Feast of Christ the King  2014

I love the feast of Christ the King for many reasons:

1. As a child many years ago, long before the Vatican Council, the church celebrated this feast on the last Sunday of October; some years it landed on my birthday so Jesus, the Christ, and I celebrated together.
2. Later, as Community liturgist, this feast had become the culmination of the liturgical year and we celebrated Christ, the King of Glory and Majesty with color, music and special ritual.
3. Today I write the reflection on this feast that ends Cycle A of our liturgical readings on
4. Jesus, the Christ, who identifies with the poor. The Scripture catapults me into the heart of Jesus who spent so much time with the outcast, the “anawim” on the fringes of society, and those who I have often turned away from rather than ‘turned toward’.

Bishop Hanifen once told me the ‘the job description of Jesus’ was found in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Luke:

“The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me for I have been anointed

 to bring the good news to the poor,

 to proclaim liberty to captives

and to the blind new sight,

 to set the downtrodden free,

to proclaim the Lord’s year of favor..”

I find myself adding Jesus’ statement to each of us in Matthew’s Gospel of today:  “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters you do onto me.”

In this, Jesus changes the roles; he goes so far as to identify himself with the poor. And Jesus is asking us:  “How far have you and I become king?”  He turns the roles completely around and asks:  “What did you do when you saw anyone hungry or thirsty or oppressed or in prison?”  We are supposed to understand that the answer lies within each of us.

I  invite you to spend a little time with my favorite icon of Jesus, the Christ, who says to each of us:

“I hold you in my heart and I give you my story in the Gospels.

Come, walk with me, become one with me, and enter into the heart of my Father.”

Sister Anne Stedman, OSB