This Sunday the Church celebrates the feast of Christ, the universal King. It is appropriate that we celebrate this Solemnity as we approach Advent, the season in which we wait in anticipation for the coming of the Messiah, our Saviour and King.
The readings at Mass today speak of the kingship of Christ. In the Gospel passage from Saint John, we read the account of the dialogue between Pilate and Jesus prior to his crucifixion. Pilate questions Jesus, ”Are you the king of the Jews?’” Jesus says in response that his kingdom is not of this world “if my kingdom were of this world, my men would have fought to prevent my being surrendered to the Jews” . Jesus does not claim to be just the king of the Jews and tells Pilate that his kingdom is a spiritual one, he has been sent by the heavenly Father as king of all who are on the side of truth “I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice” . In the first reading the prophecy of Daniel also makes reference to the kingship of Christ. Daniel describes his vision of a kingdom that shall stand forever and will never be destroyed “I gazed into the visions of the night. And I saw, coming on the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man…on him was conferred sovereignty, glory and kingship…which shall never pass away.”
In reflecting upon the message of today’s readings we are reminded that the kingdom of Christ is an everlasting one, a kingdom of love. God loved us first, and it is for this reason that he gave us Jesus Christ as our Saviour and King. Through his suffering, death and resurrection Jesus revealed the depth of his love for the human race, radically redefining the meaning of kingship. He is the humble king and faithful servant who loves us unconditionally, displaying this everlasting love by his sacrifice on the Cross. As Saint John says in the second reading from the book of Apocalypse, “He loves us and has washed away our sins with his blood”. Each time we take part in the Eucharistic celebration, we celebrate the memorial of his death and resurrection; and receive Christ truly present in Holy Communion. Therefore in our prayer we can give thanks to Jesus as our loving king, for giving us the ‘bread of life’ – for it is through the gift of the Eucharist that he renews us in his love, and invites us into an authentic friendship with him and each other as his beloved sons and daughters.
Pope Benedict in his Letter for the Year of Faith says:-“The joy of love, the answer to the drama of suffering and pain, the power of forgiveness in the face of an offence received and the victory of life over the emptiness of death: all this finds fulfilment in the mystery of his Incarnation, in his becoming man, in his sharing our human weakness so as to transform it by the power of his resurrection. In him who died and rose again for our salvation, the examples of faith that have marked these two thousand years of our salvation history are brought into the fullness of light.”
(Pope Benedict XVI, PORTA FIDEI, 11 October 2011)
