34th Sunday of the year B

34^TH SUNDAY: CHRIST THE KING: 21 NOVEMBER 2021: DAN 17. 13-14; REV 1. 5-8; JOHN 18. 33-37

Focus: Christ is the king of the universe. But it is not in terms of power and subjugation. Rather it is in terms of love and animation

1.      Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King with great joy and honor. This Sunday marks the last Sunday of the ordinary liturgical year as we will step into the holy season of Advent from next Sunday. This placement at the end of the ordinary year can indicate something significant: our whole life with all its ordinariness culminates in the kingship of Christ. We find our end and fulfillment under the reign of Christ. Our entire life must be geared and oriented toward Christ the Lord.

2.      The concepts of king, kingship, and kingdom are not strange to us. History has seen a great many kings and kingdoms, both benevolent and malevolent, both just and unjust, righteous and wicked, promotive and destructive. But when we say and celebrate Christ as King, there is an enormous difference.

3.       One obvious and explicit difference is he is a king with no demarcated territory of the kingdom. There are no boundaries. There are no disparities or inequalities. It is a boundless, boundaryless kingdom. It is a way of life. It is open to all and embraces all. There is equity and justice. There is no hierarchy of higher or lower, no scope for subjugation and suppression. There is no division and discrimination. There is no partiality or favoritism.

4.       There is no aggression or violence. There is no death and destruction. There is no falsity and deception. There is no manipulation and corruption. There is no ruthless seeking power and popularity. Rightly, he is a king of hearts. He is the king of souls. He is the king of communities and families. He is a spiritual king.

5.       Thus his kingdom is not a location or domain. It is a reign and ambience of love, justice, mercy, joy, and peace. It is a reign of truth and authenticity, loyalty and commitment. It is where one readily makes himself “the first to become the last and the servant”. It is the divine reign where one “serves and not craves to be served”. It is where one loves selflessly even to the extent of “dying for the other”. It is where one seeks relentlessly the will of God. It is where one can affirm courageously, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, let everything happen according to your holy word and will”.

6.       In sum, Christ is king when and where he reigns with his virtues and values. Where there is love and not hatred, peace and not violence, reconciliation and not retaliation, forgiveness and not grudge, altruism and not egoism, truth and not duplicity, humility and not arrogance, unity and parity and not division and discrimination, magnanimity and not malice, generosity and not jealousy, purity and not pollution – there and then is Christ the king, his kingship and kingdom.

7.       Today, many followers of this unparalleled and unique king sadly “profane” and “secularize” their king because they themselves are such, stung by high profanity and mundanity. They forget that they are citizens of a spiritual kingdom and not a temporal one. They forget that it is a spiritual reign and not a material domain or gain. They forget the very fact that they are only members and subjects and not the king or master themselves. They ignore the very pillars of this kingdom and build petty kingdoms with worldly pillars and ingredients.

Direction: Time is ripe now to demolish all the false kingdoms based on money, manipulation, and deception, corrupt power and lording authority, discrimination, and aggression, malice, and destruction. Let our prayer be sincere: “Let your Kingdom come!” 

34th SUNDAY: SOLEMNITY OF CHRIST THE KING, 22 NOVEMBER 2020

Still the Celebration of a King, in our times where king, kingship and kingdom are rather outdated or at least not a common phenomenon! This brings us to a first reflection that Jesus Christ is a King for all ages, beyond times and spaces. Times and places, cultures and customs may change. But He remains a King for ever.

2. What kind of king, kingship and kingdom? Quite in contrast to the rest, that of the world. A king with a difference, a King who makes a difference, a King who wants difference from his subjects.

3. He is a king who is not violent or aggressive. Not self-seeking or self-serving. Not self-promoting or self-gloried. Not dominating or subjugating. Not oppressing or intimidating. Not greedy or avaricious. Not hypocritical and deceptive. Not manipulative or corrupt. Not divisive or discriminative. Not biased or partial.

4. His is a kingship that believes and promotes healthy and progressive relationship and genuine friendship, that which puts no one to any hardship. A kingship that is not a rod of power, not a tool of lording over, but a way of fervour for Good, and a channel to guard and care for. His kingship is not one of enslaving coercion, but of willing and joyful submission.

5. His Kingdom is a kingdom that is not a domain of pomp and glory, but a reign of fraternal communion and service. A kingdom whose boundaries are magnanimity without boundaries. His kingdom is not one of serfdom of members treated as objects; but a kingdom of dignified and responsible freedom, where everyone is treated as subjects with respect and honour.

6. His royalty is not one of status or position, privilege or prestige. His royalty is that of loyalty to the core. His dignity is that of character. His nobility is not that of birth or cadre, but that of heart and dealing.

7. He is a King who reigns in the hearts and reigns over them. That is why recurrently Jesus affirms, The Kingdom of God is near you, the Kingdom is amidst you, the Kingdom is within you. It is reign of grace, with passion for God and compassion for others. It is where love reigns, where peace and harmony are the most delicious fruits, where equality and justice are priced norms, where prosperity and growth are the plans of action, where happiness and fulfilment of each one are the highest goals to nurture and achieve.

8. What a difference now between this eternal King, and his followers and specially his representatives who profess to carry his kingship? Christ the King is a challenge against all the tendencies to be "chota" kings and mini lords, against all self-glory and manipulation, against all power-wielding and deifying. His Kingdom is a rebuke against all unchristian forces of building up petty kingdoms, and narrowly demarcated territories, based on contingent and needless factors like caste, region, language, culture, rite etc. How can one pray daily, “may your Kingdom come”, but live and do all that makes the Kingdom go? How can we profess to work for his Kingdom, to nurture, foster and expand it, while we tend to suffocate its growth, and narrow down its confines and embrace?

9. Let us always bear in mind that no one is above the King, the Master and the Lord, who is one and sole. One may be great, high-positioned, efficient, popular or powerful, but always remains only a disciple, a follower, a servant. There are no more kings and masters, no more saviours and lords. No other teaching can be higher or more important than the teaching of the Master. Kingdom of God is spacious, unbound and unconfined, and no single human institution or religious structure can domesticate the Kingdom which is the Reign of the Spirit. Even the Church is only an Agent at the service of the Kingdom, the Reign of God, and it cannot make itself its equivalent or substitute. The Church even as the Mystical Body and Bride of Christ, must always remain docile and adherent to her Lord.

10. The King of heart and love, the Ruler of truth and integrity is inviting us, to give Him our hearts to reign within, and to give our lives to reign over, so that his Kingdom of faith and benevolence prevails.