November 25 VIVA CRISTO REY!!
Today is the feast of Christ the King. Fr. Cantalamessa has good reflection on his website. The Gospel passage from Luke recounts the Passion of Jesus Christ. One could see the Gospels as a continuous movement to the glory of the Cross. Jesus as the Son of God reigns in love over the whole cosmos from the cross, his throne.
The Gospel for this feast teaches us three important lessons. When the crowd yells to Christ to save himself, he stays on the cross to show us that he came not to save himself, but to save all mankind. In a selfish world Christ offers us a perfectly selfless act. He teaches us that citizenship in his Kingdom, which flows from the waters of baptism, demands that we are selfless and loving in our dealings with others. We are to be more concerned for the wellbeing of others than ourselves. Our political leaders could take a lesson or two from that.
The second lesson comes from the temtpation the devil makes to Jesus through the words of the crowd, “If you are the Son of God, come down off that cross.” We seem to think that God needs to constantly prove his worth to us. We are always asking God to do something for us and THEN we will follow him. However, what else can he do to prove his love that he has not already done?? He has created us, he keeps us and the whole world in being every moment of every day. He pours his love on us forever. HE DOES NOT NEED TO PROVE HIMSELF TO US! We, on the other hand, need to prove ourselves to him. He loves us and puts great trust in us. Do we try to live up to that trust every day? Do we, as St. Paul says, Live a life worthy of our calling? We can never be worthy of all that God has given us. We do not deserve it. But each day we ought to seek to please God by our thoughts, words and actions to prove to him that what he has not bestowed on us will be wasted.
The third lesson from Luke comes from the lips of the Good thief tradition calls Dismas. (The bad guy is known as Gestas) He asks Jesus to be merciful and remember him when he comes into his Kingdom. Can Jesus ever forget any of us? We hear from Isaiah that if a mother forgets her child, God will never forget them. It is not possible for God to forget us, but we often go through the entire day forgetful of God. One could argue that another definition of sin is that it is an action of one who ceases to remember God, and thus focuses only on himself. This season of Advent which will begin next week is a time to remember God and his coming at the end of the world and Christmas, but how many will with all Christmas preparations and parties they will be attending?
So on this Feast of Christ the King, let us be grateful that God has shown us his love from the cross, and let our response to that great gift be one of selfless generosity, a desire to show ourselves worthy of all that God offers us, and lastly, to remember that God loves us and is our constant companion, who desires nothing more than to be with us in paradise.
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