Deacon Tom writes
“My Kingdom Is Not Of This World”
Pope Benedict XVI wrote the
following comment about today’s Feast of Christ the King:
“Jesus of Nazareth is so intrinsically king that the title ‘King’ has
actually become his name. By calling ourselves Christians, we label ourselves
as followers of the king. God did not intend Israel to have a kingdom. The
kingdom was a result of Israel’s rebellion against God. The law was to be Israel’s king, and,
through the law, God himself. God yielded to Israel’s obstinacy and so devised
a new kind of kingship for them. The King is Jesus; in him God entered humanity
and espoused it to himself. This is the usual form of the divine activity in
relation to mankind. God does not have a fixed plan that he must carry out; on
the contrary, he has many different ways of finding man and even of turning his
wrong ways into right ways. The
feast of Christ the King is therefore not a feast of those who are subjugated,
but a feast of those who know that they are in the hands of the one who writes
straight on crooked lines”.
This reflection from the former
pontiff challenges us to decide which of the many paths we will follow in this
life. A few words from St. Matthew’s Gospel serve as a guide: “For where your treasure is, there your heart
will be also” (Mt 6:21). How
we pursue the treasures we seek in this life is an expression of the divine
activity within us. Let’s face it! We have so many choices today and hardly any
reigns on how we pursue them. How
do we set priorities between our spiritual and physical needs? To whom will we
pledge our loyalties during this life and at what cost? Will we be serving the spirit of this
world, thinking only of our own selves and needs, acting as if it’s all about
me, declaring to those with different opinions “it’s my way OR the highway”? Or, will we choose a different path,
and live in solidarity with the poor, advocate for the weak and oppressed, seek
shelter for the homeless and food for the hungry, be mindful of the plight of
refugees and orphans? Will we see
ways to build relationships with those who oppose us or will we seek to
annihilate them? This is the ultimate freedom we have today, the freedom to
choose to be subjects of the creator and ruler of the cosmos who has … “set us free...to share in the glorious
freedom of the children of God”
ROM 8:21.
Jesus was right to tell Pilate
that “his kingdom does not belong to this
world”. But, the way to the kingdom is here and is a conscious
choice whenever we serve those who lack power, privilege and prestige, those
very people Christ identified with, served, and redeemed. When we serve them,
we declare with our lives where our treasures lie and we give witness to others
of our deliberate choice to follow the man whose kingdom is not of this world.
Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom
Image credit: Flickr.com
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