25 November 2018
The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
The feast of Christ the King marks the last Sunday of the liturgical year, to be followed next Sunday by a new beginning as Advent looks forward to Christmas. The first two readings for Christ the King this year, the vision of the coming of the Son of Man in Daniel 7 and the fulfillment of that prophecy in Revelation 1, can help us to get a sense of just how close beginning and end are to one another. They convey the reality of the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, a reality beautifully expressed by Charles Wesley’s Christmas hymn “Lo! He Comes With Clouds Descending,” which is based on today’s reading from Revelation 1. In order to better appreciate the cosmic dimensions of today’s feast, it would be worth returning to a prior reflection on the themes found at: https://www.magisspirituality.org/ignatian_reflection/17-11-16/.
When the Lord comes in his glory, will we recognize him? There is no doubt that we will see him, for “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him” (Rev 1:7). But if we fail to recognize him, we may unwittingly ask in a half-mocking way: “are you the king of the Jews?” How then will we respond when the questioning is turned back toward ourselves:“do you say this on your own, or have others told you about me?” At the very least, we have been told that Jesus is the messiah, the Lord who is and is to come. But can we say this on our own? Have we experienced this kingship in our own lives? In fact, since Jesus’ kingship cannot properly be recognized by a world that does not understand what it truly means to be king, the only proper way to recognize that kingship is with our lives. When we claim Jesus as Christ and King only with our lips, then there is no truth within us, for our lives proclaim another “truth.” But when our lives reveal the work that we let Christ do in us, through the miracles of forgiveness and love that he enables us to live when both seem humanly impossible, then we witness to the truth for which we, too, were born. Let us, then, ask our Christ and King for the grace to truly listen to his voice and so belong to the truth that he is.