How did you greet the King today?

Good morning. Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ, the King of the Universe, as well as the end of our Church Year. Pope Pius XI brought this celebration into our liturgy in 1925, at a time when kings, emperors, and dictators were growing in power throughout Europe and the world; a time when people were turning away from the Church and embracing secular ideas and values. He did it to remind us and our earthly rulers that all worldly powers pass away, but Jesus Christ remains as the only Sovereign King. We like to think that the danger of dictatorship, fascism, and totalitarianism has largely faded away, at least here in the United States. But the danger of secularism, of rejecting the Church and the truth of its teachings, is perhaps more real today than ever before. We need this reminder that Christ our Lord truly IS the King of the Universe. But before we break down today’s scripture readings, I have one question: How did you greet our King today?

Our readings this morning touch on the kingship of Jesus in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. But they focus mainly on our Lord as the Good Shepherd who tends and cares for his flock. In our first reading, the Prophet Ezekiel introduces God as the Good Shepherd for his lost flock, replacing the worldly leaders who had led them astray, and bringing back the lost, the strayed, and the sick. While Ezekiel was focused on the Jewish people during the Babylonian Exile, he foreshadows for us the Good Shepherd-King sent to redeem us all, Jesus Christ our Lord. Our Responsorial Psalm — the very familiar 23rd Psalm — builds on this Good Shepherd theme as well. And finally, our Gospel lesson from Matthew reinforces Christ’s focus on serving those most in need of our support and love.

But Jesus adds a new dimension in his teaching. It’s not just that Jesus cares for those who are less fortunate — the hungry and thirsty, the stranger and prisoner. Christ tells us he IS them — that each one of the neglected, rejected, outcast and ignored — the “throwaway people” in our society — is in fact Christ himself alive in our midst. And that our Final Judgment will be based on how well we reached out to meet their needs. “Whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.”

This is a hard teaching for most of us, in our complex, fast paced world , bombarded as we are with constant images of conflict, injustice, and morally ambiguous definitions of “truth.” We’ve become numb to images of violence and death on our TVs, infanticide peddled as women’s rights, refugees and migrants living and dying in squalor, and children locked in cages. We just want to tune it all out. But as Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor once wrote: ”To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.”

Pope Francis, speaking at the first World Day of the Poor said, “In the poor, Jesus knocks on the doors of our heart, thirsting for our love. When we overcome our indifference, and … give of ourselves for the least of his brethren, we are his good and faithful friends, with whom he loves to dwell. We please God by showing love to the hungry and the sick, the stranger and the prisoner, the poor and the abandoned, the suffering who receive no help, the needy who are cast aside. On their faces we can imagine seeing Jesus’ own face; on their lips, even if pursed in pain, we can hear his words: “This is my body.”

The Solemnity of Christ the King today is not just about the end of our Church year. Our Last Judgment Gospel today represents the culmination of everything Jesus’ ministry is about — it brings into focus what Jesus has been building toward from the beginning. “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.” Peter Maurin, cofounder of the Catholic Worker Movement in the 1930s, called this Gospel passage the dynamite — the great power — for the Church. And it truly is. This is what we should be about. But he worried that “we have taken the dynamite of the Church, placed it in hermetically sealed containers, and sat on the lids.” And all too often, we allow that to become the case.

This passage is the central core of Catholic Social Teaching and — more importantly — it is the very essence of who we are called to be as Christians — how we are called to live our lives. Writing on today’s Gospel, Bishop Robert Barron said, “There is something awful about the specificity of these demands. This is not love in the abstract, having affection for ‘humanity.’ It is caring for that person who is homeless, for that person who is ill, for that person who is in prison.”

Christ truly IS King of the Universe, surpassing all worldly kings and dominions, past, present, and future. In spite of His everlasting dominion though, he seeks only one thing — to become the King of OUR heart. This feast challenges each one of us to see Christ the King in ALL his children, especially those our society views as less important. On this great Feast, let us resolve to give Christ the central place in our lives — to obey His commandment of love by sharing our blessings with all his children in need. Let us conclude our Church year by asking the Lord to help us SERVE the King of Kings as He presents Himself to us each day in those reaching out in need.

So back to the question we started with: How DID you greet Christ our King when you encountered him today? But even more important - How will you greet Him tomorrow?