This coming Sunday, Nov. 29, we will celebrate the 34th and final Sunday of the current liturgical year. That final Sunday is observed as the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.
This feast was established by Pope Pius XI in 1925. As we know from history, that was a time when secularism and attacks against the Catholic Church and faithful were taking place in Mexico and in the nascent communist movement in Russia following World War I. Today also, secular ideology, in various forms, seeks to banish Christ and faith in many countries. As such, it attacks the freedom of religion that is a basic human right and which is the foundation of peaceful families and societies.
The Gospels tell us that the ministry of Jesus stirred up hopes among many in His time that He was the long-desired earthly king who would set the Jewish people free in an earthly sense. Freedom from the occupying Romans. Freedom based on a political program.
Jesus of course rejected this kind of kingship based in earthly considerations and power. In the Gospel of John, after feeding the crowds who had come to hear Him with the multiplication of loaves and fish, we are told, “Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry Him off to make Him king, He withdrew again to the mountain alone.” (Jn 6: 15).
The clearest summary of the Kingship of Jesus, and its importance for us is to be found when Pilate spoke to Jesus before His crucifixion as recorded in the Gospel of John. Pilate was a notoriously cruel ruler. Yet his conversation with Jesus shows Pilate to be curious about Jesus and reluctant to accede to the request of Jewish leaders that He be put to death.
Pilate asked Jesus directly, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus’s response was “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants [would] be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here.”
When Pilate pressed Jesus further by asking “Then you are a king?”, the Lord answered, “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.” (Cf. Jn 18).
This solemnity reminds us that even today it is an integral part of our faith, drawn from both the Old and New Testaments and from the words of Jesus, that we seek eternal life in His kingdom. We seek His kingship over us on His loving terms. But that kingship requires us to be, in return, loving, faithful and responsible subjects.
Pope Pius XI wisely wrote that we must seek to make Jesus King of our minds as we accept the truth that He taught us about God, the world and ourselves. He must be King of our wills as we accept and live His laws, especially His moral laws. He must be King of our hearts as we return love to Him. And Jesus must reign in our bodies as we use them in this world to seek holiness in our actions.
In an earthly sense, the reign of Kings in our time is now greatly diminished. But the Kingship of Jesus, ruling with power, justice and love over the whole world, is as real now as it was 2,000 years ago. He is the King who judges. But even more He is the King who loves and who forgives. His is the everlasting Kingdom for which we were made.
Christ the King. What a tremendous feast to summarize our faith as we conclude the gift of another liturgical year.
