The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
I Was Born for This
In response to Pilate’s question, “Then you are a king?” Jesus answers, “You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
What kind of king is Jesus? What is the truth to which Jesus testifies? How do we belong to the truth and what does listening to Jesus’ voice entail?
Unlike other images of kings that we read or hear about, Jesus is a servant king. His kingdom, therefore, is also different. In the Lord’s Prayer, we say, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” How do we live a heavenly kingdom on earth?
Gerald Darring gives us both images and actions describing the kingdom of God on earth.
The Kingdom of God is …
The Kingdom of God is a space. It exists in every home where parents and children love each other. It exists in every region and country that cares for its weak and vulnerable. It exists in every parish that reaches out to the needy.
The Kingdom of God is a time. It happens whenever someone feeds a hungry person, or shelters a homeless person, or shows care to a neglected person. It happens whenever we overturn an unjust law, or correct an injustice, or avert a war. It happens whenever people join in the struggle to overcome poverty, to erase ignorance, to pass on the faith.
The Kingdom of God is in the past (in the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth); it is in the present (in the work of the Church and in the efforts of many others to create a world of goodness and justice); it is in the future (reaching its completion in the age to come).
The Kingdom of God is a condition. Its symptoms are love, justice, and peace.
Jesus Christ is king! We pray today that God may “free all the world to rejoice in his peace, to glory in his justice, to live in his love.”
https://liturgy.slu.edu/ChristKingB112121/reflections_justice.html