IN THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST KING OF THE UNIVERSE TO BE LITTLE KINGS

Oscar Wilde wrote: "Selfishness does not consist in living as we please but in demanding that others live as we please"

 

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Dear readers of the Island of Patmos,

The Liturgical Year ends, It's our last one of the Catholic year. The liturgical year ends with a great celebration, that of Jesus Christ who is King of the Universe.

Today the monarchy it is no longer a form of government typically adopted throughout the world, where instead the republic is preferred. This is why the figure of the "king" escapes us, if not perhaps for the recent coronation of King Charles of England. Jesus is King of the entire universe and of our lives. But not like the King of England, of Sweden or Belgium. His monarchy is not exercised in a political government. It is a monarchy of love that expresses its throne of glory, its exposure of maximum visibility in the cross; today this throne of glory is realized for us, in the compassion of Jesus. We read it at the beginning of passage from today's Gospel:

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory […] he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the peoples will be gathered before him. He will separate one from another, how the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.".

Here the image of the king is combined with that of the shepherd. Effectively, the shepherd, it also has a governing role within the world of the farm. It was a world and a culture close to the imagination in which Jesus speaks. Here then are those on the right who are blessed by the Father. Those on the left don't. Effectively, the blessed of the Father, they are those who welcomed the poor and needy in the various situations of need that Jesus expresses. While those who will be in eternal fire, they were not attentive and compassionate towards these material and spiritual poverty. Thus Jesus shows us and asks us to imitate him as King in concrete Love, in active charity, that He wanted to do towards all the people he met: Nicodemus, the blind man of Jericho, the demoniac of Gerasa and other encounters. The Lord has always accomplished all these great works with an act of compassion and tenderness, with a truly human and truly divine heart. A small Christological heart for a great love.

From this comes the foundation of the works of mercy for us material and corporeal. The Lord, so, He asks us to follow Him, our King, in Catholic life precisely because we operate with a concrete and attentive love for others, trying to look at them with tenderness. Trying to look at our neighbor as if it were Jesus himself who, as a little one, asks us for this service. We become little kings in Jesus little king of the Universe.

On the contrary instead we find those who will go into eternal fire. Because they have completely escaped the logic of love and compassion. So, the goats on the left are the people closed in on selfishness, in the dimension of unique attention to one's own needs and requirements. The risk we run when we forget the practice of works of mercy is that we no longer recognize not only others, but of not recognizing the need for God in life. So the wicked in the eternal fire are those who do not recognize the centrality of the Lordship of God in life, of the King of kings, without which we can do nothing. The tension towards selfishness is therefore a substitution, a crowning of oneself as king, demanding that the Universe and God bow down to us.

Oscar Wilde wrote: "Selfishness does not consist in living as we please but in demanding that others live as we please".

We ask the Lord to be welcomed to his throne and his monarchy of love, and be witnesses from now on that authentic Love exists, and we live in communion with the Father, of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen!

Santa Maria Novella in Florence, 25 November 2023

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