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The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
November 23, 2025
In those days, all the tribes of Israel came to David in Hebron and said:
"Here we are, your bone and your flesh.
In days past, when Saul was our king,
it was you who led the Israelites out and brought them back.
And the Lord said to you,
'You shall shepherd my people Israel
and shall be commander of Israel.'"
When all the elders of Israel came to David in Hebron,
King David made an agreement with them there before the Lord,
and they anointed him king of Israel.
R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
I rejoiced because they said to me,
"We will go up to the house of the Lord."
And now we have set foot
within your gates, O Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, built as a city
with compact unity.
To it the tribes go up,
the tribes of the Lord.
According to the decree for Israel,
to give thanks to the name of the Lord.
In it are set up judgment seats,
seats for the house of David.
Brothers and sisters:
Let us give thanks to the Father,
who has made you fit to share
in the inheritance of the holy ones in light.
He delivered us from the power of darkness
and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,
in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
He is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation.
For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth,
the visible and the invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;
all things were created through him and for him.
He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he himself might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile all things for him,
making peace by the blood of his cross
through him, whether those on earth or those in heaven.
The rulers sneered at Jesus and said,
"He saved others, let him save himself
if he is the chosen one, the Christ of God."
Even the soldiers jeered at him.
As they approached to offer him wine they called out,
"If you are King of the Jews, save yourself."
Above him there was an inscription that read,
"This is the King of the Jews."
Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying,
"Are you not the Christ?
Save yourself and us."
The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply,
"Have you no fear of God,
for you are subject to the same condemnation?
And indeed, we have been condemned justly,
for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes,
but this man has done nothing criminal."
Then he said,
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
He replied to him,
"Amen, I say to you,
today you will be with me in Paradise."
In the early centuries Romans made sport of the Christians' claim to worship a God-Man who had been crucified. Images have been found of a human figure spreadeagled on a cross, the figure of the man having the head of an ass. Which makes me ask today, is the Feast of Christ the King for real or is it a piece of cutting irony?
The Old Testament "history" of God's people makes kingship a supreme expression of God's approval. Perhaps it is never expressly claimed that Israel would one day rule the whole world, but it is implied on every page. One high moment is described as the time when kings from all points of the compass come flooding to Jerusalem to see the wonders of the greatest kingdom on earth.
For Epiphany Day (Jan 6) the liturgy gives us two explicit texts:
Reading 1 Is 60:1-6
Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come,
the glory of the Lord shines upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth,
and thick clouds cover the peoples;
but upon you the Lord shines,
and over you appears his glory.
Nations shall walk by your light,
and kings by your shining radiance.
Raise your eyes and look about;
they all gather and come to you:
your sons come from afar,
and your daughters in the arms of their nurses.
Then you shall be radiant at what you see,
your heart shall throb and overflow,
for the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you,
the wealth of nations shall be brought to you.
Caravans of camels shall fill you,
dromedaries from Midian and Ephah;
all from Sheba shall come
bearing gold and frankincense,
and proclaiming the praises of the Lord.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13.
O God, with your judgment endow the king,
and with your justice, the king's son;
He shall govern your people with justice
and your afflicted ones with judgment.
Justice shall flower in his days,
and profound peace, till the moon be no more.
May he rule from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
The kings of Tarshish and the Isles shall offer gifts;
the kings of Arabia and Seba shall bring tribute.
All kings shall pay him homage,
all nations shall serve him.
For he shall rescue the poor when he cries out,
and the afflicted when he has no one to help him.
He shall have pity for the lowly and the poor;
the lives of the poor he shall save.
Four hundred years later the Book of Isaiah (ch 9:2-7) will reiterate these sentiments, applying them to a future leader whom we identify as Jeshua of Nazareth who was crucified:
2The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.
3You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest,
as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder.
4For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,
you have shattered the yoke that burdens them,
the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor.
5Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood
will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire.
6For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.
When John's gospel has Jeshua say: "Take heart, I have overcome the world" (9:33), was he being ironic? Was Jeshua making a spoof of our standards of worldly excellence? Was he saying: "Don't panic, I've cracked their code and they will never win," - much as the famous code-breakers of Blechley Park might have felt when they broke the Enigma Code of the German armed forces?
I feel that the today's celebration has never really caught on. We still ask was the title of Christ the King an unfortunate last-gasp attempt on the part of Europe's conservatives to restore the [i]ancient regime[/i]? With the bitter irony of a cutting-edge cartoon, it looks to me like a deliberate challenge, a proclamation loud and clear that the world's idea of kingship is hollow, as ephemeral as a puff of smoke from a burning whisp of straw.
The Christ who is King is always the convicted criminal on the cross, as the choice of today's gospel reading clearly underlines. Humiliated in a series of show-trials, flogged to within an inch of his life, tortured, hands and feet nailed to the wood, he is mocked by passers-by exactly as the prophet had foretold. The irony is in this: If this donkey is our king, then either we've got it all wrong or the 'kings' of the world are the real donkeys.
Do we have to accept the challenge of those opposed characterisations? Yes, we do. Our king is one who was convicted with due legal process and executed alongside criminals one dark spring day in Jerusalem.
There is nothing more fatal for the Christian people than to get into bed with the powers of the world. We'd be sleeping with donkeys and claiming it as God's way!!!
Our fool of a donkey dies on the cross to show this is God's way. His submission to a violent, tortured death challenges us to speak out for truth, justice and love even when it exposes us to humiliation and disdain from those who have no time for religious stuff.