letter.html
<2> Houselander, Caryll. A Rocking-Horse Catholic. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955.
<3> Bishop Robert Barron “March in the Army of the True King” https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/homily/march-in-the-army-of-the-true-king/25853/
Church Teaching:
• Jesus prays on the cross, 597, 2605, 2635
• Jesus as king, 440
• The good thief 1021, 2616