Dear Readers:
As we begin a new year of grace in the life of the Church … a year in which we will focus on the Gospel of Mark and the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John (“The Bread of Life” discourses) … I thought I would share with you my homily for Nov. 26, Christ the King Sunday, which for me is the bridge to the Advent season. This particular feast announces, “There is still something to wait for…” I hope that as we enter into the Advent and Christmas seasons, we will come to experience the hope and light these days are meant to bring to a world darkened by sin and death. Yes, there is still something to wait for as we prepare for and celebrate the newborn king. A blessed Advent to you!
I must admit that like travel at holiday time, my thoughts and reflections have been scattered as I prayed over our readings for this final Sunday of the Church’s liturgical year. They have taken me in different directions, but I have arrived at a theme for this homily … and that is it: “We have arrived!”
And yet, sisters and brothers, like in travel, even an arrival can be just part of the trip. Think of it like arriving at an airport gate or at a train station or a bus or subway stop, you might not only be asking, “Where are we?” but also “Where do we go from here? What is my true destination and how do we get there from here?”
This travel imagery came to mind when I came across a reflection on the “Kingdom of God” by Gerald Darring (Living Liturgy, 2023) in my homily preparations this week. He wrote:
The Kingdom of God is a space. It exists in every home where parents and children love each other. It exists in every region and country that cares for its weak and vulnerable. It exists in every parish that reaches out to the needy.
The Kingdom of God is a time. It happens whenever someone feeds a hungry person, or shelters a homeless person, or shows care to a neglected person. It happens whenever we overturn an unjust law, or correct an injustice or avert a war. It happens whenever people join in the struggle to overcome poverty, to erase ignorance, to pass on the Faith.
The Kingdom of God is in the past (in the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth); it is in the present (in the work of the Church and in the efforts of many others to create a world of goodness and justice); it is in the future (reaching its completion in the age to come).
The Kingdom of God is a condition. Its symptoms are love, justice, and peace. Jesus Christ is king! We pray today that God may free all the world to rejoice in his peace, to glory in his justice, to live in his love.
Brothers and sisters, as St. Paul reminds us in today’s second reading to the Church of Corinth, the “Kingdom of God” is our destination. Paragraph 2816 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains it in this way:
In the New Testament, the word “basileia” can be translated by “kingship” (abstract noun), “kingdom” (concrete noun) or “reign” (action noun). The Kingdom of God lies ahead of us. It is brought near in the Word incarnate, it is proclaimed throughout the whole Gospel, and it has come in Christ’s death and Resurrection. The Kingdom of God has been coming since the Last Supper and, in the Eucharist, it is in our midst. The kingdom will come in glory when Christ hands it over to his Father: It may even be … that the Kingdom of God means Christ himself, whom we daily desire to come, and whose coming we wish to be manifested quickly to us. For as he is our resurrection, since in him we rise, so he can also be understood as the Kingdom of God, for in him we shall reign.
Okay … so we know where we are going! We have even made it this far on the journey! Why then, sisters and brothers, can you and I still feel so unsettled? Most likely, it is because our Gospel reading is a reminder that there is still progress to be made before we experience the fullness of the Kingdom of God. Memories I have of traveling in Italy during my graduate studies are standing alone at a train station or a bus stop and just waiting … rather unsure of what to expect next … yet reminding myself I don’t go this way alone, nor should anyone else feel that way either!
For me, this is the challenge this Lord’s Day brings as the Kingdom of God stands before each of us. Like in “The Wizard of Oz,” the Emerald City stands before us, but to get there you and I need to walk the proverbial yellow brick road accompanying and helping one another along the way. That is, the way the Master trod when he reached out to the needy and outcasts in his journeys — he didn’t do it alone and invited those with him to do the same. Let us never forget, that it was in these moments also that those in Jesus’ company came to know that the reign of God was upon them!
Brothers and sisters, next Sunday, we will begin a new year of grace in the life of the Church with the First Sunday of Advent. The word “grace” is a reminder that it is God’s gift to us; and it starts with calling to mind the hope the coming of the Christ brings to the world yesterday, today and tomorrow. The first candle on the Advent wreath signifies this “Hope” and is an invitation to reflect upon the hope that Jesus Christ brings and to become a hope-filled people in a darkened world.
This Christ the King Sunday, as we continue our celebration of the Eucharist, let us pray that God may draw our awareness to the people and places that benefited from our living out of the faith over the past year, and to those areas in which we can grow in the year ahead. Jesus, King of kings, reign in our hearts today and always. Amen!
