The title of my reflection does not come from the readings, but it captures quite well the reality to which God invites us in the Liturgy today as we approach the Solemnity of Christ the King next week.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus spells the destruction of the worship his contemporary fellow Jews knew. Moreover, he foretells the persecution of His followers. He speaks of terrible things that will happen before He comes again. This is such a different image of Christianity than the one we would like to see, in which one is rewarded with prosperity and peaceful life for being a believer. Since Christ’s resurrection, many people have given their life or well-being because they have known that this is, as paradoxically as it sounds, at the core of our Christian faith. We have many witnesses persecuted for Christ in our times. Some examples are Cardinal Pell or Cardinal Zen, or a Chinese lady I met in Sydney who had spent twenty-five years in jail in China for being a member of the Legion of Mary. I am sure many of us know people who have been in trouble because of their faith in our Western society too. Persecution, as Christ says, should not lead us to give up on our way to holiness. On the contrary, He encourages us and gives us grace to go into such situations He was aware of and told us about.
What gives meaning to remaining strong while facing persecution is the fact that Christ’s Kingdom is not from here; that there is a place of ultimate justice and where we can hope to be in the future. The first reading assures us that it is true, that justice will be given to us there where Christ’s Kingdom and “our homeland” is. There must be a judgement; there must be justice; there will be mercy too. Not mercy eliminating justice, but complementing it.
In the second reading, St Paul suggests us to prepare ourselves for the day of Christ’s coming not by refuting our earthly duties but rather by being faithful to our vocation and daily obligations. Moreover, we can read Paul’s words as an encouragement to be just already here on earth, as a foreshadowing of the divine justice in heaven. Sadly, the world around us does not seem to be perfect. Nevertheless, through our holy life and with God’s help, we can gradually build God’s Kingdom already here on earth.
Łukasz Gołąb – Seminary of the Good Shepherd, Sydney, Australia.
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