Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
In 325, the First Ecumenical Council took place in the city of Nicea in Asia Minor. During that Council, the dogma regarding Christ’s divinity was defined to counteract the Arian heresy: “Christ is God, light from light, true God from true God”. 1600 years later, in 1925, Pope Pius XI proclaimed that the best way to defeat injustice was by acknowledging the kingship of Christ. “For people are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church. Such pronouncements usually reach only a few and the more learned among the faithful; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year - in fact, forever. The church's teaching affects the mind primarily; her feasts affect both mind and heart, and have a salutary effect upon the whole of man's nature” (Encyclical Quas primas, 11 December 1925).
The original date this feast was celebrated was the Sunday prior to All Saints Day (the last Sunday of October). But with the liturgical reform of 1969, it was moved to the last Sunday of the liturgical year, thus highlighting that Jesus Christ, the King, is the destination of our earthly pilgrimage. There are Biblical texts specific to all three years of the liturgical cycle which help us fully grasp the person of Jesus.
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations[o] will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life”. (Mt. 25:31-46)
The final stage
Today we celebrate the last Sunday of the Liturgical Year, known as the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. We began moving toward this goal with the First Sunday of Advent. Today we have reached it. Given the fact that the Liturgical Year represents our own life in miniature, this experience reminds us, and even more educates us, that we are on a journey toward an encounter with Jesus, the Spouse, when He will come as the King and Lord of life and of history. The coming we are now awaiting is His second coming. His first coming was in the humility of a Child laid in a manger (cf. Lk. 2:7); His second coming will be when He returns in glory at the end of time which we liturgically celebrate today.
But there is also an intermediate coming – we are living it today – in which Jesus is present in us through the Grace we receive in the Sacraments and in the face of every “least one” the Gospel speaks of (“Unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven”. Mt. 18:3). We are invited to recognize Jesus in the face of each brother and sister. Along this journey, the liturgy offers us a school of life to instruct us how to recognize the Lord present in everyday life and to prepare us for His final coming.
Coordinates of life
“Come, you who are blessed…” “Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”. The blessing and the curse are not the decisions, the “judgement” of a King, who only takes into consideration what each person has done, but how much each person has taken care of others (cf. Jn. 4; Lk. 16:19-31). At the beginning of the Gospel (1:23), the evangelist Matthew writes: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means ‘God is with us’”. At the conclusion of the Gospel, he writes: “Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Mt. 28:20). It is within this frame that we should read the “Universal Judgement” that today’s liturgy invites us to contemplate. Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, is truly “with us” until the end of the world. He is with us. But where? How can we recognize Him present and active in our lives? To find Him it is necessary to follow in His footsteps, cultivate His own sentiments – which are often not ours. How can we fail to remember when Jesus confided to His disciples that death on the cross awaited Him, and Peter rebuked Him. So, Jesus took Peter apart and said to him, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are not thinking as God does, but as human beings do” (Mt. 16:23; cf. Is. 55:8). We must always remember that we are in the world, but not of the world (cf. Jn. 17:14). It is precisely because it is so easy to be led astray from the right path that it is important to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus so as not to lose sight of Him (cf. Heb 12:2). He is here. Our life is not guided, therefore, by chance, but by a Presence that is Life and who shows us the Way.
A feast that reveals the way to go
The Liturgical Year is a symbol of our journey of life. It has a beginning and an end in the encounter with the Lord Jesus, King and Lord, in the kingdom of heaven which we will enter through the narrow door opened by our “sister death” (Saint Francis). At the beginning of the Liturgical Year (First Sunday of Advent) we were shown beforehand the destination toward which we have been moving. It’s like we have been given the responses a year beforehand to the questions we would be asked on an exam! If it were an exam, that would have been cheating. But in the liturgy, instead, it is Jesus the Teacher’s gift to us, because it tells which path to take (Jesus the Way), what thoughts to entertain (Jesus the Truth), and what hope we should allow to move us (Jesus the Life; cf. Jn. 14:6).
It’s all about love
What is striking about the texts we have heard today, is that the final exam focuses on love, on the concrete things in life, beginning with the simplest, ordinary actions: “I was hungry; I was thirsty”…not on heroic actions, not on actions that have nothing to do with daily life, not even striking actions. The beauty of today’s Gospel is that Jesus is not only the God with us until the end of the ages, but He is God in us, beginning with the least: He goes to the point of identifying Himself with those in need, with each and every “least one” of the Gospel, with those who are persecuted (for example, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Acts 9:4). So, every loving action is done “with Jesus” since we are in His company; “like Jesus” as we have learned from the Gospels; but even “to Jesus” because each time a loving action is accomplished, it is done “to Him”.
Love in daily life
What is surprising in looking at the actions were recorded about Jesus is that there is not even one religious or sacred action, in the strict sense of the words. What we see are actions typically done by “lay” people: what He did when He was traveling on the road, in people’s houses, wherever He happened to be, wherever there was a need. In reality, there is nothing that is pro-fane anymore, inside or outside the temple, because all of reality is encompassed by God’s temple: nothing is profane and everything is ‘sacred’, because everything is directed to Jesus” (L. Giussani). This is the type of cult God wants. This can be seen in another passage from the Gospel of Matthew: “So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Mt 5:23-24). In the end, if the cult we perform at the altar is not preceded and accompanied by the cult of love toward our neighbor, our worship does not matter very much.
