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Sacred Scriptures/Liturgy- Commentary on Sunday's Readings |
Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
and of Hearts
Solemnity of
Christ the King, Last Sunday in Ordinary Time
Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, OFMCap, Pontifical Household Preacher
www.zenit.org
2 Samuel 5:1-3; Colossians
1:12-20; Luke 23:35-43
ROME, NOV. 23, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The solemnity of Christ the King
was instituted only recently. It was instituted by Pope Pius XI in
1925 in response to the atheist and totalitarian political regimes
that denied the rights of God and the Church. The climate in which
the feast was born was, for example, that of the Mexican revolution,
when many Christians went to their deaths crying out to their last
breath, “Long live Christ the King!”
But if the feast is recent, its content and its central idea are
not; they are quite ancient and we can say that they were born with
Christianity. The phrase “Christ reigns” has its equivalent in the
profession of faith: “Jesus is Lord,” which occupies a central place
in the preaching of the apostles.
Sunday’s Gospel passage narrates the death of Christ, because it is
at that moment that Christ begins to rule over the world. The cross
is Christ’s throne. “Above him there was an inscription that read,
‘This is the King of the Jews.'” That which in the intention of his
enemies was the justification of his condemnation, was, in the eyes
of the heavenly Father, the proclamation of his universal
sovereignty.
To see what this feast has to do with us, we need only recall to our
minds a very simple distinction. There are two universes, two worlds
or cosmoses: the “macrocosm,” which is the whole universe external
to us, and the “microcosm,” or the little universe, which is each
individual man. The liturgy itself, in the reform that followed
Vatican II, felt the need to accent the human and spiritual aspect
of the feast over the, so to speak, political aspect of the feast.
The prayer of the feast no longer asks, as it once did, “that all
the families of nations, now kept apart by the wound of sin, may be
brought under the sweet yoke of [Christ’s] rule” but that “every
creature, freed from the slavery of sin, serve and praise [Christ]
forever.”
Let us consider again the inscription placed above Christ: “This is
the King of the Jews.” The onlookers challenged him to manifest his
royalty openly and many, even among his friends, expected a
spectacular demonstration of his kingship. But he chose only to show
his kingship in his solicitousness for one man, who was, in fact, a
criminal: “‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He
replied to him, ‘Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in
paradise.'"
From this point of view, the most important question to ask on the
feast of Christ the King is not whether he reigns in the world but
whether he reigns in me; it is not whether his kingship is
recognized by states and governments, but whether it is recognized
and lived in me.
Is Christ the King and Lord of my life? Who rules in me, who
determines the goals and establishes priorities: Christ or someone
else? According to St. Paul, there are two ways to live: either for
ourselves or for the Lord (Romans 14:7-9). Living “for ourselves”
means living like someone who takes himself to be the beginning and
the end; it is a life closed in on itself, drawn only by its own
satisfaction and glory, without any perspective of eternity. Living
“for the Lord,” on the contrary, means living for the Lord, that is,
with a view to him, for his glory, for his kingdom.
What we have here is truly a new existence, in the face of which,
death itself has lost its definitiveness. The greatest contradiction
that man has always experienced -- that between life and death --
has been overcome. The contradiction is no longer between “living”
and “dying” but between living “for ourselves” and living “for the
Lord.”
[Translation by ZENIT]
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