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November 25, 2024Today we celebrate Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. It is a very important feast. It recapitulates the entire liturgical year that we have lived and reminds us of the meaning of the history and of time that passes. From next Sunday we will begin a new liturgical year with the advent season that will take us towards the Jubilee of 2025, remembering the incarnation of the Lord Jesus.
Every liturgical year leads us to re-live the fundamental moments of the history of salvation. From the time of Advent to Christmas, from Lent to Easter which finally ends with Pentecost, where we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit to believers, leads us to celebrate the great salvific events in Christ. The remaining Sundays during the year, we are accompanied to contemplate the other events of salvation of the Old and New Testaments, the journey of the chosen people towards the promised land, the life of Jesus, his preaching and the birth and the first steps of the Church at the beginning. In every liturgical year we retrace the fundamental events of our Christian faith.
The first thing we notice in today's celebration is that time has a direction, human history has a meaning, a purpose. Jesus Christ, king of the universe, summarizes all things in himself and introduces us to eternal life, the kingdom of God.
Sometimes reflecting on our life, we cannot find a meaning to our days and the events that happen. Looking at the history of humanity we find so much confusion and bewilderment, wars threaten the hope of peace. Everything seems meaningless. Evil and chaos seem to prevail.
What is the purpose of my life and what is the meaning of the universe? Has it never happened to you to stop one evening maybe in the desert when the sky is clear and see the stars and the moon shining and ask yourself: but who am I in front of this infinite sky? What am I, a tiny fragment in the universe? What is the meaning of my life?
Today's celebration assures us that our life is not a meaningless chaos. We were not born by chance. God wanted, loved and chose us from eternity. Jesus conquered evil and death. He is the king of the universe. For this reason we are certain that divine providence does not abandon us and works so that the kingdom of God comes on earth, in our heart, as we say in the prayer that Jesus taught us: your kingdom come!
But how does this kingdom come? We have listened to the word of God and perhaps you have noticed a strong contrast: in the first and second readings the son of man and Christ are spoken of as a glorious and powerful figure. He comes and dominates the world. The Gospel, however, shows us Jesus chained, prisoner, interrogated and accused by Pilate, as if he were a criminal. Jesus does not appear as a powerful king, but rather as a chained king.
The kingdom of God is not a kingdom of this world. Jesus himself reminds Pilate: my kingdom is not of this world. It is not a kingdom that imposes itself by force, but it is offered to everyone with sweetness and love. Jesus allows himself to be crucified for our love. His is a kingdom of peace and justice. It is a kingdom of freedom and not of oppression. The kingdom of God will manifest itself fully at the end of history. At the end of time the love of God will triumph, and God will be all in all.
Now is the time when we are called to decide to follow Christ and to grow in faith, hope and love. The Book of Revelation invites us to give glory to God, to Christ. How can we give glory to God in this world while waiting for the full manifestation of his kingdom? How can we give glory to Christ the King today in this world, through our lives?
A saint I love so much, Saint Irenaeus, one of the Fathers of the Church, said that the Glory of God is the living man. When do men and women live their lives intensely? When are we truly alive? When we love, when we love one another, we give glory to God, when we work for the good of all we give glory to God, when we know how to celebrate for the gifts we receive or that we see God has given to our other brothers and sisters, we give glory to God.
Dear friends, Jesus Christ king of the universe teaches us that only those who love, truly reign. He loved us to the end, to the cross. This is why he was made king of the universe. If we follow Jesus on the path of love we begin to reign with him, to experience the freedom of the children of God, the freedom to love and to be loved. Dear brothers and sisters, let us never forget: the kingdom of God begins among us when we are united and when we are loved, when we make the gospel our rule of life.
