Christ the King

Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King. It is also the last Sunday of the liturgical year. In his homily today, the priest gave a little history on this feast day. It was instituted the Feast of Christ the King by Pope Pius XI in 1925 and was to be celebrated on the last Sunday in October, before the Feast of All Saints. In 1969, Pope Paul VI gave it a new date, the last Sunday in the liturgical year. He felt that “the eschatological importance of this Sunday is made clearer” and assigned to it the highest rank, that of Solemnity.  The readings for today speak about the end of time, our judgment day when we will stand before God and give an account of our lives.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’” (Matthew 25:31-34)

 Christ will separate the sheep from the goats, but he doesn’t decide who is a sheep and who is a goat. It is up to us to decide. We come to him as a sheep or a goat. In this gospel passage and throughout scripture we are shown how to live as “sheep.” When we feed the hungry, welcome a stranger, clothe the naked, visit those imprisoned and care for the sick we are making the decision to be what we are called to be, His sons and daughters. The focus on the end of time, standing before the King and giving and account, also causes me to reflect on the things in my life that need to come to an end now so that I can live more fully as a daughter of Christ.

“I charge you before God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus, who gave testimony under Pontius Pilate for the noble confession, to keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ that the blessed and only ruler will make manifest at the proper time, the King of kings and Lord of lords…” (1 Timothy 6:13-15)