14 November 2019
Thursday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God is among us; it will not be something we see coming, it will not be noticed or be something we can point to. Why is this? Consider what, exactly, a kingdom is: the domain of a king, the sphere of his rule. The Kingdom of God is among us when we are faithful to the life our King has given us at our Baptism, refreshes and nourishes in the Eucharist. In other words when we live our lives as though Christ is our King, the Kingdom of God is here. Imagine if every Christian strove to be faithful to their baptismal call: what a world we would live in! Yet we look out into the world and we see not a world ruled by Christ the King, but one governed by a cruel prince: Satan. Yet our King said “Now is the time of judgement on this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out,” (John 12:31). One day the King will return and take His throne over the world, the universe even, and it will be as obvious and sudden as a bolt of lightning. Will we be ready for it?
C.S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, writes: “Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it that He is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely. I do not suppose you and I would have thought much of a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side. God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else-something it never entered your head to conceive-comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it.”
Hence why Jesus so often preached that “The Kingdom of God is at hand,” (Mark 1:15): there is no time to waste. The Church and all her sacraments allow us to begin partaking of Heaven right now: why do we so often put aside that opportunity to live in His Kingdom now, instead choosing to submit to the tyranny of the flesh, which is never satisfied and finds no true peace in this world? Let us instead hearken to the words of our King, and find peace and encouragement in them: “I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world,” (John 16:33)